Mr. Speaker, last Friday, 900 beef and hog farmers attended an urgent meeting in Stratford entitled “Farmers Matter”. Farmer after farmer stated that the government's farm safety nets are not working. Farmers made it clear that they cannot pay back the targeted advance loans under the terms the minister announced.
Why does the government impose loans on farmers while wasting billions of dollars elsewhere: waste on fancy photo ops, waste on cabinet ministers' expenses, waste on planes and prisons? Do farmers just not matter to this government?