Mr. Speaker, as a government we have said very clearly that we will treat every farmer in similar circumstances in Canada the same with the federal support.
Even the minister in the province of Quebec in 2001, at a federal-provincial ministers meeting, agreed that we needed to move to a basic program of crop insurance and the NISA, including a disaster payment.
However, that does not prohibit provinces, such as Quebec, as they have in the past and can continue to do in the future, from supporting their producers as they see fit above and beyond that. We live in a country where the provinces can do that if they so wish.