Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to a comment made by an hon. government member. He said that he understood that the opposition had to ask for more.
What the opposition does not understand is why the government did not act faster. As my NDP colleague graciously pointed out, it took the government over a month to take action. I hope no one will try to tell me it was complicated. Today, we are changing one number in an act. We are crossing out the number 300 and changing it to 500. That took over a month, so do not tell me that the government acted quickly.
I really enjoyed my esteemed colleague's heartfelt speech. He clearly cares about agriculture. That is something we have in common, and I am pleased about that. He talked a lot about the attacks on supply-managed sectors in free trade agreements. He spoke about the need to protect these sectors in the future. I imagine he would agree that supply management should be protected through legislation.
I have other sub-questions. Does my colleague think that this is a good time to make compensation available and to send money to farms in Quebec and across Canada?
Does he think that a way of saving the dairy industry would be to grant import quotas, the percentages awarded, to processors rather than to distributors?