The relevance of this last point, Mr. Chair, is in refuting the misinformation from the parliamentary secretary, who indicated that all I was interested in was per head payment. That's not the case at all.
What I've indicated through my remarks, time and time again, is that the current program, which has paid out $961,400,000 less, could be utilized to do what needs to be done in the hog and beef industries by changing the reference margins, the viability tests, and maybe increasing the negative margins or allowing negative margins. There are a number of areas there. To the point of this debate, allowing AgriFlexibility to be used in that program for business risk management and ASRA and whatever the other provinces want to do with it would be trade-allowable, in my view. Those points, Mr. Chair, should correct the record. Maybe the parliamentary secretary can take that message back to the minister, and maybe they could deal with this effectively and do something for farmers rather than for the Treasury Board.
There is one other point, Mr. Chair. He talked about the programs they have implemented and he delivered a couple of quotes claiming how wonderful they are. The fact of the matter is--and you've heard me say this in the House, Mr. Chair--what the program does in terms of additional loans to producers is that in effect.... Currently the APP loans are out there for last year. The government has put that money out to producers under the APP. We felt it was one avenue to pursue if the market turned around, but the market didn't turn around. That money went out there by APP on secured loans. There were some personal guarantees, yes, by producers to the government.
The new proposal allows producers, if they have a viable operation, to go to the lending institutions, such as farm credit unions and banks, and obtain a new loan, but the first condition of that loan is that they must pay back the government on the APP. I've called it a Ponzi scheme. What you have is a situation in which the Government of Canada is providing a guarantee to producers so they can get new money at lending institutions. It is guaranteed by the Government of Canada, but it now has security on assets; the banks have to do the dirty work of the foreclosure, and the government--Treasury Board and the Department of Finance--get paid back on their liability, which is unsecured.
If ever I heard of a Ponzi scheme, that's a good one. Either the minister or the guys opposite had the wool pulled over their eyes by Treasury Board and the Department of Finance, because the only one that really gains out of that situation is the Government of Canada.
We all know that in terms of the sell-offs, the lowest seller gets to sell his operation. What an inhumane scheme. They bid against each other for lower and lower prices to get out of an industry that, as I pointed out earlier, has about the best genetics in the world and the best productivity in the world. This government is asking you to bid against each other for a pittance so that you can leave the industry with lost hope and in despair. That's not good government programming, in my mind.