Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his constructive criticism.
It did not surprise me at all that the canola growers would want a bigger program to administer, since they are the ones that administer it. At the end of the day, only 2% of farmers, to date, hit the $400,000 cap. They want me to double it to $800,000 to catch whom? It is the big farmers. The member just made the statement that he wants to ensure that there are still small farmers out there. That is what we are doing by maintaining this cap at $400,000. We changed it from $250,000 under the Liberals to $400,000 when I became minister. We also changed the $50,000 interest free to $100,000 interest free, and we added livestock. We significantly changed this program in the last few years.
To increase it to $800,000, as I said, would only affect 2% of farmers, so that really was not a constructive amendment.
I recognize the great work the canola growers do, but I would not be shocked that they came forward and said, “We want more money to play with”. However, they do not need it. As I said, only 2% of farmers hit the cap now.
On his other point on penalties, which the CCA brought forward, it was a bit of a misunderstanding by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, unfortunately, and the member for Sydney—Victoria has picked it up, in that the federal government only comes into play post farm gate. Everything done on the farm, and these were the examples they gave, was on the farm. They were concerned about the onerous penalties. That is all at provincial level. That is not us at all. There is a bit of misinformation out there that the punitive side of on-farm animal husbandry could go up. That would be up to the provinces, not the federal government.
CFIA, our regulatory agency, only comes into play from transportation from the farm gate on through the processing sector and so forth, so there is a bit of misinformation there.