Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for coming before the committee.
I want to thank you for listening. As you know, and I've told you many times, producers in my area are quite divided on this whole Wheat Board issue, and they're quite passionate on both sides of the issue.
The one thing coming out of my riding was that they wanted to have a say and have that through a vote. By having the plebiscite on barley, you're listening and you're showing we are going to consult, and that's something the Conservative Party has in our policy, that agriculture policy would be developed in consultation with producers. So I'm glad you're moving ahead on that, and I thank you for that announcement.
Last week at committee we had the provincial agriculture ministers from the Prairies. I asked them a question about CAIS.
Producers across the country are not happy with the program. It hasn't worked. Even with our interim fixes to it, it still doesn't seem to be satisfying most of the producers out there, though they're only starting to see some of the benefits of some of the changes you've made. And they welcome those changes, but at the same time, the overall structure of the program doesn't seem to satisfy the needs of the farm family today.
I suggested to the provincial agriculture ministers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta that they were holding up the process of our moving into a new program and to something that would be more responsive and manageable and bankable, which producers have been calling for. They threw it back, saying the federal government was holding up the discussion.
I would like to have your comment on that.