It's interesting that you should pose the question of what can we do on the domestic marketing side for the industry. As I said before, we are in a situation where 50% of what is consumed in Canada is being imported. How do we transition the industry into a level of competitiveness that sustains itself, particularly in a domestic market?
If you look at the U.S. Farm Bill, most of the money was going to corn, rice, cotton, soybeans, and grains. But guess what? They left the specialty crops out of the equation in the first farm bill. Now they're talking about targeting specialty crops, and that includes fresh fruits and vegetables. They'll be concentrating more effort in those areas, and perhaps reducing some of the corn subsidies that Canada is challenging the U.S. on.
They propose to put $3.2 billion over five years into institutional buying for healthy snack programs in their schools. We started one here in B.C. They're going to put some serious dollars into that. So they'll be sourcing local products, perhaps buying up excess products they would normally have to dump into somebody's market. They're going to turn it into healthy eating programs in the U.S.
I believe that in Canada the government has to lead by example. It is totally unacceptable to find apples in the House of Commons from Washington State, when there are plenty of apples to be sourced in Ontario. If you can't find the unique varieties, for God's sake bring them from B.C.