Agriculture Committee on April 30th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

I'd like to call the 27th meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to order. We move forward on another day on the study of the innovation and competitiveness in agriculture.

We have the pleasure to have witnesses in the first hour.

From the Canadian Seed Trade Association, we have Patty Townsend, who is the CEO. Welcome, Patty.

From the Canadian Horticultural Council, we have Anne Fowlie, who is the executive vice-president.

Ms. Townsend, you get to go first, and you have seven minutes.

[Patty Townsend, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Seed Trade Association]

Thank you very much for the invitation. Three times lucky: we finally got here. We had cancellations and votes and all kinds of things going on, so it's nice to finally be here and meet with you.

I'm happy to come here to talk to you about the role of the seed industry as the foundation for agricultural innovation and competitiveness. I bring apologies from our president who is unable to come to Ottawa on this short notice. He is from Winnipeg and I don't fly him in unless it's a certainty, so you're stuck with me, but I'll do my best to make a contribution to your study.

The Canadian Seed Trade Association brings together 132 member companies. Our members are involved in all aspects of seed, from plant breeding and variety development, to production, processing, packaging, marketing, sales, and trade.

Our members range from single grower retailers to the large multinational companies, and from distributors of small packet organic herb and spice seeds to the world's giants of biotechnology. We have a very diverse membership. Our members have diverse interests and objectives. Many are competitors in the marketplace, but they come together as the Canadian Seed Trade Association in support of our mission, which is to foster seed industry, innovation, and trade.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has estimated that nine out of every ten bites of food taken around the world starts with the planting of a seed. Seed is the foundation of the world's food supply and it's an important contributor to its supply of fibre, fuel, and industrial products.

Seed is the driver of the innovation that the world's farmers are going to need in order to meet the goal of feeding, fuelling, and clothing a world population that is expected to reach over nine billion people in about 35 years.

Studies have shown that over half of the yield in gain of most crops is from the genetic improvement that's delivered by seed, so farmers are looking to the seed sector, my members, to provide them with superior genetics so that they will improve productivity and protect the environment in which they operate.

Almost every week there is another announcement of a significant achievement in plant breeding and research by public and private investors and researchers. The impacts are already substantial. According to Science Daily there has been a step change in speed and cost-effectiveness. What previously took six generations to achieve can now be done in just two.

Recent achievements, ranging from the discovery of a gene that can improve photosynthesis, to genome sequencing for wheat and chickpeas, to the development of insect-tolerant wheat varieties promise future yield increases of more than 50% in the world's staple crops.

In the shorter term, advances are being made in drought and heat resistance, efficiency of water and nutrient use, disease resistance, and in the quality and health benefits of oils and meals. All of these and other advances are entering the innovation pipeline at a rapid pace and they hold great promise for farmers and consumers.

The question then is whether and how Canadian farmers will be able to access these advances. The answer is only when Canada's policy and regulatory environment facilitates investment.

Where the private sector is able to generate a return, it does invest. In 2012 CSTA's members invested over $109 million in research, plant breeding, and variety development. That's 5% of their combined sales and represents a 94% increase from the five years previous.

Most of that investment, however, has only been in three crops, canola, corn, and soybeans, where the operating environment facilitates a return on that investment in order to reinvest in the development of even better varieties.

Breeders and developers working with these crop kinds operate in a more flexible regulatory environment. For example, corn is not subject to variety registration, and canola and soybean registration has evolved to meet the needs of the marketplace.

These crops also have access to better tools to protect their inventions: new traits, attributes, and varieties. The development of hybrid corn and hybrid canola means that farmers purchase seed every crop cycle in order to continue to get the superior aspects of those hybrids. Improved performance and attributes in canola, corn, and soybeans have also been developed with the use of modern biotechnology, which allows for the use of more effective intellectual property protection tools like patents and technology use agreements.

However, private sector investment in some of Canada's other major crops, like wheat, barley, oats, flax, and pulse crops, has lagged. In 2012 only 8% of private sector investment was in cereals, 2% in barley breeding, 1% in flax breeding, and there was no significant investment in the breeding of oats or pulse crops.

