Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's intervention and I understand his concern on this issue. I have some difficulties though with what he said.
The member was upset when I put on the record the reality, the truth, the amount of money that has been invested and made available to producers. He has said that it is not accessible. Tens of thousands of producers have been able to access CAIS to date. Many more applications are being processed.
I will not stand here and suggest to the hon. member that everything in the industry is perfect or everything about the program is perfect. Long before the motion was put in front of the House, myself along with members of the industry and our provincial colleagues had been working on that specific program. I have talked about some of the things that have been done to date in terms of covering negative margins, increasing the cap and changing the way the deposit are done. Unlike the hon. member, being flexible in terms of deadlines in being responsive to producers is a positive thing, not a negative thing. However, he is entitled to take whatever perspective he wants to on that issue.
I know he does not appear to want to deal with the reality of the situation because CAIS is a federal-provincial program. It requires both levels of government to make any changes. That is why we have been working very closely with them because it is important to do that.
I wanted to ask a specific question of the member and it goes back to the use of the CAIS to provide advances to beef producers. Many in the party opposite said that it would not work. The reality is, $115 million is in the hands of beef producers through the CAIS program, through a special advance, separate and apart from anything else that has to be done with CAIS. That is in addition to the $1.7 billion that has been invested in the industry.
Would the hon. member explain on that specific point of the CAIS program where he has the difficulties?