Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for appearing from across most of this country today. I think that's always good.
We've heard a diverse number of opinions about the cattle industry, everything from being very protective to having the opportunity for the industry to expand its borders in terms of export and how we might do that. I think that's good. One of the things our minister has done in following through on a number of the comments....
For a sustainable industry—and this is coming from the beef producers in my area—the belief is that if you're going to survive you have to have markets. One of the things, certainly as individuals, I think we often forget is that when you market an animal, the intent is to market 100% of that animal. If you were to take that live animal and dress it out, there are many parts of an animal that we, as Canadians, don't consider to be prime cuts of meat or products we would sit down at a table to. Yet in other countries those parts are considered delicatessens. People will pay very high premiums for those.
As you have seen, with our minister going to many countries in Asia, we're looking at how we can market that whole animal at a premium. I think Mr. Fossen, for example, has some comments on that.
The other part is the COOL challenge. We have differences of opinion on it. Certainly before Mr. Vilsack, the new secretary, came in, there were significant changes to the good for the Canadian cattle industry on COOL.
To Ms. Haley, I wonder if I could have a comment on that. In terms of COOL, was that an appropriate position we were in prior to Mr. Vilsack coming in?
I wrote down an interesting comment from the Farmers Union that banning cattle from packers has taken over. I agree with my colleague. I think there's always a concern. I don't want to lose the democracy that we have in this country, but we need to make sure we have instruments in place that will help protect us.
Anyway, I'm going to leave it to those two questions right now. If we have time, I'll come back.