Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. House leader for putting that information forward. It is very important that we can vote on that particular motion an hour earlier.
Dealing with my bill now instead of the government's bill on pay raises, I would suggest that the agriculture ministers who were appearing before the committee all agreed that a safety net program should be put together. Dealing with that issue with respect to the committee I am proposing, with the committee being made up not only of farmers, producers, industry people and government people but also of people from the provinces, we would then be able to have a group get together to put in place the right process, the right model, and then take that forward, and not just to the minister because unfortunately the minister loses those recommendations on a fairly regular basis. I do not think anybody, including the minister of agriculture, could have possibly put forward a worse program than the AIDA program and could have possibly put forward a worse implementation than the AIDA implementation.
In my constituency office about 50% of my time and my staff's time is devoted to trying to find out the status of AIDA claims. That was supposed to be finished by now. We had a safety net program called AIDA that was supposed to put dollars in the pocket immediately. As a matter of fact I heard the minister say at one time that the AIDA program was bankable.
I would have great difficulty in suggesting that any producer could go to any bank in the country and generate a loan based on the criteria of AIDA. That producer would be laughed out of any financial institution, because there was no understanding at all of what kind of financial compensation producers would get when they applied to AIDA. Producers spent a lot of money at their accountants for the information, applied to AIDA and had a number that was generated from the criteria.
Applications to AIDA went through a bunch of processes. In some cases producers were told what the number would be and when they ended up with the cheque it was totally different and always for less than what the original application was for. In some cases it was up to 50% less. In some cases after they made their application based on information developed by their accountants, the government came back and said they would get nothing out of the AIDA program. Is that bankable?
The point I am trying to make is that if this committee were in existence it could put forward its model and the implementation of its model as well. Everybody would live happily ever after except of course for the government because it might finally have to do something right with respect to agriculture. That would be a terrible divergence from where it is now. If it actually did something right for producers and agriculture, producers would not know what hit them.
Unfortunately the legislation is non-votable. It is an issue that is very dear and close to my heart and to the hearts of the people I represent in my rural area. Unfortunately a good safety net program will not come forward. The new CFIP has been extended for two years and it is very underfunded. I do not believe the government has the political will to put forward the necessary programs to keep agriculture prosperous in the future.
I would appreciate hearing from the parliamentary secretary who probably does not understand the issue very well. However I am sure he has some notes that have been made for him, so I will sit back and listen.