Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on her election. She complains of rhetoric. I, for one, cannot promise that she will not hear more rhetoric in this House.
The member talked about the fact that we live in 2004, and I guess it disturbs me a bit. I agree with her 100%, we are living in 2004. However we have to be cognizant of the mistakes that were made in the past. We have to be cognizant of the mistakes that the people who sat in this House made in the past. I have seen first-hand the problems that were caused, not so much for the people in the House but for Canadians, when we had a central government that allowed debt to get out of control, that allowed inflation to get out of control, that allowed interest rates to reach 24% and that allowed unemployment to reach 11.5%. I have seen the results of that first-hand, and it was more than our agricultural community that suffered in that regard.
In answer to the member's question, I want to repeat and associate some of the comments made by the previous speaker, that this government has shown, certainly over the last number of years, a very strong commitment to agriculture. It has worked very closely with the farmers and the farming organizations. There is the recent agricultural policy framework of $5.5 billion. In dealing with BSE, I think there has been $1.6 billion in incremental funding. It is the goal and objective of this government to continue to build a very strong agricultural community and industry right across the country from coast to coast.