CORNWALL — Eastern Ontario MP Guy Lauzon says farmers should hang in with the Conservatives as new funding money announced in this year’s budget takes time to process.

The new funding — $1.5 billion this year – was unanimously accepted in the House of Commons as part of the budget but the cheques covering payments through an enhanced Canadian Income Stabilization program (CAIS) won’t be mailed out until late August, he said. "That was general knowledge so that farmers could take that to the bank," Lauzon said. "The cheques aren’t out but they will be damn soon."

The Ontario Corn Producers Association agrees, estimating that about $450 million of that money will be mailed out to individual farmers in September or October. Another $450 million won’t get out until next year and the government has yet to announce how to spend an additional $500 million that was announced in the budget.

"I understand the farmers when they say, ‘what’s wrong? Just cut me a cheque. It’s not that complicated.’ And it’s not that complicated," Lauzon noted, "if it is only one cheque."

But the government can only process 20,000 cheques per week, he said. And bureaucrats have to determine a pay out to individual farmers based on complex formulas.

He added that he has read some complaint letters to editors by farmers and some of those complaints are backed by Liberal-supporting farmers who have tilted the facts.

"We’re a farm-oriented party," he said. "The best friend the farmer has is the Conservative government. Forty of our 125 MPs are farmers or were farmers."

Lauzon, who was first elected in 2004 for the riding of Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry also has a connection to agriculture. Before jumping into politics he was the former general manager for Tri-County Protein, a Winchester soybean processing plant.