Mr. Speaker, to speak very briefly in support of the submission put forward by my learned friend the House leader for the official opposition, this matter when viewed in the whole does not order the government to do something. It calls upon the government to exercise its discretion and increase spending with respect to farming.
The Speaker has always held, as set out in both Beauchesne's and Marleau and Montpetit, that broad discretion should be used when interpreting these types of motions. It would be unduly unfair for this motion to be ruled out of order.
I suggest that it is very much an attempt by the government House leader to eat into the debate time. This can be interpreted as not only an insult to the official opposition and members of the opposition who support this, but also a swipe at farmers who are very much in need and very much interested in seeing their issue aired in a public way in this House.
I suggest that the submissions of the government House leader do not rule this motion out of order, that we should get on with the debate so we can talk about the real issue today, and that is how the government is underfunding farmers in this country.