With the CFIA, it was a matter of time. We were promised certain things, whether by Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, the Fédération des producteurs de pommes de terre, the gardeners. Every possible committee was there that day. It was all about business. All of the stakeholders said that millions of dollars were being lost every day in Quebec because of the American embargo. When I heard my Alberta colleagues talk about nematodes, I got upset because I figured they would probably go through the same horrible thing I did.
We were told that we had to act as quickly as possible to lift the embargo. We agreed: business was business, and if we had to destroy the potatoes, we would, but we wanted to know who would be paying for it. We were told not to worry, that they would pay.
My colleagues here said that it took time. We said that some of the potatoes were still edible, and we wanted to process them, but we had to throw them all out so as not to get the Americans mad. That is really what happened. The potatoes were good. I saw some farmers cry. It would not have been so bad if the crops were bad, but they were really nice and perfectly edible, and it broke our hearts to have to throw them out.
I do not want to downplay crises going on in other provinces. Because of mad cow disease and bird flu, people have had to destroy their herds and start over. But in Saint-Amable, we have to go on living with the damned ministerial order we were saddled with. We cannot move on to other things. We are going to have to live with that every year.
As for compensation, up to now, Saint-Amable producers could have sold their harvest, but they were pretty much forbidden from doing so. The new amounts suggested are pretty much a provincial loan and just $5 million to the $32 million we need. That is the reality.