Agriculture committee  The government did recognize that there were gaps in the risk programs available for supply management through the Health of Animals Act. It recognized that in some commodities the compensation payments through the Health of Animals Act needed to be augmented. From what we know now, the current program, CAIS, will likely not assist our producers to 100%.

Agriculture committee  I just wanted to clarify for the committee as well that traditionally supply management has considered supply management to be its business management tool. That's why Jacques is saying we don't know the details of it, because a lot of the program development has been geared to other commodities outside of supply management.

Agriculture committee  As I said earlier, one of our producers in Saskatchewan had avian influenza. His flock was depopulated. As Harold said, it's not the value of the bird. Egg farmers aren't in production for the birds themselves; the marketable product is the eggs. Our farmers are compensated for the birds, so we have an issue with the compensation levels to start with.

Agriculture committee  To follow up on that question, in addition to what Harold was saying, we are living the experience right now with a producer in Saskatchewan. We feel that the compensation that is being proposed is not sufficient and we've been told the programs he can rely on currently are the CAIS programs.