Yes, absolutely.
Within the farming portion of the Income Tax Act and how farming income is defined, the description is limited to maintaining racehorses. It specifically exempts most other activities for on-farm equine businesses. It specifically mentions certain disciplines versus another and riding schools. Because of that, it's very [Technical difficulty—Editor] in terms of even demonstrating farm income to access farm registration numbers. You have to be able to demonstrate a minimum number on your income tax return. Any facility that's not breeding or maintaining racehorses cannot demonstrate that, and therefore can't access certain farm-specific programs. Farm registration numbers, and demonstrating a minimum number with regard to farm income, are prerequisites to pretty much all agriculture and AAFC-specific programs. That includes the business risk management programs and even accessing on-farm cost-share programs through the CAP program.
We have been looking to address this issue. It's a long-standing issue. From our conversations with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada over the coming weeks, even if they were to adapt some of the pre-existing AAFC programs, we know through our survey that only 35% of our members would be able to access it because of the access to farm registration numbers.