Bearing in mind the comments of the chair, with respect to the ability to respond to the specifics in your question, it might be helpful to take a step back and look at the context. The government has indicated that it's moving forward with a $50-million program to provide assistance to meat slaughter and processing facilities in Canada.
Certainly the committee has heard from the livestock sector about the challenges before it. As officials and as a department, we are hearing from the beef and pork value chain round tables about the challenges they've experienced over the last several months with respect to the Canadian dollar, input costs, feed and energy, world prices, and market access. We have been working with those value chain round tables as well as with the sector in responding to those challenges. My colleague Mr. Meredith can speak to the performance of the financial systems programs that operate through the FPT domain.
We've also been engaged with them in considering competitiveness issues. Looking through that competitiveness lens, we are considering how we can help this sector to optimize its ability to compete domestically, in North America, and internationally.
We've looked at research and development, the regulatory framework, and market access. We've also looked at the food-processing sector to see if there are specific challenges suffered apart from what producers are experiencing. We are seeing beef, pork, and live product exports move out of this country into North America. At the same time, we are seeing the need for our processing and slaughter plants to be able to compete in that North American and international milieu. The slaughter and processing assistance program is being designed to assist the industry in implementing business plans that will enable it to achieve the competitiveness and sustainability necessary to offer viable choices to our Canadian producers. They need to be able to choose whether to export or run animals through Canadian processing plants.
As to your question, we do not yet have all the details. We can't comment on the details of the program, but when they are finalized, we'll be making them available for review.