Right now it is very beneficial. We are just getting the program under way. There are several research program projects that are being put forward. But on the marketing end of things—and we're working very closely with the British Columbia government on this, on trade with the Asian market, for example—we're seeing that B.C. is a gateway to Canada.
With the way cattle production is in B.C., I think we are very much seed stock growers. We haven't got the ability to produce enough grain in the right areas to feed our cattle to finish so they end up in Alberta or into the United States. We're looking at more innovative ways of keeping that at home. And by at home, I mean within Canada. We don't like to see the cattle being fed in the U.S. because one of the biggest things we can do for our industry and for our economy is add value. When we start shipping off raw product, no matter where it is sent—to the U.S., overseas, to Asia—we lose opportunity within our own country and our own provinces to keep people employed and to keep our economy strong.
I think these innovations like the research and marketing flexibility fund are giving us a lot of opportunity there, and we welcome it.
A couple of other places the federal government has been really helpful is in.... We've had a couple of disease outbreaks in the last couple of years that have turned out to be not disease outbreaks. We've had anaplasmosis and we've had brucellosis. In the first one we had some issues around the investigation with CFIA. Through communicating, through help from our local MP, Cathy McLeod, we had some very positive results come out of that.
As a result, when brucellosis was discovered and then it turned out not to be brucellosis, we had a little change in attitude and we worked a better relationship with CFIA.
Now we have tuberculosis in British Columbia, and this time it's for real. But that communication and that ability to work together with CFIA on the ground was cemented through the other two and we've been able to do very well, and it's some of those programs that are really helping us out now.