To date, the Government of Canada has been the largest investor in plant breeding in these crops. But the government has been reducing and redirecting investment in plant breeding and research and is looking to the private sector to fill in, either on its own or in partnership with public institutions. The private sector is keen to increase its role, but that can only happen in a policy and regulatory environment that will foster investment.

First, our members need a continued commitment to regulatory and trade decisions that are founded in science. Science is reproducible and measurable. Regulatory processes that are based on science ensure that innovation is assessed in a consistent manner, giving confidence to consumers and to the developers of innovation. Public opinion, market acceptance, and other socio-economic factors are not consistent over time or geography, and they must not enter into regulatory and trade decisions made by governments.

Second, private sector investors need flexible, predictable, and enabling regulatory environments. The government has taken some substantial steps toward improved regulatory systems, including the removal of kernel visual distinguishability as a requirement for wheat variety registration, and the development of a framework that could, but doesn't yet, facilitate more efficient variety registration for all crops. However, there is still so much more to do. While I'm speaking of variety registration, I need to point out that the so-called three-part registration system implemented five years ago has not yet improved registration because even within the system, changes that should be simple have to be made by regulation.

We look forward to some of the provisions contained in Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act, which we hope you will soon have before you, and we hope that we will be appearing on it. Specifically, we support the ability to use foreign data for registration purposes and the ability to incorporate some documents by reference. The review of the registration system that was launched last fall is also positive for plant breeders and developers. We hope that it will give crop value chains the opportunity to design systems that will best suit their needs.

Third, in order for the private sector to invest, it needs to be able to generate a return that will cover its costs. That has not generally been the case in crops like wheat. One of our members provided us with a real-life example, FT Wonder, which was developed in Ontario. The company invested nine years and over $900,000 to develop and bring this soft red winter wheat to the market. After three years in the marketplace, the company had not even recovered half of its investment. Obviously, this is not sustainable.

Effective protection of intellectual property means that plant breeders and developers can set conditions on the use of their varieties for a specified period of time. The conditions can, and most often do, include remuneration or a royalty. For crops like cereals, pulse crops, flax, and other crops, the only real form of intellectual property protection is plant breeders' rights.

Bill C-18, as you know, strengthens plant breeders' rights, by giving breeders the ability to set conditions for a longer time and over more uses. For example, in addition to selling and advertising for sale, the breeder can set conditions on production, reproduction, conditioning, stocking for sale, and import and export of these varieties. At the same time, the bill entrenches an exception for farmers to allow them to save and store grain from protected varieties and to condition it for use as seed on their own farms.

Amended plant breeders' rights legislation will give plant breeders and developers increased confidence to invest in Canada, and it will also give international plant breeders and developers the confidence to give Canadian farmers access to superior varieties developed beyond our borders.

The last thing for today is that our members need improved access to markets. Canada is the world's fifth largest exporter of seed. Our production environment, comprehensive food safety regulations, seed quality standards, and efficient production and processing systems give us an advantage over many of our competitors. However, Canada is not able to capture some very substantial opportunities internationally because many countries impose barriers to trade that are not founded in science but are politically driven.

We appreciate that the government has adopted a very aggressive trade agenda. We encourage negotiators to remain steadfast in all negotiations in support of timely and science-based approvals and the development of trade-facilitating measures to address low-level presence of approved genetically modified events in shipments of grain and seed.

I apologize if I've gone over time, Mr. Chairman, but I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms. Townsend.

Now I'll go to Ms. Fowlie, for seven minutes, please.

[Anne Fowlie, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Horticultural Council]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to speak within the context of your study on innovation.

Canada's horticulture industry is an industry that very much aspires to be innovative, profitable, sustainable, healthy, and bring health with the products we grow for the future and for future generations.

The council represents producers from across Canada primarily involved in the production and packaging of over 100 different fruit and vegetable crops, apples to zucchini, literally. Members include provincial and national horticultural commodity organizations, as well as allied and service organizations, provincial governments, and individual producers.

We represent members on a number of key issues, such as crop protection, access to a consistent supply of farm labour, food safety and traceability, fair access to markets, research and innovation, and government programs.

