Thank you very much, Chair.
When we were down in the United States, we got two messages. This is one of the reasons we're having the meeting today.
One of the messages we had been receiving before we went down to Washington was that the implementation of COOL and the additional letter asking for voluntary compliance had thrown the U.S. slaughterhouses into confusion. They were trying to implement it. There was some sort of cost being borne by them, and this was showing up in lower prices being paid for cattle.
When we got down there, we asked these very questions, and the answer we got down there was that no, for the most part, the slaughterhouses have made a unilateral decision that they're not applying the voluntary.... There's no confusion here. Yes, they will comply with COOL, because that's the law. But this voluntary letter has thrown confusion in, because there has been a decision made that they're not applying it, period. That sort of conflicted with everything we had heard previously, which was that it was the confusion that was impacting our cattle farmers.
I want to go at this from a certain angle. We all appreciate the slaughterhouse capacity here in Canada. You were just talking about there being a contraction of the herd right now. A while ago there was a contraction of slaughterhouse capacity in Canada. And it's not just a short-term thing; you live with the consequences of that for a very long time, and we're living with them now.
I have a concern that if there's a contraction of the herd, a significant contraction, this will have long-term consequences as well. That's why we're trying to put our finger on why it is that the price has dropped so much for cattle. What can answer this?
I want to try to understand the model. For example, if the price goes down in the U.S., it goes down in Canada too. When you have your final products, do you still sell those into the United States? Are you selling processed, packaged meats to restaurants, hotels, and customers in the United States?
My adjoining question would be whether the price you're receiving for those products is roughly the same as it was pre-COOL.