This is good to know. There are two LNG proposals on the east coast.
I want to come back to Greg's point from earlier about interest-free cash advances to the retailers from the farmers.
The problem we have here, Greg, is that interest-free cash advance programs for farmers' advance payments were originally established so that farmers wouldn't dump product on the market at harvest time. This has changed substantially, now that we have a spring cash advance as well.
The programs were designed for the farm community, but we seem to be consistently losing the benefits of those programs. We supported using the advance payment program to assist the hog and livestock industry. The problem is that it is borrowing against future income; that's all it really is.
Now we're finding, with the spring advance payment program, that there are requests for more money in that program so that farmers can pay you guys earlier and take advantage of early buy options. It's one of those situations wherein the benefits of programs designed to assist the farm community, who direly need it, are accruing elsewhere. When you guys don't have a farm community you don't have a business either. That's my point. I have no argument with you in terms of your having costs too.
Coming back to the point about China and India that Larry was on, number one....
I don't want to lose this point, but I think Roger mentioned going to the Competition Bureau, who said there's no need to investigate.
Roger, the Competition Bureau in this country isn't worth the paper it's written on when it comes to protecting farmers' interests; it just isn't. That's something we've made recommendations on before.
But concerning China and India, from your perspective as ag retailers—and as I said, you have to have the farm community to have a future too—we're up against countries whose labour and environmental standards are such that we really can't compete. What's your view on that? We have to have trade agreements that level this playing field. We're in a high cost environment in Canada on labour, our environmental regulations are higher, our food safety standards are higher, our chemical regulations are higher. We have to have trade agreements and we have to insert labour and environment into them or, quite honestly, we're not going to be in business.
What's your view on that?