In reality, those cost recovery fees—I've been informed by CFIA about some of their on-farm cost recovery fees—are almost at breakeven. Forgetting about the cost recovery fees and dropping the administration.... The administration cost for some of this cost recovery is fairly extensive as well.
Mr. Chair, we need to consider whether to make a recommendation that the money, at least if it's there, go back to where it would lower the costs to industry in some fashion, rather than go into general revenue. This is money that's one way or another coming directly out of farmers' pockets.
This leads me to my second question. One key area of concern, which we constantly hear about from the farm community, is that our regulatory systems—CFIA, PMRA, cost recovery for other programs, environmental programs, and so on—add a burden to Canadian farmers' costs and put them at quite a substantial disadvantage in the marketplace compared with their competitors.
It was mentioned here earlier by someone that we're not allowed to use a certain product, but that our competitors in Mexico, China, or wherever are. The theory is we're not allowed to use that product because it shouldn't end up on the grocery store shelf; however, our competitors' product ends up on the grocery store shelves.
We have to either get to a system where we're on a level playing field or not allow our competitors' products in. We have to get there, because farmers are getting more and more peeved about this situation.
I think you've recognized that. But has PMRA done any analysis, or do you know of any that's been done, which in a chart form or whatever compares our cost recovery in Canada from producers and other costs in our system that Canadian farmers face, either directly or indirectly, that American farmers, say, don't face—or do?
I'm told consistently that our cost regime is much higher than others' and puts Canadian farmers at a disadvantage. We have to level that playing field, because farmers in Canada have had enough of being disadvantaged by regulatory regimes and seeing competitors' products come in here when they don't have advantage.
I'll give you an example from the hog industry, and not related to you. A hog producer went broke two weeks before Christmas—and there are lots of them going broke. One feed additive that he couldn't get for five years in Canada would have made a difference over that five-year period, in his 800-sow operation, of some $470,000—just that one feed additive. This doesn't relate directly to you; it's another regulatory authority. But that's what it means on the ground, on the farm. We have to level this.
The question is, do you have any analysis, and if you have, can we get it?