Certainly, Mr. Storseth.
The Canadian Grain Commission's fees were frozen in the mid-1990s at 1991 levels. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to realize that's going to cause some issues when you're mandated to provide services under the Canada Grain Act. In other words, it's the law of the land.
That's why there's been mounting pressure, first of all, to deal with our fee structure, and second, to deal with the act. Changes to our fee structure would help resolve the imbalance where the taxpayer has been providing an increasingly larger portion of our funding base. The regulatory changes in the act would look at our services to make sure they're relevant to the industry today.
The overall result of these two processes is that some services we are currently providing are deemed with the changes, the rationalization, the changes in marketing, not to be necessary or mandatory, the main one being inward inspection, and that would save about $20 million for the sector. Some of the other cost savings have to do with changing our security program. We have to balance that with the fact that to maintain a grain research laboratory, which I think everyone understands plays a huge beneficial role to the industry, and to preserve the Canada brand, which is again a great asset for producers, much of our funding will come from outward inspection.
To justify having a grain research laboratory, or to pay for a grain research laboratory, and to preserve the Canada brand, we have to charge a fee that provides us with the revenue, with some amount of public good funding as well, to serve the industry. The result of that is while we're saving $20 million, roughly, in streamlining, there is an increased cost to the industry because we can't continue at 1991 levels with taxpayer subsidies for the other services that we must provide. We're seeing an increase in outward inspection fees as being the most significant one.