Mr.Chair, a number of changes and improvements have been made to the program. To make things easier for our administrators, we have postponed some of the changes that could have been problematic.
Yes, so some of the changes made it more problematic for the producers. The minister must take responsibility for these delays. Farmers deserve an answer on why she changed the program. Who advised her that it would be a good idea to make it more difficult for the farmers to access the advance payment program in the middle of a pandemic? Or did she just go ahead and do this on her own?
Mr.Chair, we are constantly working with the administrators of the program. We are fully prepared to respond to their requests so that the advance payments program can best serve our producers across the country.
Livestock producers are telling me that the premiums for the western livestock insurance program are too high. I told the Minister of Agriculture over two weeks ago that this was a problem, and yet she went out and said that farmers needed to make better use of existing support. When will the Minister of Agriculture listen to what the farmers are saying so they can actually use the existing programs?