Mr. Speaker, I notice that once again the hon. member across the way is long on rhetoric and good at throwing words around, such as despicable. Then he says in his intervention, let us not play games here. He says that words are very important in his business. I would submit that is very true. They are very important.
The fact of the matter is that our party and the one that preceded it, the Reform Party of Canada, raised this issue time and time again over the last seven years.
One of the most frustrating things for myself and a lot of my colleagues is the number of bona fide farmers who exist in the Canadian Alliance caucus. These are people who have been raised on farms. Their families are trying to earn a living on farms all across western Canada. I was raised on a farm. I farmed actively for 20 years in western Canada. My brother still endeavours to operate the family farm in the Peace country.
The reality is that there is a lot of knowledge on this side of the House, not just in our party but in the other opposition parties. It is continually ignored, to our frustration, by hon. members like the one who just spoke and who thinks he has all the answers.
He had the unmitigated gall to suggest that we should be advocating long term solutions. We have been doing that for seven bloody years in this place. The government has done very little, other than come up with ad hoc programs that do not work and do not address the needs.
I would ask the member to give it some more thought. If he wants to truly fight for farmers, then he should go back and ask the government why it has not instituted some long term solutions.