Allow me to go back just a little bit. Years ago we had government loans, back before I was elected in 1993. There were government loans to organizations such as Gainers, which as you all know is a packing plant. Of course, they went broke and didn't pay their loans back, so the taxpayers of Alberta picked that up. Along came BSE, and we found ourselves with an enormous number of fed cattle ready to be slaughtered and absolutely no place to send beef. So the Alberta government once again went to work through Agriculture Financial Services, and we helped come up with loans for organizations such as Rancher's Beef and Ranchers Meats, both of which are broke again now, and once again taxpayers are paying off that money.
This is a much more complex issue than just saying vertical integration is bad, Cargill is bad, or Tyson is bad. The truth is that a lot of the smaller companies couldn't make a go of it, and that's why they sold or just shut down. Burns moved out of Alberta a number of years ago because the labour unions wanted more wages. Burns was already operating on a razor-thin margin. They just shut down. I don't think there's a quick or easy answer. Regional packing plants are not easy to establish. They require large amounts of water. They require large amounts of cattle to be run through them to make money. Rancher's Beef had no end of problems just trying to get started, but we helped them because we were trying to help the farmers in our province sell their product.
There is not one simple answer, sir. I wish there were.