The mission is to ensure a more innovative, profitable, and sustainable horticultural industry for future generations. Producers are committed to ensuring that strong Canadian farms will continue to be able to provide safe, secure, and healthy food for families in Canada and around the world.

I believe we have a demonstrable record of success in this regard. It includes the seasonal agricultural worker program, established over 40 years ago, which was very innovative at the time; and establishment of the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation under article 707 of NAFTA. CHC was integral to the establishment of the Pest Management Centre, and the CHC office was previously recognized as IR-4 North as Canadian trials were coordinated with the U.S. IR-4. CHC also developed and established the CanadaGAP food safety program for fruit and vegetables grown in Canada, which was the first food safety program in Canada benchmarked to the global food safety initiative.

We also led a collaborative initiative, which included the World Wildlife Fund, to develop an integrative fruit production program for the industry. We're a founding member of GrowCanada, and an active participant in a number of value chain round tables and other collaborative initiatives, such as Partners in Innovation.

Improving food diversity and security in a buy Canadian for Canadians manner is a priority that will only be achieved through: dialogue, understanding, and strategic collaboration through adequate funding for research and innovation; appropriate actions to develop and implement policies and programs that foster producer profitability, and that includes traditional and non-traditional risk management programs; ensuring a favourable regulatory environment that is conducive to commerce; and timely access to new crop protection technologies.

As indicated by my colleague, these must be science-based, and we need proper dispute resolution mechanisms, whether it's here domestically or within any of our trade agreements. The language might be good, but they have to be practical. They have to work.

Research and innovation are critically important to maintaining the competitiveness of Canada's horticultural sector. The initial and subsequent announcement of the Canadian agri-innovation program, specifically the clusters, with the stated purpose to encourage key agricultural organizations to mobilize and coordinate a critical mass of science and technical capacity in industry, was certainly welcome. It was received with enthusiasm and a sense of opportunity.

Our industry rationalized its needs and priorities vis-à-vis research and innovation defined with theme areas: health and wellness, food safety and quality, production and production systems, environmental performance of the horticultural system primarily but not limited to pest management, as well as energy management and efficiency. Those themes have served us well and were reaffirmed in 2013.

The CHC-led agri-science cluster for horticulture was a multi-activity project funded by Agriculture Canada in the amount of just under $5 million for science cluster one with an additional contribution from industry of $1.4 million. We were fortunate within Growing Forward 2 to also secure funding for science cluster two.

There have been a lot of successes and accomplishments from cluster one, and we look forward to more success with cluster two. Certainly I would offer that in any future opportunities, should the committee agenda allow, to bring forward witnesses who could speak to those successes and the positive results of investments that have been made. It's important to speak to the people who are the practitioners.

The market access secretariat was created in 2009 as an initial response to the implementation of industry's recommendations to strengthen how Canada approaches market access. Again, there were a number of successes there, but more are to be had. There are other success stories waiting to be had. Most recently for us in our case, we were able to access the Chinese market for cherries in 2013.

Crop protection has certainly been the subject of previous attention and studies by this committee. Investment and innovation are required there through producers and through the manufacturers. We've been very much proponents for the establishment of the Pest Management Centre. I think that's really been one of the success stories of Agriculture Canada.

There is much to be done with pollinators as well in terms of innovation. I think horticulture is very much an exemplary model of how co-existence between production and pollinators can thrive, but there is going to need to be research and innovation taking place there.

Bill C-18, which was also mentioned by my colleague, and our president.... It must be Manitoba for presidents. Our president is from Winkler and he also sent his regrets, but he was with Minister Ritz in Winnipeg in December when, of course, the bill was tabled.

We are very much strong proponents of and support the amendments to plant breeders' rights legislation. As farms work to match production with the growing global population, it becomes increasingly important that they have the tools needed to continue to increase production. New varieties are an important segment of the growth, and strengthening plant breeders' rights in Canada to conform with UPOV 91 will encourage investment and breeding.

