That isn't the way it works when we sell beef, hogs, or malting barley, as we'd have had a trade challenge against us in a minute.
I know everybody is saying this is due to supply and demand and competition. I have just one word for that—bullshit. The fact of the matter is that demand is higher in the United States, with their push for ethanol. The real problem, I think, comes down to the way these companies operate, my assumption being be that it has nothing to do with competition, but basically with what the market will bear.
I really firmly believe that we have a competition act that doesn't work. The U.S. has a competition act that works. So I want to know your position on the Competition Act. We've made recommendations on that before, but governments, no matter what political stripe, continue not to deal with the Competition Act in Canada. That's question number one.
Number two, does anybody have any studies on energy pricing at the farm gate in the U.S. versus Canada? The chair mentioned some of them: diesel, diesel-gas, or natural gas.
Can you imagine in the United States, the U.S. government allowing any company to sell a natural resource, be it diesel-gas or natural gas produced in the United States, more cheaply to their competitors than to themselves? Why is that? Does anybody have any answers on that? And why can't our government do the same thing? All we're doing is subsidizing their industrial plants.
Number three, should the government be using monetary policy to force the dollar down? We did it before, if you remember the day after the stock market came down substantially. Stock market holders in New York were affected, and the Bank of Canada moved in, as well as the U.S. banking system, and brought the dollar down, and the market corrected itself. Should we be doing that or should we not? I don't know.
I find it amazing that nobody has mentioned the imbalance between costs in Canada versus the United States. We have cost recovery under the CFIA, but the United States does not. Theirs is subsidized by the government. Should we be dealing with those points? Those are government regulatory costs in Canada that the United States producers do not have. Should we be demanding from those guys over there, and their minister, that they deal with those costs?
The last point I'll mention is related to you, Glenn. You came out with some pretty startling numbers. Can you table those with us? How would you suggest that we facilitate the original intent of GROU, which was to provide greater access to competitively priced chemicals?
So those are five questions.