Obviously there's a sense of urgency, and right now it's particularly in grains and oilseeds. I'm always careful to point out to people not to be completely doom and gloom about the agriculture sector. There are parts of it doing quite well, that are profitable and so on. But especially in grains and oilseeds, there's a real income problem, no doubt about it.
Again, that's why we accelerated not only the payout but the amount of money that went out from the GOPP payment that was approved in the previous Parliament and hadn't been paid out. We paid out much more of it in the spring advance--90% of it went out in the initial payment rather than dividing it into a 70-30 split, as it was originally designed. Also, the changes to the ESCAP program, and even the AMPA, if we can get it done through Parliament, will all help farmers this spring.
I am somewhat encouraged that prices seem to have bottomed out and come back a little bit in recent weeks, both on wheat and corn. There's starting to be a little bit of movement there, perhaps partly because of biofuel initiatives around the world, but also because of some particular problems both in Brazil and the United States with drought and so on. Let's hope the wheat prices continue to rebound and the corn comes back some.
All of this is hopeful, but every time farmers plant a crop they're hopeful. So hopefully all this will help.
On the idea of NAFTA challenges or the fact that we're likely to see a series of NAFTA challenges because of the Softwood Lumber Agreement, I've had no indication of that. There hasn't been any concern expressed from our legal department about it, that we see anything brewing, that something's on the horizon or somebody's tabled a document. There's been nothing that I know of. I don't know what might have.... I can't even comment on it, because I've seen nothing on it that would indicate that's the case.
I'll have to look that testimony up to see what their arguments are. From my point of view I haven't seen anything, but I'd be interested in having a look at that.
Finally, with the rail car coalition and their conditions on how they want to help, there are a couple of things.
I'm keen to work with people who are keen to work with farmers, and that includes the people from the rail car coalition. But the truth is that thing went on for eight years under the previous government--eight years of “We're going to sell it to them”, “We're thinking of selling it to them”, “We might sell it to them”, “We're really going to sell it to them”. And now for the coalition to say we've been way too quick to move on this....
When I talk to farmers in the Prairies, even the ones who supported the coalition said, finally, somebody made a decision. They're concerned about some of these same conditions you've raised, and we need to address them.
But the reality is that the decision had to be made. Uncertainty is a killer for business. This thing wasn't an anvil, but it had become a political football, and I think we needed to make a decision. Now we need to make it work. That's why I'm interested in seeing these proposals and motions. I'm not allergic to any of them. Let's find out what went wrong before and what we can do to make sure it goes right.
To me, the rail car coalition is a group of people supportive of farmers, concerned about farmers. In that sense, I'm interested in working with them. But the rail car coalition was formed to buy the cars. If that's its purpose, its purpose is over. We're not selling the cars. We're keeping the cars. We're going to look after the cars, and we're going to use them for farmers. The way we have it designed, it will mean lower freight rates for farmers. We're not engaging with the rail car coalition with any idea that we're going to reverse that decision. We're just interested in their input as interested people supportive to farmers.
I'm interested in hearing from them, but it's not in the light of thinking we'll reverse our decision or that they're going to persuade us differently.