Mr. Speaker, the loan loss reserve program that the member referred to earlier in his speech was supposed to help stimulate further slaughter capacity in Canada. The minister has been in the hot seat in respect of that. The Canadian Bankers Association was before the committee and testified that that $66 million program does not even exist. What a tragedy and travesty to desperate livestock producers.
I ask the member, after having announced in the budget the $17 million and some to this fabled non-existent program, redirected to it so to speak, why is the minister simply offering would-be slaughterhouse investors the sleeves off his vest? Why is the minister doing that with such mockery to producers across our country?