Mr. Chair, I find it interesting that my colleague talks about commitments the government has made and the announcements that have been made. If he would actually talk to farmers he would find that no CAISP cheques have arrived yet. It is all well and good to say that the money has been promised and the money is there but if CAISP is the pipeline, the pipeline is blocked. The money is not getting to farmers and those farmers will be broke this fall. Promises, more words and more rhetoric from the government in Ottawa will not help them.
I also find it interesting that in his language my colleague seems to be acknowledging or suggesting that his government has failed. As I hear his argument, he is saying that the government has done a lot of work, spent a lot of money and that it is not its fault that it did not succeed. The bottom line is that a lot of farmers across this country, beef producers and many others, multi-generation businesses, as my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo mentioned, are at risk of losing their farms. They have not changed. Their business has not changed. This is a political issue. This is a political trade dispute. The Liberal Party is the Government of Canada and it is its responsibility to deal with it.
If the hon. member is standing in his place and saying that he acknowledges that even though everything has been done and that the government has made its best efforts, it has been unable to help farmers across Canada, then I accept that admission of failure. Someone famous once said “Lead, follow or get out of the way”. I would suggest that if the government cannot lead any more on this file, then it should step aside, get out of the way and let someone else deal with it.