Thanks for the question, Mr. Bellavance.
As I mentioned previously, we believe that right now the livestock sector is really falling between the cracks. There is no safety net program that addresses this economic downturn in the livestock industry, because as I mentioned, the margins are falling slowly enough in the beef sector that it doesn't necessarily trigger a payment.
For one thing, right now there is no insurance for livestock producers to be able to ensure any kind of prices. It is not considered a regional disaster because it's happening all across Canada, so in this case we're asking for ad hoc payment, because we see no other way around it. We've identified a cost per animal of $40. For a cow, an animal that's over 30 months of age, the cost to take this specified risk material away and dispose of it is a cost that they don't have in the United States.
So when we're talking about harmonizing the regulations between the U.S. and Canada, that's fine. We should be able to do that. If we can't, we are asking that producers be compensated. As the pork producers mentioned, if we don't have the primary producers, we don't have an industry, so we need to look at this seriously.
In Canada, 70% of the beef herd is in the west, in Saskatchewan and Alberta, with 40% in Alberta and 30% in Saskatchewan. We see this industry really taking a hit.
On feedlots, producer feedlots in Saskatchewan are in jeopardy. We're trying to keep more of the cattle in Saskatchewan to do the backgrounding. We're trying to get another packing plant. We had one producer-owned packing plant that was in serious trouble from day one due to competition from the big players in the industry. That certainly jeopardizes any future development. That takes us back to our resolution asking for help for the cow-calf sector.