I wish I had 15 minutes to spend with each one of you. There's so much interesting information here.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Couture. What you' re doing is very important, and I particularly want to congratulate the young people for their efforts.
I'm going to ask my questions and I'll try to get some answers.
Lucy, probably the first will be addressed to you.
The latest research shows that we have to be careful. Studies are coming out from the European Union and the United States that maybe we have to be careful about what we're doing, especially in regard to food versus fuel. If I understand correctly, your major concern is greenhouse gases. Some scientists, whom I quoted earlier on today, are saying that instead of reducing greenhouse gases—this is corn-based ethanol—by 20%, it will actually increase it by 93%. So I'd like a comment on that.
The southern hemisphere.... You mentioned human rights, labour rights, displacement of farmers, destruction of forests. These are grave concerns. My question would be, if we had a biofuel policy that clearly stated that we will not import any feedstock for the biofuel industry, would you see it as a viable industry, because then we wouldn't have any direct push for the industry in the southern hemisphere?
And the other one, of course, is genetically modified contamination. I've read about it and I understand the concerns of wheat and the very possible contamination of fuels. I really wasn't aware what's happening with trees, but I see it as a really frightening possibility that actually our forests could be contaminated.
Then I'm going to move on to Mr. Bender.
In regard to rural development, we mentioned and you mentioned that this is a way of stimulating rural development, and yet we had Dr. Klein here from Alberta a couple of weeks ago who had some concerns. He said, “ However, there has been some tendency...among proponents of the biofuel industry to overstate the economic activity linked to biofuels. Research shows that only a small number of permanent jobs are created...”. His point was that maybe there are more jobs lost in other agricultural sectors than those actually directly created with biofuels.
Also I'd like a comment from you on the whole idea of GM wheat contamination. As we know, our wheat is valued throughout the world. If there's a small possibility that this export of high-food-quality wheat is contaminated, folks like you could be in trouble.
Would you feel comfortable with a bill that says no to any GM kind of feedstock for the biofuel industry?
I'll stop and get some answers.