Mr. Chair, I would like to ask my colleague a question because we live in the same part of the country over in the Saskatoon area of central Saskatchewan.
Some of the announcements made by the government on September 10 were long overdue but they were also, as we know since we have had this debate before, pretty inadequate, administratively bungled and so on. These were only half of what our party proposed in February 2004 when the industry was not nearly in the dire straits that it is at present. We need much stronger measures to deal with the devastating crisis so farmers can weather this problem. Our agriculture critic for the Conservative Party has said that producers need reasonable, responsive, reliable relief in real time.
I have begun to receive reports on the CAIS program and I would like to ask her what she is discovering about this program. The government needs to rethink its entire approach to agriculture. Its mechanisms for supporting Canadian agriculture have been riddled with problems for years.
The Canadian agriculture income supplement program is badly flawed as well. The program is called an income supplement but the Liberals, true to form, have treated it as a welfare program. I am now beginning to hear from constituents who have suffered as a result of the Liberal government's mismanaged CAIS program. Instead of having an income insurance program with predictable contributions by farmers and predictable rules for payouts, the program is in constant flux, apparently at the whim of whoever happens to be the ag minister at the time.
There is no certainty with CAISP. Announcements for changes are often made before the programs are ready and without application forms. Rules are often arbitrary and changed arbitrarily, and payouts are unpredictable. The scenario in my province of Saskatchewan is that farmers will receive less because the Saskatchewan government has decided that it will not put as much money in. It is either unable or unwilling to pay into this program.
I wonder what the member has been finding out in terms of the unpredictability, the flaws and the problems that seem ripe in the CAIS program these days.