Yes, the minister went to great lengths to talk about how wonderful the program for crop loss damage was for P.E.I. and for Cape Breton and for Peace River. I'll tell you that from the farmer's perspective on the ground, and I'll quote a letter here from the P.E.I. Potato Board, the program was basically an insult: $12.4 million was announced; about $3 million to $3.2 million was spent. I think, on the political side, the minister did a good job in terms of announcing the money. On the expenditure side, in terms of trying to get the money out there, somebody somewhere in the system has made it so restrictive that the money doesn't get to producers.
As an example, one cent per acre is $250. The cost of potatoes per acre--just the cost--is $2,600. We have one farmer who lost $1.4 million worth of potatoes in the field and in storage, and he cannot get any of that money turned over for the storage losses.
Maybe you can get back to me on this. The board says that they were told, “The AgriRecovery only addresses gaps in the federal-provincial suite of BRM programs, but when we identify what we consider to be gaps, we're told by the bureaucracy that they do not qualify”.
We lost potatoes. A program was set up for water-lost crops. It's the same water. It's the same weather that cost them the losses in storage, because they went in wet. So why does the program not qualify for that? You can get back to me on that.
The other question I want a written answer for, if you can get it for me, relates to what David asked earlier. The hog and beef farmers are still suffering, and they've borrowed more money. How much money has actually gone out to farmers, for interest relief or whatever, that doesn't have to be paid back, and how much has the hog and beef farmers' debt load gone up?
Brian, can you get back to us on this as well? There is a real dispute on the number of inspectors--there's no question on that--between us and the government. On these pilot programs--whether they were started by the previous government or this one doesn't matter--can you document the number of hours under those programs that inspectors.... You mentioned that veterinarians need to spend their time on the line. Well, what we're hearing now is that veterinarians are spending their time looking at and auditing paper and driving between plants. Can you get back to this committee with some kind of analysis of the veterinarians' lost time on lines now? Because they're spending the time either being on the road between plants or shuffling paper,while private industry, really, in effect, does the inspections. If you could get back to us on that, it would be great.
Oh, I have one last question. You can't answer right away, I guess. Did the minister say in his presentation that the cost-of-production program is now cancelled? That was a commitment for $100 million per year into the future from the Government of Canada. Are we now hearing that the program has been cancelled, and if so, where has the money gone?