I would just add that one of your recommendations was also that we get agreement very quickly with the provinces so that we can accelerate the $600 million Kickstart program. Actually, we got our last agreement signed from the province on December 19. We had letters by the end of December to all producers, telling them exactly what they were eligible for out of that $600 million.
We've been receiving quite a bit of feedback in terms of whether they want to keep it or not, because they have a right to either keep it in their account or take it out immediately to deal with anything. As of today, for those who would like the money, cheques will be starting to issue on that $600 million. So we have acted on that recommendation as well.
I would just pick up a bit on Andrew's comments about the targeted advance. I mentioned the 2007 targeted advance and the priority of the 2006 final payments and putting the priority on hogs and cattle. We've also been encouraging the interim payments, especially for the cattle industry, because that works better than the net targeted advance, but the targeted advance works well for the hog industry.
I just came back from Winnipeg—I can't even remember now—yesterday or the day before. We literally sat down and asked, “How can we accelerate the 2008 targeted advance?”, which was a key concern for the hog sector because of their non-calendar year-ends. Some of them are already into their 2008 year.
So we are now going to start working with the provinces to get agreement to accelerate the 2008. We're hoping for a 2008 targeted advance. We can be in position to start those by mid-February to the end of February at the latest—but we're targeting mid-February—with the agreement of the provinces. For non-calendar year-ends, we could put out quite a bit. Even for those within calendar year-ends, as long as there's that six-month cycle, we could put out a good 25% to 30% of the payment.
We also put a priority on getting out all the hog and grain BPUs that are associated with hog farms so that we can finalize the 2007 final payments, so that as producers start to apply now for the 2007 final payment, we can process those very quickly. That'll be anywhere from between three to four months faster than we've ever been able to deliver because it's related to the tax year. We have been seized with it in terms of how quickly we could deliver on the programs that exist.
As our colleagues from the Pork Council have said, they have seen some of it. There are still at least three others that we need to work on.
Thank you.