Agriculture committee  I've done a fair bit of looking back when it comes to that question. My grandfather had 30 cows. I have 300. It's all relative. We have the equipment now to do the work. He worked probably harder than I do right now. It's the same amount of hours, the same stress, the same cashflow issues as it was 40 years ago, but it's just all relative.

Agriculture committee  Well, as I said, it's a double-edged sword. It needs monitoring; otherwise, these programs can be abused. In all fairness, we had to do a lot of hard work with our own provincial government to get that moved forward to the feds. It's a new program, with some of these others. There's no perfect program, and it takes a while to get all the bugs out of it too.

Agriculture committee  I fully understand your position as government. You want to have programs to help people, but you don't want programs abused, and I fully understand that. That help came out in March. I think in November or December, once the ground was frozen and it was pretty much game over, if we could have had confirmation that there was something coming, it would have been huge.

Agriculture committee  I'd have to agree. The owner is the one doing the work. I don't think it should be based on size. Guys are going to the size they are so that they can make a living farming without working off-farm. That's why they're doing that.

Agriculture committee  Well, as I said, it could have come more quickly. We knew in September that we were facing a train wreck up there. We knew in August that we were in big trouble. There was assurance that something was coming, and for all sectors. A lot of the grain producers got some excess moisture insurance, but that didn't cut the mustard for the mess they made on their fields trying to take the crop off—the ruts, and then all the money to level them out.

Agriculture committee  My thinking is that we need the right environment so more businesses will want to set up and there'd be more competition. That was my train of thought on it.

Agriculture committee  I think you've got to have something that gives the young farmers an advantage over everyone else, whether that's help on their mortgages if they're under 40 or a higher rate on these cash advances that the established guys can't get. I think that's the only way the young guys are going to be able to get that bit of advantage they need so that they can compete against that equity that they just don't have.

Agriculture committee  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on the current state of young farmers. It's nice to see again a few of you I've met over the last few years. My name is Joe Bouchard, and I am a 30-year-old, third-generation farmer from the Fisher Branch area.