Let me add that our interests are also the interests of the farmers and the processors, and it's been a difficult challenge for us, with all due respect to that sector, to get them to understand that. There are a lot of opportunities that exist between the on-farm sector and the retailers.
If independent retailers see the Interac system, for example, move to a for-profit basis and our fees triple, that becomes bad news for independent retailers. Since 1992, by the way, we've lost 15,000 independents. It's bad news for the whole chain, and with all due respect, it should therefore be bad news in this committee's view as well. We would urge you to look at this issue from that perspective.
We don't like to use the phrase “level playing field,” because when you have the concentration in the food industry that you have in this country there is no level playing field. Our interest is just ensuring that we stay on the field. Inadvertently, sometimes, governments make regulations and do things or allow things to happen that change the competitive landscape. If the fees for Interac triple, for the independent retailers it's disaster, and it will ripple right through the entire system. And unfortunately—we're coming back to what we talked about earlier—there's a systemic problem with the Competition Bureau.
Mr. Scott and I had this discussion just a few weeks ago with the bureau. They don't get what I just said. All they see is that Interac will be competing with the credit card companies, and isn't that wonderful? Great news! Well, you know what? When the independents continue to go out of business, that's bad news. It's going back to what Mr. Scott said earlier: the bureau needs to take a good, hard look.... Take it home and read it at night, and read your preamble. When we're gone, everybody is hurt. That's what they're not seeing.
I'm sorry to get passionate about this, but it's extremely frustrating. It's a systemic problem.