We have certainly increased capacity, so from that point of view they were successful.
Early on, back to 2006, we raised concerns about the competitive burden on Canadian packers, whether it was the enhanced feed ban or other issues that would put them at a competitive disadvantage when the border fully opened to U.S. plants. Many of the plants you talked about--Natural Valley Farms, Rancher's Beef, or Blue Mountain Packers in British Columbia--have all gone out of business.
A number of the large plants have certainly expanded and modernized their operations. The plant you referred to in your riding, as far as I know, is still operating on a single shift; it's capable of a double shift. Last year we exported 1.5 million head of cattle. We want to create an environment where it's more competitive to process those cattle in Canada. That gets down to the cost of their production. Again, if they're making a huge amount of money, there's no reason that many cattle would be going south. We need to improve their ability to maximize returns. We have a carcass optimization strategy that looks at a whole range of things to achieve that. Once we're able to bring those costs into a similar range as the U.S., and while the dollar had pushed labour.... We're starting to see that correct as we speak.
One of the things the government did do, and we have been working on it for a number of years, is to pull in more workers from other countries. We're beginning to work quite effectively with those programs and we've overcome a labour shortage. Talking about labour shortages seems to be a world away right now. But those things helped.
It's going to be critically important that we make sure we've addressed the competitiveness issues. You could keep building more plants, but it would be difficult to sustain them if we haven't addressed those issues.
There are certain regions in the country that are looking at capacity, and we have to make sure we give them a fair opportunity to survive.