No, and I fully understand that. I think it's just important that.... You know, we're looking at the future of agriculture and what we as policy-makers can change to encourage more investment in the industry and more young people to get in. You only have to look east of Manitoba to find out that there isn't a Canadian Wheat Board, and people seem to be facing the same challenges, so obviously there isn't a definite fix one way or the other.
I often think that when you're trying to get into something, sometimes the rules that are set around that entrance may discourage you from even considering it at that point too. I think those are some of the challenges we have to address, and I think that's why we're here today to listen.
Joe, you talked about insurance programs or programs that pick up during disasters and things, and I think that has been a challenge for all governments. We tried to move it out of agriculture relief into a disaster assistance program, simply because it's very easy to see.
In 1997 we had a tremendously wet spring; in fact, a lot of the crops didn't get in until really late June. As a provincial government, we were being pushed hard at that time to come forward with a program. The challenge we found was that if you come too soon with the program, guys back away from trying to do what they're supposed to do; if you come too late, often you go in and they've ruined their fields, so it's a delicate balance.
We could see the disaster. We saw the disaster in your area, and it's hard to get the mechanisms in place to deal with it until it almost hits the wall. Do you have any thoughts on how we can maybe pre-empt that in some way? Is there a formula or is there a process we should be doing better to make sure we're ready to respond more quickly?