Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his passionate consideration of the comments I made this evening and certainly as he relates to his constituents. I, too, have farmed for well over 30 years. I still own the farm, I will continue to own it and my sons will own it some day.
The question the hon. member put to me in terms of have we been listening to the bureaucrats, I have not been at the level where I really dealt with bureaucrats. I can only attest to what I have been told which is that bureaucrats do have a large voice in the direction of government. I suppose it will be up to the hon. member's government to determine whether or not it will listen to the bureaucrats and whether or not they will give his government better information. If we got bad information, I hope his government will get better information.
I would like to say that farmers truly should be listened to when it comes to creating programs. The risk management program that was put forward by the farmer organizations in Ontario has been unanimously supported by all of these organizations where farmers choose an entry level in which they want to support the realized net return on a commodity. Those farmers will make a choice when they pay the premium whether they pay in at $3.50 for corn, $3.75 or $4, as an example. That is a program that is ready to be accepted.
I have talked to the minister about this and he has a copy of it . I hope he takes this very seriously. It is a program that can be applied. It runs somewhat similarly to the ASRA program in Quebec. The Quebec farmers today are much better served by their programs and by the Province of Quebec than are a lot of provinces in this country. I think we need to learn from those who have tried and tested. Where there have been failures, we need to avoid those. We need to look at the successes of others and try to apply them to best suit our case.