I must comment on the U.S. farm bill. I know it's often difficult to compare country to country and the programs in both because they never will be the same; however, certainly for us in our reliance on the U.S. market, we very much need to sometimes take stock of that and how it affects our competitive position. Certainly in the most recent farm bill, specialty crops, or horticulture as we refer to in Canada, were very much a winner, with significant increases in a number of areas that are important to us and that we compete directly with them, not only with the U.S. but abroad, regarding their market access program funding, other specialty crop programs, how they address foreign market access barriers, and of course, commitment to research and innovation. In developing our own programs, we cannot fully discount the strategies developed and applied in competing jurisdictions.

I think we also need to take some innovative approaches to succession planning. As we look to the next generation, I think we all recognize very much that there is a challenge and a need to have the next generation continue on with our farms.

The small business tax limit has not been changed since the mid-1970s. The limit uses a calculation that includes assets and debt to determine whether the business farm continues to be eligible for the exemption.

As the next generation becomes involved in the farm, there is a need to look at expanding the farm to ensure that the operation can sustain the growth or, in the case where there are brothers or what have you coming on, increasing the number of people who are dependent on the farm. We often see where this requires that the farm must purchase additional land and equipment, which very quickly results in the farm exceeding the $15 million limit, which forces the farm to pay much higher rates of tax. In some instances, we've had some of our members talk to us about succession. They've seen that bringing sons in increases their tax bracket from 25% to 47%. They don't object to paying tax, but is that an appropriate or innovative way to approach succession?

Changes to Growing Forward 2 that support programs for farms, such as agri-stability, must be rationalized, and the approaches reviewed as we look forward to an ex-strategic framework.

Opportunities are all around us, and the challenge is for all of us to ensure that they are fully realized. The Canada-U.S. regulatory cooperation council and associated work plan was, in many respects, innovative and very positively received and supported by us, and we hope it will continue. However, those initial objectives must be completed. In particular, when I look at the long-standing financial protection for produce sellers, I see that as a good example of something that has to be finished.

As always, we appreciate the opportunity to come before the committee and certainly would encourage or invite you as you travel the country to call upon us to visit any of our many members and see your investment at work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Madam Fowlie, for your great intervention.

I appreciate both presentations.

Before we go to our committee, I'll note that it's not very often that we have students who come in and not only want to learn about what committees do, but also want to hear the interventions for the presentations of witnesses and the interventions of our colleagues on the committee.

We have with us Janet Buckingham from Trinity Western here in Ottawa.

We want to thank you for taking the time to join us. This is public, so if you have to leave before we're all done, you're welcome to do that, but we really appreciate the fact that you have chosen to come in and sit with our committee. All the best to you, and I hope we can give you some useful information as you go back, as we're studying innovation and competitiveness in agriculture. We're going through a study on that and it's really quite interesting as we bring in the diversity and the broad components across the agriculture industry. Thank you for joining us.

With that, I'll now go to Madam Brosseau, for five minutes for questions, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I'd like to thank our witnesses for their presentations and also welcome the students. It's always nice to have more people come in and take an interest in the ag committee.

I'll start with two questions that apply to both of you.

On Monday we had witnesses come in who commented on the fact that we are losing scientists. We are losing specialists to other countries. I was wondering if that is something you have encountered in your fields of expertise. If so, what can be done to counter that in order to keep the bright minds here and maybe attract more?

The second question is about the agri-innovation program. Has it encouraged R and D in our industry? What works and what doesn't work? What can we do when it comes to recommendations to make it better if needed?

[Anne Fowlie]

Certainly, with respect to your comment around losing the fine minds, or not acquiring them in the first place, it's very much a concern. For us it has been the subject of many, many resolutions at annual meetings over a period of time, as we saw that through natural attrition, or for other reasons, positions were becoming vacant and simply not being replenished. That is in part certainly due to constraints around government funding, and also to some changes in approaches in the private sector as well. From our perspective, there's a huge deficiency in a number of areas in our research capacity in Canada, whether it's plant breeding or other types of science and specialties in the different crop disciplines. That's very much a concern.

