No, it was a cheque for 57¢ for one calf. That is what someone in his riding got. A producer from Sainte-Clotilde-de-Horton in my riding told me this past weekend that he would rather keep his animals than give them away or, worse yet, have to pay to dispose of them. But you can imagine what it costs to maintain stock that ought to have already gone to the abattoir.
How a producer who loses $500 a head each time he sells a cow is supposed to survive this crisis? The best he can get for a cull cow is $250, and the meat of that cow sells for $1,200 on the retail market. This has been going on for 18 months. Packers are the only ones making money with this crisis.
Debt and distress often breed despair. Some producers auction off their hard earned assets. Others even take their own life, as we saw recently on Radio-Canada's Le Point . This is not a soap. This is real life. For 18 months, the federal government has let down producers who have been working hard for many years, sometimes up to a hundred hours a week, to the point their situation is intolerable.
Let me conclude with this. The minister and the government have been repeating for 18 months that millions have been spent, and we should quit raising this issue. This is not the way it works. Liberals are asking us for concrete solutions. Here are some: a direct assistance program to compensate for the low prices and an interest free loans program. This is what we are asking for and insisting on. This is what is being asked for also by the UPA and the Quebec government, both of which have tried to do something since the beginning of this crisis, as my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord explained.
I ask the federal government to assume its responsibilities and do the same.