There are two parts to that question. The first go-round of the crop logistics working group, and I did have the honour of co-chairing it in its first iteration, was to be focusing on issues that included producer cars and the transformation away from the Canadian Wheat Board's role to an open market system. We had a subcommittee that took a look at that.
We had a subcommittee that was set up to look at service-level agreements and bring all of agriculture together. That was almost in preparation for the facilitated discussions that Jim Dinning coordinated. I think that too was very successful.
The third area of focus was to take this initial look at performance measurements. That was where we started looking at what the ports were doing, the measurements that they were doing, what the railways were doing, and what certain shippers were doing. That's really where we found just a lack of integration across.... The methodologies for collecting numbers were different, and that was in part a learning process in terms of bringing everybody together.
I think that was the focus of the crop logistics working group in its first iteration. I think what the minister announced...and I have only had a chance to have a brief discussion—I was asked to be co-chair, and was glad to take it again—with the new deputy minister, Suzanne Vinet. We spoke very briefly last night about this.
The role is really about finding efficiencies and optimizing costs in our transportation system. It's all about competitiveness. It's a venue for collaboration of all of these stakeholders to work on improving efficiency. I want to emphasize that it's efficiencies not at one element of the chain but really from the farmer right through to the customer.
I just want to tell one story that I think really puts a lot of emphasis on it. It's about Colombia. It's a market that's important for wheat. It's a market that is important for pulses.
This has come from one importer, so you can argue that the importer's perspective was biased, but I've been down there many times, and the comment is very common. Our competition to get product into Colombia comes out of the gulf, which is a lot closer, and they can bring in a lot smaller vessels. The challenge that Canadians have, even when we had a temporary trade advantage with Colombia because of the Canada-Colombia trade agreement, is our reliability of supply. If you're an importer, it's all about whether the vessel will arrive when you want it to.
Going back to your question about the crop logistics working group, that is really going to be the measure: have we gotten product to customers when they've expected it, and have we done it in a cost-effective manner?