Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, there are many deficiencies within the ministry of agriculture. Many of the programs and aid packages offered by the minister of agriculture have extremely slow processing times and the results are often inadequate for farmers.
The Canadian Farm Income Program or CFIP is another example of the problem. I was contacted by a constituent recently who was told by a CFIP official that there were going to be massive layoffs of personnel within the CFIP department. Many producers are still waiting for their applications to be processed from last year. If these layoffs happen the processing of applications for cash strapped farmers will take even longer than it does now.
Can the minister of agriculture assure Canadian farmers their applications for CFIP will be processed in a timely manner, and are these layoffs a reality?