Supply management encompasses five types of products: dairy, chicken and turkey, boiler hatching eggs and table eggs.
In the dairy sector, I think farmers received direct payments. As for the poultry sector, we've always asked for funding to encourage people to buy Canadian chicken or tax credits to help poultry farmers upgrade and expand their facilities.
Out of fairness, we don't think that funding should be limited to the first year. When it comes to tax credits, our preference has always been that farmers have access to them for a decade or so. A young poultry farmer who starts farming this month, or who started a year ago, won't have the money to make investments at the beginning of their career. This would enable them to start investing in the seventh, eighth or ninth year. We aren't in favour of direct payments to farmers. We want a tax credit or funding to promote chicken products, which all 10 provinces are doing.
Without supply management, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island might have no chicken farmers. Without supply management, the market would not be controlled as strictly. Let's be clear, supply management is an economic solution in rural Canada.