I'll start and maybe just answer the first couple of questions there.
Certainly the brand, what buyers expect from the Canadian Wheat Board, from western Canadian farmers when they buy their product, is consistency. They expect long-term reliability. There's no question about that.
I talk to buyers on a regular basis who say they do not want to buy U.S. grain. They do not know what they're going to receive when they buy that grain until they actually get it to their mill, and they don't like the hassle they have to go through, after they get it, trying to correct some of the inequities that are there.
So, no question, that is the brand we have; 80% to 85% of the buyers in the last survey we did indicated that our service was as good as or better than the competition, and 90% to 95% said that our products were as good as or better than the competition. So we have a very strong brand, and one that customers are looking to us for. They're finding this period very difficult, because they're trying to understand why we're making the changes we're making, how this is going to impact them, whether they're going to have a business partner that they can deal with one year or two years down the road, whether they have to start looking for alternative measures, alternative suppliers, or whatever the case may be. It's a very difficult period for them, as it is for our organization, and the faster we can get certainty around this issue, the better I think Canada is going to be, and certainly the better western Canadian farmers are going to be.
On the domestic side, I do agree with the comments. What the millers and mulchers have said to us is that they appreciate the supply assurance. There are very difficult markets each year, and the dynamics change, and we've always ensured that the domestic millers and mulchers have supplies and are able to satisfy the domestic demand as well as their export demand on the products that they do export.
They indicate that they could live with either system. They do appreciate the system that they have in place with us today and the assurance and certainty that we give them, both on a pricing side and a supply side. They have indicated that they would work with either system, if that were the case, but there's no in between. They do not want to go through a process in between. And I guess after reading the task force report that the government put together, that was the conclusion they drew too. There is no in between; it's either an open market or it is single desk marketing.
You have my assurance as CEO that we have looked at contingency planning very seriously. We are looking at the barley issue very seriously. We will be ready for whatever changes are going to be made there. I do want to know what those changes are. If there are going to be changes, I want to know whether there are going to be guarantees. If we're involved in barley, I want to know if we're going to be able to use the contingency fund to backstop that.
There are just a lot of questions, and that's why I've called on the minister to provide some clarity, so that we can move forward productively as an organization.