I think a number of things need to be cleared up, Mr. Chair.
Just on Bev's point on cancelling CAIS and going to AgriStability, the fact is that program.... Maybe the department pulled the wool over the eyes of the minister, I don't know. But the fact is that program will pay out less money to farmers. That's not what they need as a safety net. They need more money, not less. And that's what we're talking about here.
In terms of the AgriFlex program, I think what Alex's motion is attempting to get to is what the farm organizations proposed before the election and your party and our party picked up. So I would think that the AgriFlexibility program should have the flexibility to accommodate the business risk management program and ASRA, as was proposed to us the other day.
I want to come back to some of the points the parliamentary secretary talked about. He said the AgriFlexibility program is showing some success. That's debatable. The minister or someone in the system will decide where that money goes, but not much of it is going to primary producers. He talked about putting projects that would move to higher productivity. There's nothing wrong with that. None of us would disagree with higher productivity.
But let's look at it. Let's take a moment, guys, and look at what commodity in Canada has the best genetics in the world. The best productivity anywhere in the world, in terms of pork production, is in this country. It's in Canada. What's happening in that industry right now?
Brian likes to quote my report. Well, I'll give him a little quote out of the same report, “Empowering Canadian Farmers in the Marketplace”, Mr. Chair. This makes my point.
When we look at our farms, every economic indicator is positive—production, revenue, exports, output per acre, output per farmer, cost per unit, etc.—every indicator, that is, except net farm income. Even as farmers produce more, export more, and produce more efficiently, farmers are rewarded less.... This is because the farm income crisis does not have its causes on the farm.
I express that because while AgriFlexibility may be doing great and wonderful things in terms of productivity, over time productivity hasn't been shown to be the problem. The industry that's most productive and efficient is hogs, and we're losing it. Neither business risk management nor AgriFlexibility is doing what it should do to keep Canadians on the farm. In fact, we're being displaced in the marketplace by American pork right now, and they're starting to use our genetics. So that's my point and that's why I think the farm organizations felt that AgriFlexibility should be used on the safety net side to give flexibility at the provincial level and assist with a risk management program or ASRA, or do some of the things that Pierre says other provinces might want to do. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, $500 million is not enough for AgriFlexibility to begin with, so it's certainly not enough....
Well, the business risk program--