Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate the Bloc for initiating the debate today on this very serious crisis, and I will make a couple of comments.
I think all of us in this assembly can agree on a couple of points. First, the impact of the BSE crisis on all our producers across Canada has been devastating. Second, although perhaps some of the government members do not agree with this, most members would agree that the CAIS program is at best fundamentally flawed, and perhaps more accurately, fatally flawed.
The problem is money is required by producers, but money is not reaching the farm gate. I do not want to oversimplify things because I know on many levels this is a complex problem. The question of opening the border will take perhaps months and months to come. However, there is a separate element, which is delivering cash to the farm gate as quickly as possible.
I have found, as in most things in life, that answers to complex problems many times are very simple. The answer to the question of getting money to the farm gate is simple, and it boils down to two words: political will. I believe if the government had the political will to deal with this problem, to properly get money to the farmers, those who are desperately in need of cash, it would be done.
We have seen the choices the government has made when it comes down to that. We have seen the choice it made with the national gun registry, where it pumped $2 billion into a program, which is the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars that we have seen in the last 30 or 40 years.
Does the hon. member agree with me that the solution can be simple if the government had the political will to get the money to the farmers when they need it? That time is now.