Thank you, Mr. Bellavance, for your question.
There was also an avian flu outbreak in Saskatchewan, not just in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. We did learn some lessons in the Lower Mainland--predominantly, that the quicker you act, the faster you can contain it. It took us a matter of hours to decide to wrap the barn and put the birds down.
There are still some ongoing discussions, as you rightly point out, on the compensatory side. Up to this point the government has always covered the cost of the animals--the birds in this case in an AI barn. In the Saskatchewan instance, we also removed the litter from the barn to help the farmer get back in business quicker than normal. As to spraying down the barn and making sure everything was done, that's generally up to the producer. In a lot of cases the industry itself steps in and helps, as it did in British Columbia. The province picked up a certain portion of the expenses in British Columbia; the Saskatchewan government did not. So it left that producer wondering what was going on.
We are continuing discussions on the value of those animals, and there's basically a double point being made. One is the cost of the actual bird or animal at that stage. We have that very succinctly laid out with some changes, after consulting with industry. Those changes came into effect last September in the latest go-round. Since that time industry has started to say we have to go further. There was loss of business, and time was lost as they re-developed to that.... A laying hen doesn't become a laying hen when it comes out of the egg; it has to be raised to that point. So they're saying there's that disconnect. How do we cover that off?
I guess I would point to the new suite of business risk management programs on the agri-recovery side, the disaster side. Possibly there's something we can work at there. Those discussions are ongoing. We have worked lately with the poultry side on the AI, the avian flu surveillance side, to make sure we are up to the standards required by other countries, not so much from an export nature but from the genetic side of poultry, and so on, that we export. We had to hit certain markers. We've had those agreements made with the poultry industry. The blood tests are beginning in the barns, as they should be. We're starting to move ahead and reopening borders, especially into the European Union where our genetics are very much in demand.
The discussions on the value of the animals at the time a barn is put down or a herd is put down are always ongoing. We'll certainly work with industry to try to come up to speed as much as we can.