Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the response but I do not appreciate the opening cheap shots. However, I had almost that entire response several months ago.
I was hoping that, through a cooperative exercise, that we, as a federal Parliament, could address this need, which is really in four provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario. As opposed to trying to blame someone else, it is the farmers who are left waiting for us to make a decision. As the process works its way through, now that we are getting into spring planting, decisions need to be made in terms of breeding stock and those kinds of things.
This question has been raised in the House many times. The minister himself said that the cabinet was working on prospects to address the drought areas in southwestern Saskatchewan, Peace River and northern Ontario, and I would take him at his word as a sincere person.
It is now the end of April and decisions for the farm communities in all those areas are rapidly coming to a decision time. The fact that in the areas that I have mentioned only one has had some measure of environmental relief through proper rainfall, means that the rest of them are quite stricken, and I ask--