I guess my first answer would be that we've grown this industry, and we used to celebrate our ability to export. The reality is that if we were to go to cost of production, that's the end of the export business, that's the end of 60% or, on a net basis, of 40% of all the cattle we produce and almost the same or more in the hog industry. If all Canadians took that position, that we didn't want to trade, we would be a pretty small country with a lot of hinterland and maybe our biggest industry would be eco-tourism. So I think we stand behind the fact....
Secondly, we've been faced with some costs. In spite of the fact that many try to say that the cattle industry asked for SRM disposal, I think if you read a letter—and we have a copy of it—that we wrote back in 2006, to then Minister Strahl, telling him that our goal is harmonization with the U.S.... We heard that again today, on a number of fronts, about trying to harmonize with the U.S. because that's our cost competitor. Unfortunately, that didn't occur, so that's placed an undue burden on our industry at a time when we can least afford it.
My next point would simply be that in 2003—and you were there for that, so I know you understand this—the industry had asked if these BSE disaster payments would be allowed to be used as income to allow this CAIS program to work, but that was never heeded. We predicted then, at that time, that we were just delaying a crisis that was going to come later on, because although we got these payments to producers, we never allowed them to be able to build up the reference margins so that the program everybody told us would work would have an opportunity to work. That was highly unfortunate.
My comment about sustainability is that we've been through an unprecedented period of change. The cattle industry has dealt with grain prices as high as this in the past, and it's dealt with dollars that were close to this high in the past, but never at the same time, in this short of a period. We know that higher grain prices will equal higher prices for proteins, so this is a matter of adjustment. We're not the only country in the world that's facing those. Again, this is a period of adjustment, and we need to adjust the program that was designed by federal and provincial governments to help us through this transition so that the thing works. And if we can make it work and we can get some short-term cash out there, then we think, as the pork industry has said, that there's a tremendous future ahead for our business if we can get though this transition.