Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to meet with your committee today to discuss the audit of the Canadian agriculture income stabilization program, otherwise known as CAIS, which we reported on in chapter 4 of our May 2007 report.
With me today is Raymond Kunze, director of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada audit team.
We audited the CAIS program at the request of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. In this audit we examined, first of all, how Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada processes applications for income support; second, how it ensures that all parties respect the various monitoring provisions set out in the federal-provincial-territorial agreements; and third, how it measures and reports its performance to Parliament.
The department delivers the program in all provinces and territories except Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island, where the provincial governments deliver the program. We did not audit the delivery of the CAIS program by provincial administrations.
Mr. Chair, I should point out that we completed our detailed audit work for this report in October 2006. Our ability to comment on developments since then is limited.
The CAIS program was designed to provide income support to agricultural producers when farm income dropped due to circumstances beyond farmers' control. At the time of our audit, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was receiving about 55,000 applications—