It must be. There have been four meetings now at which we haven't seen the committee....
Anyway, Mr. Chair, Randy mentioned in his comment that other provinces weren't in favour. That may be true at the ministerial level, but the fact of the matter is that the biggest farm organization in Canada, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, came out and made a strong request for AgriFlexibility, to the point that both major parties, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, committed to an AgriFlexibility program during the last election.
It certainly was the view of the farm community, and certainly on our side, that AgriFlexibility would be used to act somewhat as a companion program to what provinces wanted. Some provinces would use it differently from others. In fact, as you would know, Mr. Chair, the Province of Ontario has come in and is just finishing up a pilot project on AgriFlexibility that has gone on for nearly three years. They have paid their 40%, but the federal government has failed to come up with their 60%, as was the intent of the program.
I think there is very strong support across the country for the AgriFlexibility program to be used to assist provinces in some top-ups according to how the provinces decide. It might be different in each of the provinces. We found that acceptable. The witnesses who were here the other day from the cash crop and grain industries in Ontario and Quebec certainly made the point that they're strongly supportive of AgriFlexibility moneys. There's supposed to be $500 million in the AgriFlexibility program that they are encouraging us to utilize. I think Alex's motion makes the point that the $500 million should go there. As I understand it, even from talking to some people in the public service at various levels, it seems that it's more likely to be used--and I know you wouldn't want to see this happen, Mr. Chair--as a slush fund for the minister. That's not what we want. We want the money go to farmers.