Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague that I have actually been touring the ranches at Quilchena, Nicola and Douglas Lake and have really enjoyed the time that I had in the valley and seeing how those operations function, which is quite a bit different from the way we do business on the farm in Manitoba.
We know for a fact that when we talked about the CAIS program in debate as a supply day motion the government voted against us. However I was encouraged that the minister was able to convince the Minister of Finance to include the removal of the CAIS deposit program in the budget. Unfortunately, some debate is still going on at the federal-provincial meetings on whether those deposits should be removed and what would replace them.
I would urge the minister not to even entertain the issue of deposits. Nothing in the program provides any benefit to the producers. It does not keep the program in the green box for WTO. What we need to do right now is do what is best for the farmer and we have to look at that for the long term.
The situation we have right now is not working for the cattle industry. The delivery of disaster funds through the CAIS program does not get the money into the producers' hands fast enough and I think the CAIS administration and the minister realize that. That is why we have to start looking at delivery outside of that.
Some of the moneys that we handed out at the very beginning of the crisis back in 2003 flowed quickly. We need to revisit that and maybe make the TIS program, which was used back then, the standard for delivering compensation in a situation like this. I am a cattle producer but I hear a lot from the bison producers, the elk producers and the sheep growers in my area and I want to make sure their issues are dealt with on an equivalent basis to those of us in the cattle industry.