Thank you.
You are right about farmers not wanting subsidies. It is almost a public perception. You hear on the news or you hear from some of your friends in the city, “Here come the farmers again with their hands out to you guys. What is this all the time?”
If you look at crop insurance, I really trust the crop insurance program, the AFSC in Alberta. I like the different levels of coverage you can choose. My dad's farm is more stable and he takes more risks at his age in life. He chooses a coverage level, a dollar coverage per acre, a guaranteed dollar per acre. Come heck or high water, he knows he is going to get that, whereas I choose a higher coverage level. Through that you can choose to have hail insurance or not, to take the hail endorsement, as they call it. They have been going on with this for a few years and they also added a new program called the spring price endorsement, where you can choose to accept a price and pay more money to choose a floor price for your grains.
In a way, I know that the provincial and the federal governments kick into those programs, and that is a subsidy, as Mr. Easter suggested. It is, but just to expand on that, it is a good program. I like the crop insurance program and I trust it. I feel comfortable. I can sleep at night knowing that if I have a drought or get hailed out or whatever, I am going to be covered at a certain level. Can I handle that coverage? Well, we'll have to tighten up our socks for a year, but at least I know I'm going to get the money come November or December, whenever the payout is. I like that.
I also took out the spring price endorsement on canola. That was another program the Alberta government offered. I was advised by my market analyst to take it. I chose not to take it on the wheat, so I've left myself vulnerable on that, but I did take it on the canola, and I'm looking forward to seeing if that pays out. But that is basically all I'd say about that.
Thank you.