Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for the common sense approach that he took to issues of the past, and I congratulate him on that.
He is the member of Parliament for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, which is in southern Saskatchewan and has farming country in the area. This morning the Saskatchewan minister of agriculture was in town calling for an immediate cash infusion of $575 million in emergency funding for producers to get their crops in the ground.
The member and the Prime Minister know that he took over a government with unprecedented surpluses, the best in the G-7. They know that money is available to deal with the farm crisis there. In fact, on March 31 last year the previous minister of finance, also from Regina, put in place $1 billion to deal with the cash shortfall, and that was for the country. The best opportunity to acquire money for these kinds of needs is prior to March 31, and the government missed that opportunity.
We, as a party, are calling for an immediate cash infusion of more than $1.6 billion. Could the member opposite give us some assurance that there will be immediate cash going out there to deal with the farm crunch? It is mentioned in the throne speech.