Thank you, Mr. Easter.
I think one of the biggest benefits that we, as a Canadian industry, have is the effort we have put into a very close working relationship with our U.S. counterparts. We appreciate the efforts of the Canadian government in their government-to-government efforts on the same issue.
In many respects we already have divided the country in two. On so many issues we already have a western philosophy and an eastern philosophy. The Canadian Wheat Board is a prime example, and I won't speak in favour of or against that.
On the issues of phytosanitary, it seems that our trading partners very often divide us into ten different sections--they divide us provincially. That certainly happened this summer with the nematode find in Quebec. The Quebec industry was immediately isolated and cut off from export into the U.S.
I'm not sure that dividing the country into two segments is the answer there. I think that it's continued dialogue to ensure we have the right solutions. On some of them it might be a dialogue on whether we want to maintain a pest as a quarantine pest or do we want to move it into a management plan. That's what we've done with the potato wart. There's a potato wart management plan. It's one that's reviewed annually between Canada and the U.S., both by government and by industry, to ensure that everybody is satisfied with the compliance in that. Again, on other pests we need to take the same approach. Dialogue is often the best first defence.