Just quickly, I'll not go into great detail, Mr. Chair, but.... No, it's not going to be a speech. We heard a speech. We don't have a whole lot of time.
I would just say that we differ strenuously with the parliamentary secretary's remarks as he attempts to cover Minister Ritz's record of failure when it comes to supporting farmers in Canada. The parliamentary secretary talked extensively about COOL, country-of-origin labelling, and while we do agree with the challenge at the WTO, we very much regret that the government has failed to do anything for beef producers and hog producers in the meantime, other than provide a loan and drive them further into debt when they're already very far into debt as it is.
So basically, while the Government of Canada dilly-dallies around, we'll wait for however long it takes for the WTO to make a decision in country-of-origin labelling, in the meantime bleeding producers away from the industry while the Americans will continue to drive production into Canada. We're seeing a decline in the hog industry and the beef industry in terms of cow-calf operators and slaughter-cattle operators. Our market into the United States is down somewhere around 50%, 60%, I believe, in pork. It's down in slaughter cattle and it's down in calves and feeders. Yet the Americans continue to export the product here.
The second point of the hog program, which is getting people out of the industry, is actually quite terrible because it sets up an auction system, a tender system, whereby hog producers bid against each other for who will sell out the lowest. That's not exactly a way of providing income to producers or getting out of the industry with dignity. Whichever producer has the lowest bid will be the one that gets a little slice of the $75 million from the Government of Canada.
The last point I'll make is on the beef and hog loans, especially the hog loans that the government announced. I maintain it's probably one of the best Ponzi schemes ever dreamed up. Who gets paid out of these loans? The first condition to get a loan.... You go to the bank and you get a government guarantee. This is no joking matter, guys. Producers are calling every day going broke. It's no joking matter. We're hearing them in droves. And there's a lot of criticism of the Canadian Pork Council as a result as well.
But what happens? You go and get a guaranteed loan at the bank, and then--