Thanks to all for forthright and direct presentations. I think it just goes to show that we've got a system in this country that doesn't have much common sense in it. It just doesn't.
And I think Alex is right. If you're down from 420 abattoirs to 175 at the provincial level--they are providing local jobs, local markets, and local food supply, and we're losing them--it's bureaucracy out of control, in my view. The difficulty for us is that this is mainly provincial, but I think, Mr. Chair, we have to do something. We don't want to involve ourselves in provincial affairs necessarily, but we have to do something here to try to get a message through to the provincial minister to have a look at this. We all know how bureaucracies work in this system, and they try to push the chain a little too far.
Anyway, I have a couple of questions.
Louis, you mentioned the pork situation. You said in your remarks that it has to be addressed before Parliament closes, that the program that is in place doesn't work for producers. I know the minister, this week—I think it was this week, or it might have been last—basically rejected the $30-per-hog request by the Canada Pork Council, and I maintain that the hog industry won't survive if they don't get an ad hoc payment. What were you thinking of?