Thank you for your question, Mr. Perron.
Member companies of the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council are not eligible for the Canada emergency wage subsidy. This is because our sales have not declined enough as the supply of eggs and poultry has always been there, while markets have disappeared. The markets collapsed, but we still had to sell our production. The prices meant that we were not able to reduce our sales enough to qualify for the subsidy. To do so, we would have had to reduce our production by 30% from the first day the restaurants closed. We would have stopped processing 30% of the eggs, turkeys and chickens. We would then have been eligible for the subsidy, but this would have resulted in massive on-farm euthanasia.
In fact, the reason there has not been massive euthanasia on farms in Canada is because processors have maintained production even though there was no longer a market. So we subsidized, in a sense, what others would have subsidized in that situation. That is why today we are saying that this is important. We have shouldered our essential role, which, as I said in my presentation, is twofold. We have to supply Canadians with food, but we also have to make sure that the supply chain does not stop. We fulfilled the mandate that was given to us, but today we are on our own.