As far as agri-innovation goes, yes, certainly it has brought a different approach and is a compelling reason, I guess, to approach thinking within the industry in a more organized and forward-thinking manner. That's always a good thing. I think part of the challenge around the program, certainly with cluster one, has been in rolling out anything new, and the logistics around doing it, and the learning that comes from delivering a program. We're certainly looking forward to cluster two, and we hope that some of the challenges around the delivery, the rollout, and the processing of payments will improve. It's a program we support, and we very much would support a third iteration of a similar program in the next strategic framework.

[Patty Townsend]

We had a survey done.

Human resources, and scientific minds in particular, have been really huge issues for the seed industry, just as they are for the horticulture industry. A few years ago Dr. Bryan Harvey from the University of Saskatchewan did a study for us concerning the ability to hire brilliant minds. He looked mainly at the scientific side of things—plant breeders and technicians who support plant breeders—and he determined that just to make up for attrition in our industry, in the plant breeding and development industry, we would need to hire 600 new scientists every year, and we can't find them.

That is a big problem for us. We have been working very hard in partnership with GrowCanada and other organizations to build up the sort of respect and desire to stay in Canada and come to Canada. We have a number of projects on the go from those, starting at the young high school level and going right up to university level. We have had campus ambassadors on university campuses promoting our industry and the scientific side of our industry. We bring kids to GrowCanada to learn about the agriculture sector and about the opportunities there, so we are really pushing on that.

We do a survey of our members every five years, in which we ask them about employment, in addition to asking them about what they invest in plant breeding and research. Actually the last two surveys have shown a slight increase. We also do a survey about the ability to find people and hire people, and we are seeing in our membership a slight increase. I don't think we're out of the woods by any means, but we are having some better impacts.

The agri-innovation program is an interesting one. It's not one that our members use regularly. I have looked at the agri-innovation program for purposes other than funding research clusters and things like that. We've been looking at things like how we can better set up an environment that is conducive to investment. We look at how other countries do things. We try to do some international work, but we haven't been able to get funding for that. It would be nice if some of the programs could be more forward-looking around a kind of policy and regulatory structure rather than focusing specifically where they do now.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

We also heard on Monday how the current programs have been kind of piecemeal over the past few years. Forward thinking and long-term vision are not things we see a lot of with the government, and those were things they called for on Monday. It's nice to hear again today that it's something the government should look at doing.

You mentioned bees and pollinators, and those are very important to agriculture, because without bees we will not have pollination and we will not have food. We've had witnesses come before committee and talk about bee losses, and about how this year we will probably have some more bee losses.

I was wondering if you could speak to the importance of the government investing more into research when it comes to bee health, because we all know it's very important to agriculture and industry and our future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

The issue is that the question took us well over your time, so I'm going to ask if we might come back to that for an answer on the second round.

I'll go now to Mr. Dreeshen, for five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I also would like to welcome the students for this discussion on innovation and competitiveness.

I think it's really important, especially when we have organizations such as yours that are really on the cutting edge in that regard.

Ms. Townsend, in your brief one of the things you spoke about was our trade agenda and where we're going, and also about how we have to make sure our decisions are science-based. Of course, as I've said on other occasions, there is a difference between political science and physical science. Since you, a physical scientist, are not going to say you could ever get to zero, while political scientists will say “hey” because they can't say that, it's something we have to be concerned about. Of course I think that's where low-level presence does come into some of the discussions.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the low-level presence aspect of it, and then I'd also like to go back and discuss UPOV 91 and where we see that going.

I know this is significant for both organizations, so perhaps you could start with the low-level presence and where you see that innovation, either in the science side or in the policy side, is going to help us do that.

[Patty Townsend]

I'll start on low-level presence. You only have five minutes, right?

Low-level presence is a huge issue in the seed industry. I know it's a huge issue in the grain industry as well. However, for the last number of years, our industry has been living low-level presence. With a lot of our seed companies particularly in the forage industry, for example, where Europe is their second largest market, and as you know, Europe has a zero tolerance for genetically modified products, forage seed is grown either on top of or right adjacent to huge fields of canola, soybeans, or corn, which are between 90% and 99% genetically modified. Reaching zero in a system where you're growing in an open environment, in fields that are often being planted with forage seed after a GM product, or even where bees, birds, and wind travel, is very difficult. In fact, it's impossible.

