Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the leader's remarks in this area. In his previous capacity as the treasurer for the province of Alberta, he will know, in terms of the farm situation, that in recent years the Liberal government made much of the fact that funding for farm aid programs was in the 60:40 ratio; 60% from the federal government and 40% from the provinces. The government would have us believe that has been the case since confederation. However there are all kinds of examples to indicate that it is a relatively new phenomenon.
I just came from a meeting of the agriculture committee at which it was made very clear that the have provinces, which would include Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, were probably better able to finance farm programs, such as the AIDA program and now the Canadian farm income program, than some of the have not provinces, including Manitoba and Saskatchewan at this point in time, as well as I suppose the Atlantic provinces.
Could the Leader of the Opposition comment on that and indicate what his party feels should be done in this instance?