Agriculture committee  I'm sorry, yes, targeted advance requires both the agreement of the province and the federal government, because there is always a risk, because you're doing it on future payments. For example, British Columbia prefers to do an interim advance. Ontario prefers to do an interim ra

Agriculture committee  I would just add that one of your recommendations was also that we get agreement very quickly with the provinces so that we can accelerate the $600 million Kickstart program. Actually, we got our last agreement signed from the province on December 19. We had letters by the end of

Agriculture committee  This is for the cattle. I have another line. If you'd like, I could also—

Agriculture committee  Sure. Actually, I'll go right to Manitoba. In Manitoba, we actually have an agreement in place, and it includes negative margins. I was just speaking to the Manitoba Pork Council yesterday as part of a CPC meeting, and they have agreed to deliver in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B

Agriculture committee  Well, as you know, the advance payment program is delivered by third-party producer organizations. We haven't been able to find somebody in those provinces to actually deliver it. They do take on a slight portion of the risk. There's about a 1% portion of the risk that they tak

Agriculture committee  According to the person I spoke to in Manitoba Pork, in Alberta he is expecting to have the signature with the financial institution in the next two days. As soon as that happens, he can start delivering.

Agriculture committee  No. They know the sector very well. It will be available, but we will monitor. And we will continue to work with anybody who wants to deliver it locally. That's not an issue.

Agriculture committee  The change to the advance payment program that allows a billion dollars more is actually in response to a recommendation that came in at the last standing committee, where producers were asking that it not be tied to the reference margin. Cattle producers, in particular, were say

Agriculture committee  We worked with the industry. It was done at the end of December. We put them in in January. We put out the draft in January, so it would have been in the last month. This is a new change that was made to respond to the sector needs.

Agriculture committee  I would have to tell you the exact date, but it was at some point in January. It's January now, so it was at some point in this month.

Agriculture committee  It is available right now.

Agriculture committee  With the list? Sure. In Ontario, negative margin is in place as well. In Quebec, we don't have an agreement yet. Negative margin isn't as applicable because they have the ASRA as well. In Nova Scotia, the amendment is actually with Nova Scotia Pork for signature right now. I

Agriculture committee  I can start with your question about CAIS or AgriStability. Probably part of your questions arise because when we are talking about what is going out to the industry in the short term in the form of payments through existing programs, for the 2006 year it is still under the CAIS

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Production insurance, as you know, is a provincial jurisdiction. However, what we have been doing, and as we did find, when we create the frameworks and when we create capacity for learning from other jurisdictions, it's facilitated other provinces to take

Agriculture committee  First, this program is a federal initiative, so the provinces make no financial contribution to it. However, the Government of Quebec was consulted because that is who manages the renewal program. It also had to be asked to provide funds for the direct option. This program is a