Mr. Speaker, that is not what the parliamentary secretary said in the press release he issued yesterday. He said that the existing programs are enough. He is creating false hope.
This morning, I spoke to the president of the Fédération des producteurs de pommes de terre du Québec, Pierre Chouinard, who told me that the CAIS program was not working. On October 6, the minister announced that he planned to set up a new disaster assistance program.
Given that, under the Health of Animals Act, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency compensates producers who are forced to destroy their animals, does the minister intend to do the same for producers in Saint-Amable and provide them with immediate compensation under the Plant Protection Act?