Agriculture committee  My comment is no, quite briefly. In our province the only other mode of transportation is road. And with that, a lot of our producers lose a competitive edge.

Agriculture committee  We sure can, and the costs are quite extreme. And somebody has to look at the environmental impact on this too.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for hearing us here today. My name is David Marit. I'm president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. With me here today is my good friend and our vice-president Jim Hallick. As a bit of background about the organization, we are an independent voluntary association representing all of Saskatchewan's 296 rural municipalities.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is David Marit. I'm president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. First of all, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food for inviting us here to present our views. I also commend the committee for studying this very important issue.

Finance committee  We haven't had an indication. That's why it's in the submission today.

Finance committee  None.

Finance committee  None.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  Yes, I am.

Finance committee  I can only speak for the CAIS program in this province, and we've asked the federal government to make changes to it. It hasn't been working for the producers in this province. They've made some changes to it, so I guess my comment would be that I'd like to see how these changes are going to work.

Finance committee  No, it's still very important to us. We knew our timeframe, though, so we wanted to hit on a few topics. This is the last year of the program. It was a great program for rural Saskatchewan to build an infrastructure in our road network. We would like to see some changes to it, because we went through the process.

Finance committee  The municipal portion that we received was $125 million. It was in that neighbourhood from the federal government, and then it leveraged provincial and municipal dollars over and above that amount.

Finance committee  No, the program has just come to its fruition. This year, 2006, is the last year, and now we're just trying to get—

Finance committee  We don't have all day.

Finance committee  Our organization does have a position on the Wheat Board, as a resolution had passed at our convention. The resolution states that we do support the Canadian Wheat Board and the single desk. That resolution passed at our March 2006 convention. I was invited to Mr. Anderson's round table here in Saskatoon in July.