Mr. Speaker, given the negative farm income, I am sure many farmers across this country are having a difficult time.
In the past few weeks I had an opportunity to sit down with the heads of the Canadian banking groups to get a better sense from them as to how they saw the farm income problem, whether their branches down at the grassroots level were having a difficult time in terms of dealing with the situation.
The Canadian banks gave me the assurance that in fact they recognized that this was a problem of particular concern and one that they felt would resolve itself over the next little bit. They gave me their assurances that they would work with these farmers at the local level to make sure the credit they needed would be available to them and that the programs available to them would be available.
In terms of the meeting with these banks, I gave them my assurance that I would continue to monitor the approach that the banks were taking to these farmers and farm families, and that I would continue to address the needs as those needs came about.
There is no question that Canadian farm families are having a difficult time. We believe that the dollars we put out will help address some of these needs. Right now I think there is a need to bridge some dollars between now and when the border may open. There is a need to bridge before we get into the full dollars that will be coming out of the CAIS program, which will probably be in the fall.
I think more needs to be done, and, as I said, I am working with farm groups across the country to work on a program that might help do exactly that.