Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank all of you for coming here today.
There have been some suggestions made around the table about how we need to tackle this, and I think it's important to note that we all have to work together as producers. I'm a producer in my other life, and I know there are a few more in this room. We work together as producers, as producer groups, and as government, and we shouldn't be bickering about it.
One thing I need to point out to Mr. Bellavance--and I'm sure he knows this, but maybe not--is that the SRM ban that was made in Canada was asked for by the industry. It wasn't put in place per se just by government on a whim. That was requested by the industry. Now we have some problems that all hit at the same time, like the high dollar and what have you, that have compounded things. We need to work together. As Mr. Laws said, the motion we have to deal with inspection fees is only one thing. We have to work together to come up with more ideas like that, which can possibly work.
We're always limited for time here, but I have some specific questions to some specific people here, and maybe I could just put them out there. One thing I want to know, and this is for both the pork and the beef industry, is this. What kind of advertising is there to try to increase consumption and that kind of thing? That's going to tie in with another question I have for both of you on the amount of beef and pork consumed per capita in Canada. I know at the time of the BSE crisis, in the early years of BSE, we actually increased our consumption of beef per capita. I'd like to know whether those figures are staying fairly on par. I'd like some comments on that.
This will be specifically to Mr. Wildeman or Mr. Masswohl. Was there any study--I'll call it that--or investigation into maybe moving more towards forage finishing? This goes to the high price of feeds. At one time, that's where most of the cattle in the country were finished, on grass with a little bit of grain.
Also, on better ways to use the byproducts from the biofuel industry...because I think society today wants alternative fuels, and I think governments are obliged to go down that road. I don't think there's any turning around.
I have another question, maybe directed toward Mr. McAlpine or Mr. Laws. From the retail side, as far as profit levels out there are concerned, I think we can all agree in this room that I don't think we've seen beef or pork prices in the stores go down. At least my wife hasn't told me she's seen that lately. Is there something along those lines we can maybe tackle?
On slaughter facilities, and this is maybe towards Mr. Dessureault because it was part of his comments, back in the BSE crisis, government basically tried to build up our packing industry, to no avail at the time. Because of circumstances and what have you--and it's human nature, if we can get another cent per pound as a cattle producer or as a hog finisher we're going to take it. Anyway, at the end of the day, our packing industry is leaving quickly. We can't go pointing fingers, and I don't have all the answers, but as a politician--we were in opposition in those days, but I still supported that we had to do it--I find it very disheartening that packing is now leaving us, and it doesn't seem to matter what we do.
So there are a lot of questions there, but I'll let somebody start off.