We've been working for a long time internationally to try to get agreement, particularly at the industry level, around some sort of policy that will facilitate trade while at the same time protecting the environment and creating predictability. In the seed industry, we are different from grain, because in seed, we very, very carefully try to keep our product separate. We have a huge amount of regulatory and other standards that keep us separate. We ensure that our product is separate. We have rigid seed standards that facilitate trade, and they have for a long time. We've been working to try to base a low-level presence policy on that.

In understanding low-level presence as a definition, it's a product that's already approved at 100% for food, feed, and environmental release, in a country where scientific processes are in line with international agreements. We're working very hard on it. It's very difficult. The capacity building is huge. There are a lot of countries that don't even understand what low-level presence is.

At the grain side of things, we're also very involved. However, things are kind of proceeding on two different tracks right now. In grain, as you know, the government has been working closely with industry, and there is a proposal for a policy for Canada. We've been working very hard on that as well. They don't want to talk about seed in that context, so we'll proceed on seed and then put the two together as we move forward on it. Hopefully, it will be in my lifetime that we have a process that will facilitate trade.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Perhaps, then, I could go to UPOV 91.

Ms. Fowlie, maybe I'll start with you, and if we have time, Ms. Townsend, we'll go back to that.

I know that there is an issue. Of course, this is something that we put in the new bill, and no doubt you'll have an opportunity, or hopefully you'll have an opportunity, to speak to that when we are discussing it.

Can you give us some idea of the significance of the UPOV 91? Particularly, I'm looking at the seed situation as far as farmers are concerned, so they can save and use their seed.

[Anne Fowlie]

I'll speak to it in part, and then I'm sure my colleague will have something to add as well.

As far as moving to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

A short answer, please.

[Anne Fowlie]

Very short.

My previous life was in the potato industry, from 1978 forward. There were so many instances where we could not get new plant material in Canada because the breeders, whether it was the Netherlands or elsewhere, simply would not come because the protection wasn't here. We did not have the regulatory regime that was conducive for them to have the confidence to send their investment to Canada. It was a real obstacle which held us back in many ways.

[Patty Townsend]

It's the same situation particularly in the grain industry. We have members who have made deals with European companies to bring varieties to test in Canada, and they have backed out of the deal because we couldn't protect it.

Around farm safe seed, there is nothing in this new bill that prevents farmers from saving the grain of protected varieties that they produce on their farm, cleaning it, storing it for production, producing it, and saving it as seed for production of more grain on their farm. There is nothing in the bill that prevents that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

I'd like to move on.

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

Now we go to Mr. Eyking, for five minutes, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, guests, for coming here.

I'd like to follow up on your comments on Bill C-18 and the seed issue. There are parts of this bill that are good, but the biggest pushback I'm getting is the classification that it's a privilege instead of a right. I agree with what you just said, but a lot of farmers are uncomfortable because a privilege means maybe you can, but maybe we can take that away from you.

Wouldn't you think that the wording should be a right instead of a privilege, that it should be a right that you can take these seeds and do what you just said?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Eyking, that bill will be coming forward. You can use your question as you want, but that bill will be coming forward and we'll have the bill in front of us. You might want to stick to the innovation and competitiveness part of it.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Part of innovation is seed, and I'm just following on where the other—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

I know, but I'm just saying the time will go on you, that's all.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

You can make a shortcut.

[Patty Townsend]

I really would like to answer that question.

The actual language in the UPOV 1991 convention is that it is an exception to the plant breeder's right. No matter what you call it—a right, a privilege, whatever you want to call it—it's still an exception to the plant breeder's right, and the language comes from UPOV 1991, which spells out very clearly what the farmer's exception is. So I don't think it really matters what you call it, it's still an exception to the plant breeder's right.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

My question for Anne deals with our relationship with the United States, and you mentioned COOL, country-of-origin labelling. When I was in the vegetable business, I couldn't get certain products from the United States the farmers were using, and you'd see it advertised in magazines that they could use them. Are we getting any closer, and should we work more in tandem with the United States on research, on approving products that farmers can use, so we have the same tools in Canada as the United States has, and use their research and they use our research, so we're on a level playing field as far as products are concerned?