I have an example of that, about the risk.
We were shipping potatoes this year to Venezuela and quality standards were really met. When the product arrived, Venezuela had changed the standards. Right now the Canadian government--it is being worked on right now--is not willing to trade through Export Development Corporation, to take the risk. I know we know how Export Development works, but there you're passing your customer's name and they look at how credible he is to pay the money.
What happened, then, is Venezuela is a very tricky country, of course, with stability from the government. So then the product arrived there, and of course Venezuela had changed the rules. Also, there was no payment to these exporters. The exporters came good, they paid for this, but who wants to tackle a market that is not ensured? The exporters don't want to bother with this any more. They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, all because Export Canada didn't want to take the risk.
So I don't know, is there any way we can change that rule a little bit? This market has been in P.E.I. maybe for the last 20, 30 years, and maybe some people can comment on that, too. What I see is, because of political issues that are out of exporters' and farmers' control, we're losing big money and markets, and that is an issue. The potatoes came there. There was an official sent from Canada, to look at the product afterwards. It was all fine; it was all in good shape.
So we have to have Canada also stand up for these issues. These are export problems. They should stand up for this.
But looking at some other stuff, I think it's all great, these programs--CAIS, AgriStability--but it's not the root of the problem. You've got to do something with the imports, food coming across the borders, wherever it comes from, from the United States, or imports. We have to slow that down somehow. I don't know how, but I think that's the only way to do it, I think, for the farmers to survive.