Thank you.
Thank you very much. Your presence here is very timely.
You mentioned credit cards and Interac. Actually, at the instigation of two managers of independent grocers in my riding and others, I wrote a letter to both the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Finance to explain the situation. I would encourage all of my colleagues to do the same, because I think everybody's on board. I think we just have to make sure we get that, so we don't allow Interac to crank up those rates.
You may or may not know, but I'm in the process of doing a tour across the country on food security and food sovereignty. I know that Wayne's party, the Liberal Party, has undertaken consultations. We've had a number of recommendations in our committee in the past where everybody's been on board about food security and all of that. I think it's safe to say that everybody is on board with the idea of supporting local agriculture and local small business, but we just have to find ways of doing that.
One of the threads from my hearings is that there are obstacles. One of them, of course, is the trade agreements, where we've seen statistics on the reduced numbers of producers because of the free flow of produce coming in from the States and Mexico. The other one, of course, is the distribution system, which you touched upon. Another example I was told in Sudbury is that a potato grower has to ship her potatoes to Toronto so they can come back to stores in Sudbury. We have the same phenomenon in British Columbia, and the recommendation is that governments will somehow have to do something about that.
You mentioned the Competition Bureau within the existing system—and we can fix that. But what other steps could we take, either the federal or provincial governments, to ensure that local producers have a market for their produce, that you folks are able to buy produce—and not only the independent grocers, but the big chains also? You've given some other suggestions in regard to the terminals. What specifically could we do today at this level to keep you folks in business with as much local produce from, and support for, local farmers as possible?