Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I congratulate the Department officials for putting this program in place as quickly as they did. As we know, last spring, the farm income crisis was raging and some families were in dire straits. The intention of farming families is to feed people and, unfortunately, they even had trouble putting food on their own tables because their income was often insufficient.
Farmers are proud people. In order to survive, they have considered having some family members find employment off the farm. Unfortunately, in several regions of Quebec and Canada, there are no jobs to provide additional short-term income.
Were there more young family farmers among those who qualified for the program? Or were they well-established farming operations that had been around for 20 or 30 years? Generally speaking, is the program open to everyone or is it accessible to a particular category of producer?