Mr. Chair, a loan loss reserve to the banks is actually quite a step forward. The minister made it very clear in his September 10 announcement that we were taking a somewhat different approach. We would not just stand back and live in the hope that the border would open and problems would be solved.
We believe that we have to build a Canadian industry, to expand our Canadian industry and get into more slaughter capacity. As was stated on Thursday night, with the various set aside programs in place in conjunction with the industry, we are trying to bring some normalcy back to the marketplace.
Slaughter capacity is in fact ramping up. We want it to ramp up and we put in place a program that we think will assist in doing that. We have put in place the set aside program so that when there is normalcy in the market, prices will come up and producers will receive better prices in the marketplace.
I would encourage members opposite, as I mentioned in my speech, that we also need to be talking about the other side of the equation, which is that right now, out of the packing industry and the grocery store chains, the farmer is not getting a fair share of that consumer dollar. I would ask them to look at that end of it as well.