Mr. Speaker, of course it is the standard procedure of the federal government on all issues to try to put moneys forward in the form of matching grants and then take credit for the entire amount as if it had in fact spent the entire amount. That would explain the largest proportion of what is going on here.
The original claim of the government was that it had in fact met the farmers' demands for $1 billion, with the government saying that after all, it was putting in a good chunk of that and the provinces would put in money too but only because the federal government was, so therefore the federal government really spent the money even though provincial taxpayers paid for it.
Obviously farmers have not bought that. That is in fact why they were protesting here in Ottawa and elsewhere, including Saskatchewan. Clearly proposals similar to those made by my hon. colleague would have been precisely the right direction to go in.