Thank you, Gary.
Concerning Larry's point, I think you'll find that generally the farm community is very concerned about.... Certainly there's a perception out there that when there is a problem with one of our products, the border slams shut. As we're seeing with BSE, it's still not open for over-30-month cattle.
When it's the other way around, we tend to be maybe more accommodating in terms of working with them. I think you'll find there's general agreement in this committee that we need to be as strict as everybody else about product coming in, because we export a high-quality product and don't appreciate the political games being played by the United States.
In part this relates to your discussion with Alex as well. In the potato industry in Prince Edward Island, one of the big areas we run into a problem with is that we ship, for example, seed potatoes to one of the danger spots, the Caribbean. A shipload of potatoes gets to port, and their inspection agency—more political than not—says no, there's a problem with the shipment.
Now, I will say that CFIA is good. They send inspectors down; they try to do everything they can to work with the exporters. But from my perspective, I hear from these individuals. They have a million dollars' worth of potatoes sitting on a ship in 35-degree heat, with the seed potato season closing in fast, and the quality of the product is certainly going to deteriorate quickly.
Is there any more rapid way to deal with this than the way we're currently dealing with it? You have a producer who has a shipload of potatoes, and the risk is huge. In my view it's strictly political on the part of their system, but it's sure a problem for us in Canada. It's not a criticism of CFIA; you've done all you can to help us any time I've asked. But is there another way we can be going about this?