One story that always comes to my mind when I think about that is about one of the biggest cattle feeders in this country, who came to this country with a dollar in his pocket. He is now one of the most successful businessmen in Alberta. Dad is always talking about when he got started. He'd buy a quarter section of land, rent a couple of quarters from neighbours, and get started in this industry. Now, to buy that land and try to find land around that you can rent from somebody is very difficult, I find.
Going back to the transition loans that Francis was talking about, I had experience with that last May, after Prime Minister Harper announced the new program. I went to the FCC to have a transition loan with my neighbour. We went in there, both of us, and talked to them. I had a pretty thick business plan of how things were going to go, and it was a flat out, “No, you don't qualify under our standards, with under six years of farming.”
A friend of mine left high school when he was 18. He had a few cows at home, but he went to the city to get a job. Four or five years later he came back home to start farming, and because he had those few cows on the farm, he was already classified as a farmer. When he went to the bank to get money to buy land, they said, “No, you're not a starting farmer any more.” With five cows, I don't think you're an established farmer already.