Mr. Speaker, if there is a group that needs this budget, it is certainly the people who work in agriculture and rural Canada.
With respect to our climate change plan, the Government of Canada is committed to investing $10 billion in the next eight budgets up to 2012, the end of the Kyoto, and we will invest at least $1 billion for agriculture, whether it is ethanol, or biodiesel or the climate fund. As I mentioned, the climate fund will have a lot of capacity to help reward farmers with good practices such as low till practices or whatever it is such as changing the waste in electricity.
We will change the practices in agriculture in Canada and will make Canada the greenest model in the world if we act altogether. We have the best plan for that. It has been celebrated by many of my colleagues around the world. I will quote from the German federal minister of the environment, Juergen Trittin, who said:
I am delighted that Canada is promoting climate protection with an ambitious action plan...the country hosting the next international climate change conference in Montreal in December.
He goes on to say that Canada is sending a strong and progressive signal to the world and that Canada offers the evidence that climate protection also on the North American continent is feasible and politically rewarding.
Germany has done a lot to modernize its agricultural industry in order to make it greener. It is a good compliment and incentive for us to vote unanimously for this green budget.