Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member was listening because that was the major crunch of what I was trying to tell the House.
I will deal with two issues. The first one is the BSE issue. I do not know how many members over there represent rural communities, but we have a serious problem in this country with respect to beef. Farmers are calling me and telling me they are using their equity to feed their animals and perhaps that can be done if they can see the end of the tunnel. However, the farmers cannot see the end of the tunnel. This is a serious problem.
I now have people asking if they can get tax relief when they are forced to sell their farms? That is how desperate it is getting. To simply mention it without a concrete plan is absolutely inexcusable.
This is why I made the reference considering what the agricultural community has provided and will provide in the future. Surely to goodness the government can be a little more respectful to the farmers who keep this country going. Surely we have not become one big urban city where we are going to put all our ideas into the big cities.
With respect to other issues in rural Canada, I talked about infrastructure. I mentioned specifically one township where a bridge could not be fixed. The township does not have any money to fix the bridge. What does it do? It closes the road.