Thanks to all of you for being here.
Mr. McInnes, I'd just like to follow up on what you were talking about with health care and diet. I'm going to just throw out my questions, and hopefully we'll have enough time so that all of you can respond.
We talked about health care and diet. What I found most certainly when I did my cross-Canada food strategy hearings was that there was a lot of feedback to the fact that the more we support a good diet, the fewer costs there are for our health care system.
Should government have a role in perhaps mandating or legislating local procurement policies, either at the provincial or federal level, such as a certain percentage of food, for example, for state and federal institutions? Should there be some kinds of programs in place to support farmers? I know the U.S. has coupons for seniors to go to farmers' markets. In B.C. we had a pilot project where low-income families got coupons to go to farmers' markets. Should we be encouraging such a policy? It's well known that the more fruit and vegetables folks eat, the better their health is. That's one area.
The other one is the whole area of GMOs. I know that my Conservative colleagues will be happy that there is some talk of GM labelling going on in the United States in regard to freedom of choice—in other words, the choice to be able to choose GM foods or not. I'm just wondering what effect it could have here on our supply chain. Something like one million people signed a petition asking the FDA to label genetically engineered foods. There were over 500 partner organizations who helped to galvanize this movement.
In the State of California, I just found out, they are calling to have a referendum in the November ballot. If approved, the California position would have a ripple effect. There would be mandatory labelling of GE foods in California. Obviously, because California has been a leader in many instances, this would have a ripple effect, and probably, then, there would be mandatory labelling throughout the States, and it would probably come here.
If this were to happen, what effect do all of you think that would have on the food chain? Do you have any comments? We know, for example, that Europe and many other countries have this labelling.
I'll just throw those two out, and hopefully you'll have enough time to respond. Maybe Mr. McInnes can start.