Public Accounts committee  Unfortunately, no, the benchmark processing units are basically what distinguish the cost of the various types, whether it be grain or feedstock, and so they are very specific to the type of products. Because agriculture has such a wide band of products, those identify the prices

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry. I should have brought the statistics. I didn't bring them directly with me. As the deputy minister said, the take-up in terms of taking a look at the program online is not as much as we had hoped, exactly because of what the honourable member had mentioned in terms o

Public Accounts committee  Our current number is 675. However, that is how many people work in the farm income programs directorate, which delivers CAIS, where Canada delivers. In terms of a second question you asked, we also deliver the AgriInvest. We will be delivering AgriInvest everywhere in Canada o

Public Accounts committee  These people do all of that.

Public Accounts committee  That whole directorate basically does AgriInvest and AgriStability, and they're the same ones who just did the $1 billion that government put out--the $400 million and $600 million. It's the same group that does all of that work.

Public Accounts committee  They would have been doing other programs. At the time they would have had the farm income program. They would have had CFIP at the time.

Public Accounts committee  First of all, if any employee starts with the department, they are asked automatically to identify if they fill out anything, including that. As an example, when a new employee did start, I believe it was in this last year, they came in and said they had filled out CAIS forms in

Public Accounts committee  I would like to clarify. All program payments are reviewed--100% of them--by the administration.

Public Accounts committee  It had come to our attention that this was happening--

Public Accounts committee  We actually asked them to stop--

Public Accounts committee  No, I do not.

Public Accounts committee  Not each and every one, but we have reviewed some files.

Public Accounts committee  I couldn't give you an exact percentage.

Public Accounts committee  I believe our current forecast spending is still over a billion dollars. I don't have it offhand, but I know it's over a billion dollars. You're right, the wheat and grain prices are going up, but unfortunately our livestock sector is facing a downward twist, so they will be ge

Public Accounts committee  It depends. For example, the AgriInvest program will have anywhere between 150,000 and 160,000 people applying for it. The Kickstart program that just went out a couple of months ago to help set up the accounts had over 155,000. For the AgriStability program we usually get anywhe