Thank you.
We've got to look at this and see whether this is accountability or just a lot more red tape and bureaucracy. And we have no problem with accountability—I think our track record speaks for itself—but this may be more like micromanagement.
Most people like to complain to government. We're not here to complain but rather to say that we have a solution. We've had a solution all along. The original intent of the program was thought up by a group of farm leaders in Ontario who worked with the federal government and the minister to bring this forward and across Canada. And it has worked wonders across the whole country. It's just that there are a lot of hoops and hurdles we're now having to jump through and over, and this can be detrimental to the taxpayers of Canada.
If we don't allow the adaptation council to handle the decision-making administration, then things won't be as clean, as efficient, or as effective. We can deliver programs in a very short period of time. And now a lot of rules and regulations are slowing that process down. For example, under communications, we ask our applicants, they send it to us, and we in turn send it to Ottawa. And all they're doing is a press release on their own project. So it's just a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork that's causing problems.
We have a track record of delivering the agricultural funding. We did so in accountable, effective, and efficient ways. And both parties, the government and the agriculture industry, were very accepting of the process. But now we seem to have a lot of rules and regulations—it's kind of wrecking the whole program.
We've got administration costs that were very effective, around 8% on the dollars we push through. Some of our previous programs with the provincial government were also contribution agreements, and our administration rate is closer to 15%. Now the federal government wants us to run the programs at 10%. So we're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place, and so are our applicants.
We're willing partners, happy to work with the Government of Canada. We want to work constructively with senior staff. We don't want to wreck any partnership. But we need to look at the strengths the various players bring forth.
I'll turn it over to Gord.