In northwestern Ontario and in northern Minnesota, there was a horrendous drought, a record low rainfall, and water levels are at an all-time low. If you had to pick one pilot program in the whole agriculture department, why wouldn't you go to a disaster relief program? Isn't that what the farm groups are saying? They're doing it--the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
With the low uptake that you're getting from here--and I understand that the previous minister had also recommended against going to an option program--why wouldn't you have gone to something where there's an immediate need, whether it's drought relief, flood relief, or disaster relief in some form or another? These people haven't had a response from the minister, and there has been no action from the department. Clearly there's a need for disaster relief, as opposed to something like this with low uptake. All the people in my riding have been complaining to me that they don't qualify for this, whereas I have several hundred on the drought side.