We are calling for three main initiatives: a cooperative investment plan; a program to help maintain agricultural land and a program that would allow young people to cash in their RRSP for a one-time capital purchase for their farm. These measures target all Canadian farmers. I admit that the Government of Quebec has already brought in a cooperative investment program as well as certain programs to help young people get a start in farming.
Regarding your second question, I mentioned that some sectors of Canadian farming are doing relatively well, while others are going through a particularly difficult period. Generally speaking, beef and hog farmers are having a very difficult time of it. Beef farmers never recovered from the BSE crisis in 2003. For the past three years, hog producers have been grappling with problems linked to the health of their livestock, to the economic crisis and to fluctuations in the Canadian dollar. These sectors play a role in export markets. More recently, the H1N1 flu has seriously affected hog farming. The sector was beginning to recover slightly, but prices have again tumbled dramatically.
All sectors in Canada are encountering a major problem where slaughtering is concerned. I recently returned from a two-day trip to Calgary, the site of a roundtable on beef and this was a important topic of discussion. Canadian BSE regulations are very costly for Canadian slaughterhouses, so much so that they cannot compete in any way with US slaughterhouses. Large Canadian slaughterhouses are in the process of losing the critical mass that they need to be profitable operations. Increasingly, live animals are being shipped to the US for slaughter.