Agriculture committee  Our industry values research to a very high degree, to the point that we put 30% of our gross income, or about $500,000 a year, into research of one sort or another. A lot of it goes as core funding to the Prairie Swine Centre. With respect to canola meal, there's been a lot of work done on that already; more needs to continue, but it's a known quantity, with a pea-canola meal that would offset soybean meal.

Agriculture committee  I personally didn't go, but I know the industry was represented at them. We were told there was good consultation. Quite frankly, it's really important that we have days like today and consultations like that, because we'd like to have some input into various things. What was the result of it?

Agriculture committee  Well, from a 30,000-foot view, I think what we look at in Canada is a whole farm type of farm support that keeps spiralling down and gets less and less all the time, and quite frankly, it's not working. You're dead right. We have a crisis in this country in terms of the agricultural primary producers.

Agriculture committee  Let's keep it simple—take it off the input side, avoid the administration and the long-term delay in terms of getting it back.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Trost, with respect to the regulatory issues, I think it's important to make a couple of points. First of all, for our industry or for those industries that don't have a large critical mass, licensing a new product in Canada is extremely expensive, and therefore a lot of the suppliers of those products simply don't want to do it because it's not worth what they're going to get out of it after the fact.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Easter, if I remember your questions, there are two of them, both with respect to Maple Leaf. On the first one, in terms of the retail, I appreciate that during the restructuring that Mr. McCain has done, he's focusing really entirely on the domestic market, and I think the international one is really not where he wants to be.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I'd like to respond to that. For those not in supply management, trade is absolutely essential. We've actually been forced, because of the way our policy has developed in Canada, as a national organization to attend the Geneva meetings and stuff like that. We find it's really unfortunate that we can't settle this in Canada before we go to the world stage.

Agriculture committee  That is a very good question, and that is one that's top of mind with everybody who has had to sign one of these contracts.

Agriculture committee  No. And coincidentally, the five-year contracts were only for people who had delivered to Saskatoon. If you previously delivered to Brandon from anywhere else in Saskatchewan, there are still one-year contracts available.

Agriculture committee  No, it's exactly the same one. The first nations, the Big Sky Farms, and the producers at large are all participating in this plant cooperatively or collectively.

Agriculture committee  We're full march on it right now. We've been working very diligently on this. There are a few pieces to the puzzle that need to be finished, but we would really like to move forward. What we're really looking for right now is the appropriate person to market the product for us, so we're pursuing some opportunities there.

Agriculture committee  Oh, yes. We anticipate that it will be 18 months to two years, once we get rolling.

Agriculture committee  Right, thanks. It's a big issue. This is how we've dealt with it, and it has yet to play out, so we're not full score all the way there. We're thinking of doing our own packing plant. Actually when Maple Leaf bought Schneiders, which bought the old Mitchell's plant in Saskatoon three years ago, we anticipated that they may have bought it to close it down, so we did a feasibility study at that time.

Agriculture committee  You bet, so it's a partnership between producers, who are going to put up about 25% of the money. It's unique, because we have the first nations that are interested in participating as well. They're putting up a significant amount of money. The city is very supportive. The province is quite supportive.

Agriculture committee  That's right. There is a vaccine for circovirus now that just came out recently, and it's in very short supply. Consequently, everybody who wants it can't get it. My point was that the regulatory licensing and withdrawal time of that product in Canada is quite different from that in the country where it originated.