Mr. Speaker, the federal Liberal government is responsible for part of the problem we have on this BSE issue because it agreed to the seven year ban agreement that the international countries agreed to when a country has a single case of BSE. We should have had more foresight on that.
My question is in regard to the cull cow program. Farmers have received absolutely zero and we have to be careful when we are talking about producers. We have feedlot people, packing people and cow-calf people, the actual primary producers. The primary producer or the cow-calf rancher or farmer has not received a penny. The money that is talked about has not gone to those people and there are tens of thousands of them. Could the member comment on that? I guess there is money coming.
With respect to the cull cow program, bulls and animals under 30 months of age are left out of that program. I can go into technical details in regard to those animals if anyone wishes, but it is a problem when we are only being compensated for a portion of our culls in our herds.
The other problem we have is that the government saw fit to treat farmers differently. It said dairy farmers, and more power to them, would be paid for 16% of their herds, whereas beef farmers would only be paid for 8% of their herds. Why was the government so unfair to the beef farmers?