Thank you, Mr. Allen, that's a very good question.
The challenge has been coming for a number of years, and I certainly don't want to leave the impression that Canadian farmers and processors and other participants in the supply chain haven't been moving ahead very quickly to try to meet what they've seen for some time as the new paradigm in terms of food safety. Governments in Canada have also led the way.
What we are bringing to your attention is that the legislative and regulatory environments have changed in most of our trading partners. In some of those countries now, take India or China, that change is on paper and it's going to take a very long time to happen in terms of reality on the ground for a great many firms in those countries.
In Europe that change has been happening for not quite a decade, in many respects. So in some parts of what we're looking at, they're further ahead. What's happening in the U.S. is going to happen relatively quickly. The legislation was finalized and the President signed it a year and a bit ago.
They're behind on some of their regulatory processes, but we're expecting some major pieces of regulation, some major regulatory initiatives still to be announced this spring that will bring the U.S. into line with what many other countries—the EU, Australia, New Zealand, etc.—have been experimenting with, which is mandatory requirements for all participants in the food chain for preventive controls, as an example. New uses of third-party auditing is another example. Different approaches to dealing with imports is another example.
So the environment has moved ahead. Are we behind? Not yet, significantly, but I think we have an opportunity now to learn and to put into practice quite quickly a lot of the initiatives that others have been experimenting with over the past decade to bring us up to par with where they will be at.