I think the two parts to your question are excellent. One is about what happens to farmers for the future, and I wouldn't mind making a brief comment on what happens there. The second question has to do with programming.
When I was minister, they would come to my desk with this stuff all the time. Everybody was excited if they could develop a new program, and this program was going to do this, that, and the other thing. But it's the old story. You can design a cow, but you don't know if you're successful until you find out if the bull likes it. Nobody liked a lot of the programs we designed.
What has happened is that even on our own farm today, one of us has to spend one day a week in the office. We have to spend at least all morning and sometimes most of the day on paperwork generated by programs that you don't dare to not be involved in. Frankly, for some of them, I'm not smart enough to figure out the forms, and we need to have an accountant do some of it for us. The complexity is certainly there. Everything is complex nowadays, but some of it is very complex.
When I was minister, we had a beginning farm program in Alberta to try to encourage new people into agriculture. Frankly, today most young people ask this: why in the world would they want to be on a farm when they can go out and make money doing other things? Not only that, it's hard to get labour on a farm nowadays. I think it's an issue that needs to be tackled.
To answer your question on the programs briefly, in one quick sentence, we need the programs, but yes, they're far too complex. Is there a future in trying to lower the age of farmers in agriculture? Yes, I think there is, but it's going to take some effort.
Did that answer your question?