I am. Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon. With me today is my colleague Gerald Hauer, assistant chief to the provincial veterinarian of Alberta.
I believe, Mr. Chair, you are in receipt of a letter from my minister, the Honourable George Groeneveld. The letter outlines that although it's unusual for us to appear before a committee of the House of Commons, we're here through a sense of partnership to achieve the feed ban and accelerate BSE elimination. We're also here--because it is of sufficient urgency and importance--to indicate the progress we're making on this file.
Just to remind you, in case you're wondering, Alberta is beef country. We account for a significant proportion of the herd. As the picture displays, we have slaughter facilities, both federally administered and provincially administered, throughout our province.
We've heard the importance I think of the July 12 effective date, and we want to reiterate that we are committed to that date. The federal government has identified the share of funding that's available to the Province of Alberta. As the minister pointed out, we have funding identified from the Alberta Treasury Board. We have a clear plan for how we're going to implement. And based on today's meetings, we believe an agreement with the federal government is imminent to allow us to move ahead to announce and proceed with implementation.
I just want to take a moment to outline the nature of our plan. Again, we have $20 million identified. That is in excess of our normal 60-40 sharing. Our plan indicates that we are going to apply some of that to some additional relief for provincial facilities, for ongoing operational expenditures, and also for research.
As for the principles under which we're operating, we want to make sure that we have an effective, timely feed ban, that we facilitate adaptation of the industry, and that we minimize any negative economic impact on industry.
What I really want to do here is provide a sense of the systemic approach we've taken to this issue. We are looking at farms, federal plants, provincial plants, and the collection of that material and its safe disposition--first in containment, then in destruction, and ultimately in value-added development that creates an effective market for SRMs in Alberta.
The black lines indicate the critical path, the key things that must be done immediately, in the short term--it is very short--and in the long term to bring this about. This also reflects on where we are committing our resources. We are committing resources focused on, first of all, those black-line elements on that critical path. These focus on developing the rendering capacity for SRMs, as well as non-SRMs, to maintain the value for the producers. We are looking at assistance to the federal red meat...to develop the separation facilities in order to take advantage of this second line of SRM. We are looking at enhanced access--first to landfills, second to cement kilns--in order to have first disposal and containment and then disposition. Finally, we are looking at addressing the tipping fees so that we reduce the costs associated with that.
In the longer term, we are looking at developing the other technologies that will create an effective market for the SRM and increase the value so that we are not only reducing the cost but perhaps creating a value proposition for the SRM.
This implementation plan has been developed in close collaboration with regional CFIA, regional Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and a variety of Alberta government departments. We have confidence now that we have the immediate solution, enabled by the CFIA decision two weeks ago, that allows us to be clear that we will have two tracks available for compliance as of July 12.
We have been sharing information with the industry throughout the process. We have not yet made a program announcement, pending completion of the federal–provincial agreement. We expect that will be coming, as we say, shortly.
What are the take-away messages? Although there has been delay, we're on track for on-time implementation. The capital costs are cost-shared among the governments. We've chosen to add funding for operational expenditures for transition. And we know that the federal government will treat all provinces equally in terms of the time of signature of agreements.
Respecting the committee's time, that concludes my presentation.