Madam Speaker, I know how the loan loss reserve program is supposed to work. The way it was described last September, would-be investors could apply to get underwriting from the government to reinforce their application to their bank to get financing to start up a slaughterhouse. It sounds good, but unfortunately as of two weeks ago at committee the Canadian Bankers Association testified that no agreement had been reached between the government and the CBA to make such a program operational.
In fact, the way things were structured, investors would have to get permission from the loan loss reserve program before the bankers would honour their application. The bankers of course want to know that they would get their reserves. We were also told that the applicants could only apply for the loan loss reserve program after they had bank financing. This is a catch-22 situation. They cannot get A until they get B but they cannot get B until they already have A .
The loan loss reserve may exist on paper but operationally it does not exist. As of two weeks ago at the very latest, nothing existed with the banks. It does today with the FCC, but not with the banks. Two weeks ago the application forms, which were promised three months ago, still did not exist so people could not even apply. For all intents and purposes that means that operationally the program does not exist.