Mr. Speaker, I can only stand here and shake my head after listening to those remarks. To even suggest that the government has sound fiscal management is so far from the truth it is unbelievable.
We have a Prime Minister who has taken a surplus that was left to him by the previous government and has driven this country into its biggest deficit in Canadian history. In fact, it was in deficit before the global recession started. The government just does not want to admit it.
I am absolutely shocked that the member for Huron—Bruce, which is the biggest hog-production sector in Canada, would get up and nary mention a word about hog producers. He talked a little about helping farmers. Does he think the Ponzi scheme, established by the President of the Treasury Board, will help Canadian hog producers?
Let me explain the scheme to him. Perhaps he just does not know because he is talking from the speaking points from the PMO.
Does the member support the fact that farmers will go and get a loan from the bank that is guaranteed by the Government of Canada, which is a start, at least it is guaranteed, but the first condition of that loan is that producers must pay back the advance payment program they received from the government last year, which is an unsecured loan from the Government of Canada? Farmers will be left indebted to the chartered banks or other credit institutions and in the process they pay off the Government of Canada. The Government of Canada gets its money securely and farmers are left further in debt with no hope and no future.
The government has been an absolute disaster for the farm community. How can the member for Huron—Bruce, which has a big hog-producing population, support such a Ponzi scheme exercised by his Minister of Finance?