Mr. Speaker, as I said, while we continue to work to open the borders in all the ways I have just described, it is important that we start the flow of the funds that we have.
On top of the $560 million, $312 million of which was the federal contribution to the BSE recovery program, I announced last Friday that the second instalment of the $1.2 billion transition money that the Prime Minister and I announced in June 2001 would flow to farmers. The application forms and the information on that will go out in the very near future. That is $600 million that will go out to farmers. It is all federal money. Last year, some of the provinces put up 40% of that. Others chose not to.
I have no idea whether the provinces will be doing that this year or not. However, I want to inform and remind everybody that $600 million will go out. Much of that will go out to beef producers. But as hon. members have said today, there have been other stresses in our industry, be that drought in some areas or market situations for other commodities as well.
I also announced a few weeks ago that money will flow for provinces that have made their commitment to the agricultural policy framework. In other words, they have signed a federal-provincial agreement with the federal government. All federal-provincial agreements expired on March 31, 2003. The provinces have known for three years that that would be the expiry date. Several provinces have signed, which allows the federal government to flow money to them.
By doing so those provinces have committed their 40% to programs, and not only to support crop insurance, companion programs, disaster programs, food safety programs, environment programs and renewal science and innovation. Some provinces have not signed and they have not even indicated to their industry that they will support them in that way.
We want to move that money. For those provinces that have signed, I announced two or three weeks ago that I would be prepared to and this week I signed bilateral agreements with four of those signatory provinces to allow producers there to make interim applications on the business risk management type program that will be there when more provinces sign. Those provinces have made the transition. They have made the commitment. Others have not made that commitment. I would suggest that the industries in those provinces ask their provinces to sign so that money can start to flow, because we know the producers need the money.
We will continue to work with the provinces and the industry to assess their needs and determine what additional measures would be appropriate.
We know that there have been and will likely be some continued changes to our beef industry overall. As the beef round table is doing and will continue to do, everybody in the beef industry--right from producer to consumer, governments to industry--needs to put their heads together, as has been happening, to develop the beef industry to deal with some of the realties that may very well be facing us. They are realities that we do not like, but realities that we are going to have to face in the future.
The beef industry can be proud, and we are all proud of it in the way in which it has reacted to and developed the beef market, not only domestically but around the world in the past. I am confident that whatever the changes are, few as we hope they are, that the beef industry will be able to react to that as well.
We can see that the federal government, along with the provinces and the industry, is doing everything possible to reopen the borders. Yes, that is extremely important and I am not diminishing that whatsoever, but what is also important is that we do all we possibly can to develop the industry here in Canada. If we are not able to market meat from older animals into other countries, which we are trying to do and will work on, then we need to help develop the use and the markets here in Canada.
All our fast food chains announced this year that instead of buying some of that beef offshore, they are going to use Canadian beef. That is a market opportunity. It is a tough way to get it, I agree.
We have lost because until we had the health situation, there was no Canada-U.S. border in the beef industry. There really was not and the beef industry develops on that. I am not criticizing them; that is just the reality that was there. We now have a health border that we have conquered to some extent. I am confident we will conquer some more as we go forward.
Maybe we have an opportunity to bring some of those slaughter facilities, or create some of those here. We could bring some of those jobs back and create employment here. We could create products here that in the past were being brought in from someplace else using somebody else's beef rather than our Canadian beef.
I want to thank everybody. It has been a team Canada effort. I have none other than a positive indication that it will continue to be so. Again, I want to thank the Canadian consumers because they have been there big time in recognizing the importance of the beef industry, along with everybody else recognizing it and supporting it throughout the summer. I know they will continue to do it.