Agriculture committee  Good morning. Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, I didn't write any paperwork up. I'm going to try to shoot from the hip. This is the first time I've been invited to one of these conferences, so I'm a little nervous.

Agriculture committee  I agree with Peter. I should have dyed my hair this morning, too, with all these young people here.

Agriculture committee  I've still got mine. I've been farming for 35 years at a dairy farm in Stewiacke, Nova Scotia. We milk 200 cows. I've also been a livestock broker/cattle dealer for 41 years. My son came into the operation in 2003, and we made a major expansion of over $3 million six weeks befor

Agriculture committee  I'd like to start on that and the milk issue part of it. We get roughly 70¢ a litre at the farm gate for our milk; that's what we get per month's pay cheque. I think we're pretty near the highest in Canada, besides Newfoundland, for milk in the stores, compared to Ontario and Que

Agriculture committee  Sorry, Pat, I took this one.

Agriculture committee  Scott, can I make a comment to this?

Agriculture committee  Scott, you said programs. I'm going to ask, what programs? Our CAIS, our NISTA, or whatever it's called, is four years behind after you pay into it. They change the wording on it every six months in different programs. You've got to be a Philadelphia lawyer to run around and find

Agriculture committee  Can I make a comment, Larry, to this?

Agriculture committee  I already said no, but I want to make a statement right now.

Agriculture committee  I will be very brief. From all the farmers I've talked to in the last five years, and I've talked to a lot of them, the Canadian government is going to sell all the farmers out. They don't care any more.

Agriculture committee  Individual provinces?

Agriculture committee  On programs and debt reduction, on the interest.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I tried to get into that program or to look at that program, but we got into financial difficulty in 2005, and no bank or lending institution would look at us, so I didn't qualify.

Agriculture committee  Bev, can I help Erica out a little on the quota thing you mentioned? In Nova Scotia they've just started what I'd call a lottery. They're going to draw one producer a year to get this free quota. It's a lottery.