Thank you, Chair, and thank you to you both for being with us today.
I was interested in your comments, Mr. Smith. Obviously when you're referring to the grape juice industry, my neck of the woods in the Niagara Peninsula was a place hard hit by that. In fact, I know the Wiley brothers really well, who suffered a significant impact when that happened to them as well.
We know what happened when Cadbury Schweppes packed up and moved and when CanGro also left, what that meant to the fruit industry—primarily in the peninsula—when the last processor of fruits east of the Rocky Mountains decided to leave.
There was a two-year deal, if I remember correctly, for those who grew Concords and Niagaras. They could take them across to the U.S., but that ended. There was no subsequent deal, if memory serves me correctly. And we're now down to.... Basically, if you want Canadian-grown grape juice, you go to a farmer's market to buy it from an individual farmer who still may have a few acres left over and who didn't get into the pull-out program, which was few and far between.
I'm interested in this because of the processing that we've seen leave the peninsula and what that's meant for clingstone peaches, which got hauled out, and Niagaras and Concords, which got hauled out, where you've got a farmer who goes back into something else. That doesn't happen overnight. As you and I are aware, if you replant, you're talking years before there's a yield.
I want to have you talk to us about the importance of the processor. What does it mean for local producers? What impact do the changes to the container sizes have on those processors?
What it ultimately means is that it daisy chains all the way back down to the primary producer. What I heard in Southwestern Ontario two weeks ago was that this industry would be decimated, that it would be the fruit and veg industry down that way that would be decimated, if these container sizes change.
Is there truth in that, or is this somebody just saying it because they're nervous? Is it true?