Thank you very much.
Mr. Minister, I encourage you to turn to the proper channel, unless you understand French, now.
Good afternoon and welcome to you and your officials. If I go by your figure, I would conclude that no cuts were made to the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food under the budget. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
Mr. Minister, I am going to ask you some very specific questions, and then I will give you a chance to respond. You may want to jot the questions down, especially those about the livestock industry.
The recent budget included $25 million to compensate for the additional costs related to specified risk materials. First, I would like to know when the money will be available and, above all, what the terms and conditions of the program will be. When you managed to convince the Minister of Finance to implement the program, I would think that you did not just suggest investing $25 million to compensate for the additional costs associated with SRM. Behind that idea, there must have been a program that was all planned out. I want to know the terms and conditions of the program.
In addition, I want to understand the comment made by the Minister of State (Agriculture), Mr. Blackburn, in the newspaper La Terre de chez nous. He said it was important to specify that the $25 million to compensate for the additional cost of collecting and disposing of SRM and the $40 million for technologies were tied together.
What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that if you do not invest in new technologies, you are not eligible for the $25 million program? And, if the amounts are tied together, how do you decide whether the Colbex-Levinoff slaughterhouse is sufficiently involved in new technologies to qualify for the program? I mentioned the Colbex-Levinoff slaughterhouse, but it affects all slaughterhouses. I would like to know whether they are able to qualify and what they have to do to benefit from the program. Are you confident that this announcement will address the gap of nearly $32 per head arising from SRM standards? It has been calculated that the $25 million will cover approximately one year. Do you have something else planned for afterwards, once the year is up?
Furthermore, you must know that hog producers were the first witnesses to appear before the committee on Monday, because of the urgent nature of their situation. Questions were asked about the applications for the government-backed long-term loans. The deadline is approaching. It has already been postponed until March 26. We were asked what was going to happen after that. Do you plan to renew the program?
Another deadline is approaching, the deadline for the stay of default to repay APP cash advances. It is September 30, 2010. In this case, as well, I would like to know what is going to happen afterwards. Do you plan to extend the stay?