There you go. Unfortunately, we're not going to be getting to the report, I don't think, for some time. We have a couple of motions that are going to take a fair amount of debate.
I want to come back once again to the fact that virtually every member on this committee has spoken out against the family farm option program at some time. It's been a while since I read some of these statements into the record. I just want to remind members opposite of the position they took themselves on this program.
Mr. Steckle said:
I'm hearing from a number of farmers who have called me about the program, and they...draw their conclusion that this is an exit program from farming—getting out of agriculture. It's a welfare program. Once farmers in the business, if they call themselves truly farmers, realize that their incomes are at that level, then they're basically not farming anymore. So this is an exit program.
That's one of the statements Mr. Steckle made.
Mr. Bellavance said when this program was created that of course the Bloc Québécois said it was not enough to solve the farm income crisis.
Mr. Atamanenko took major exception to the fact that there was a business plan required in the program. He said:
One is the idea of a business plan and skills that are compulsory to participate in a program, the assumption being that these people aren't good farmers and that it's almost an insult, for want of a better word.
So Mr. Atamanenko was clear that he did not support the program. He actually said: “...isn't the assumption [of the program] still that they're not victims of the market or they're not doing something right...?” So again he was clearly not supportive of the program and did not appreciate it.
Mr. Easter had a number of things to say about it. I remember him talking quite a bit about how it was making victims of people. In reality, the minister was trying to bring a positive solution for farmers and those who've been on the farm.
One of the statements that I thought was revealing was Mr. Easter's statement that, “My concern also is that you see the low uptake.” He's concerned, Mr. Chair, about the fact that farmers weren't participating at a reasonable level. He goes on to say:
You see exactly the same questions coming from at least three of the four parties, saying that they've heard from people that it isn't working and it's still in its pilot stage. Can't we be flexible enough...to say, okay, with a 10% uptake, clearly it's not working?
The minister listened to the members opposite, and it may have been his mistake, because once he listened to them and acted on some of the recommendations they made, they made a decision that they were going to turn on him and didn't like what he was doing with the program after all.
I think most of the people on this committee were aware that the program had some of these issues from the beginning, and I think we need to commend the minister for making the changes he made to it.
I'm going to come back to that in a bit, but I want to talk a little about some of the accomplishments of this government, because of their importance. Family farm options is one of those programs, and I think it's important—