In my opinion, a program as wide in scope as the CAIS will never give farms what they need. A program based on farm earnings will never perform during difficult periods, because of input costs, fertilizers, energy, feed, and the relative value of the dollar. All of these are factors during times of crisis.
Programs based on earnings are completely out of touch with the reality on the farm. Five years from now, producers will come back and say that the program is not up to par. It only works during high-profit years. When profits are up, we do not need an assistance program.
To our mind, we need programs that truly factor in production costs, that take production costs directly into account, as is done in Alberta. This would perhaps provide one way of rebounding during a crisis.