Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank you folks for coming in.
I guess the key to being able to get young people to enter into the industry is profitability at the farm gate. That's the key. Part of it--we always hear the line—is that you have to be competitive. Yes, you do, but our problem seems to be that in Canada we don't have competitive policy. The government last year, in the worst hog crisis we've had in Canadian history, with the beef industry not far behind, with all kinds of troubles in the potato industry, actually paid out pretty near $900 million less under the safety net programs.
I'm wondering about your discussions with the government, in terms especially of the hog program and the beef program. We've heard consistently from farmers that what they want done with AgriStability is to change the trigger mechanism and do away with the viability test—in other words, go to a different formula than one taking your low year and high year out and then averaging the difference—which denies about two-thirds of Ontario farmers access to the program in the beef industry.
Secondly, they've suggested that the government change the reference margins to allow a payout, because the money in the safety net program paid out by the government was, as I said, $900 million less last year and was a further shortfall from the year before. That's money that would meet the trade agreements that could have gone into farmers' accounts to assist them.
Has the government discussed any of those proposals with you? They are coming from the hog and beef sector.