In the past, I have written extensively on the difficult economic conditions facing farmers, especially those not in supply management. Yet, since I last wrote on this issue things have not gotten better. Recently, farmers have been drawing attention to their plight. You may have seen the yellow signs that remind us that "Farmers Feed Cities" or seen the rallies across the province and country on the nightly news. During the recent campaign, we made the following commitments to address the farm income crisis. First, we said we would speed up delivery of the $755 million in emergency aid promised to grain and oilseed farmers in November. Second, we said we would replace CAIS with separate farm income stabilization and disaster relief programs, so that the new programs would be simpler and more responsive, and so that they would properly address the cost of production, market revenue, and inventory evaluation. Third, we said we would commit an additional $500 million annually to farm support programs. Finally, we said that we would ensure that domestic supply managed industries remain viable. We remain steadfast in these commitments. We are delivering on our first commitment. On our first day in office, our government accelerated the payout of the $755 million to grains and oilseeds farmers. We have already sent more than 50,000 cheques to farmers across Canada. In Ontario alone, more than $30 million has already been paid to more than 11,000 farmers. We do recognize the limits of this funding. With regard to the second commitment, to replace CAIS with separate farm income stabilization and disaster relief programs, we are developing plans to implement this commitment. We cannot implement this immediately, since we are well into the year 2006, and to put in place these big changes mid-way through the year would cause more problems than it would solve. We will, however, make the incremental changes previously agreed to by federal and provincial minis- Government committed to helping farmers Michael Chong