Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if my colleague from Champlain used the word minimal instead of measly, because measly implies worthless, while minimal means not very much. I am sure that is what he meant to say.
He is totally right, in the sense that government assistance will not resolve the problem. If I look strictly at Quebec, it is currently impossible for government assistance to resolve the cull problem. It is only a small part of the solution. Mr. Speaker, this affects your riding, which is just across from mine, on the other side of the river, where you have dairy farmers.
Two things could be done in the short term. First, for Canada, the border could be opened to allow us to move our goods. That would resolve the problem. Since we have no control over that, something else could be done. For Quebec, and the dairy farmers in my region in particular, the problem is that, even with government assistance, the price at the meat packing plant is so low that the farmer cannot survive financially. That is the problem in Quebec right now. The price at the meat packing plants is almost half what it was before the crisis.
Had the price remained the same, with the current government assistance, our producers could have managed until the borders reopened. That is the problem right now.
There is only one meat packing plant in Quebec, therefore it has a monopoly. Investigations into the price of beef to the consumer have revealed that our producers are receiving less than half of what they used, while the price of beef at the grocery store, at Métro, Loblaws or wherever, has not gone down. This is a major problem.
These are two of the factors. I know that, even in my region, in the riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges, they are trying to reopen a meat plan, which had already been closed, in order to create some competition. This is a major problem for our producers right now.
In terms of all the cattle producers, we could perhaps agree that $520 million is not very much. It is true that farmers are not responsible for this crisis. It is not their fault, but the Canadian government is not to blame either. It is a problem in negotiating with a major partner, a major market for our producers. What can we expect when 80% of our export goes to the U.S.? That is where our market is.
We are finding the same problem in market gardening. Les Jardins de Napierville, one of the largest vegetable producers in Quebec, is located in my riding. The problem is that, every time shipments cross the border into the United States, they have a thousand and one conditions imposed, and trucks full of perishables are kept in storage.
One starts wondering what is happening. Of course, we must lobby strongly with the United States; it is always up to us to negotiate with the Americans.
We are in agreement on that. Mr. Speaker, you also represent a very agricultural riding; farmers need our help. We have made an enormous effort. I know that negotiations are underway about the possibility of providing more money. Still, the solution is to open the borders.