Mr. Chair, I congratulate the hon. member for his first intervention in the House. I know that he was in another house in a previous life. Let me try to clarify some things because I believe there is some confusion in his understanding of the factual information.
First of all, let me say clearly that I have met with producers across Canada. Very recently I met with producers in northern Ontario to discuss the specific issues that face agriculture in northern Ontario. I was very appreciative that my colleague from Nipissing arranged that and I thank him.
In respect to the program that was announced on September 10, there are 488 million new dollars. It has absolutely nothing to do with CAIS. It is 488 million new dollars. Of that money there are dollars that are going into increasing slaughter capacity. There is money that is going into set aside programs to try to bring the marketplace into balance very quickly, that is both on the fed and on the feeder side. And then finally there is new investment in trying to develop markets beyond simply the United States and to allow our producers to diversify when they are selling abroad. That is 488 million new dollars.
Beyond that, the member mentioned TISP. The TISP is not being rolled into this money. That was a separate announcement that had been made previously. All of that money will be flowed. There is a reference to TISP in the press release that was announced, but simply to say that the last of the TISP money was to be advanced by the end of this month or the first week of November, a commitment to fulfill the total payout in that.
In respect of what was said in the CAIS program is beyond everything else that was in the program. Recognizing that there were challenges in terms of producers waiting until the year after they experienced the loss, which is the way CAIS works, one reconciles the books for one year and then the payment comes the next year, realizing the necessity and the urgency of putting cash into these producers' hands, a special component of CAIS was designed to make straightforward cash advances to them very quickly. That is not the $488 million we talked about. That is new investment to do those things that I talked about. On top of that, we dealt with ensuring the last of the TISP money was brought forward and that we made sure that we could advance more quickly at a time when producers needed the CAIS advances rather than in the following year.