Mr. Chair, I just want to follow up on the comment by the parliamentary secretary about how much this has cost the industry. He tried to paint the picture.
From my own personal experience as a cattle producer and from talking to friends and fellow producers in my area, I know that the losses on the farm at the primary producer level have been in that $300 to $400 per head loss. In my case it was over $43,000. The amount of money that I was able to get through support programs, which is also in comparison to other people in my area, was only around $45 a head. It is nothing compared to the financial stress and loss that the industry is going through right now. We have to look at why programs are not working and why the money is not getting to the producers.
The industry asked for a cash advance. I want to know why our government decided to go ahead and do a cash advance through the CAIS program when most producers, myself included, do not believe the program is a viable program, one that will be there in the long term and one that will provide the mechanisms to get the money out of the system.
I want to know why the government did not look at a different way to deliver money. Money flowed a lot easier through some of the other programs. CAISP is administratively burdensome. It is very long in the process and producers are still waiting on 2003 money, never mind having an advance on 2004. If the government really wants constructive criticism, the CAIS program is a key case in point. The government needs to take a hard look at other ways it can deliver cash advances.