Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments. One would think that Milton, Ontario, because it is a suburb of Toronto, would only be an urban area, but it is not. We have some rural farming as well, so I know fully the importance of it to the community.
One glaringly obvious point is the fact that the government is tone deaf when it comes to the importance of agriculture in this country, and I will tell the members why.
During the announcements that the finance minister, I would say cruelly pushed out in July of last year in his attempt at throwing a wide net of grabbing as many tax dollars as he possibly could from small business, he went after the small farmer and farm families. I visited many cities and constituencies in Atlantic Canada, which, as we know, are all held by the government. The palpable anger in those communities about the lack of understanding of what a farmer does and how important a farmer is to their community, to our country, and to our economic well-being was brought to my attention.
I hope that the government would listen a little more carefully, because the Liberals have shown in their budget that they have no interest or appetite for anything in the agriculture industry.