Agriculture Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[Dr. Peter W.B. Phillips]

When I'm talking about creatives, I'm thinking about individuals, the entrepreneurs, the scientists, and the people who make the institutions and processes work.

I'll give you an example of where I think the federal system may be going slightly in the wrong direction. The recent announcements about changes within the management structure and operating system within the National Research Council world are causing a lot of what I regard as the highest value-added and the most creative scientists to say, “You're suggesting I go from a full-time permanent position to a world where I have to go out and raise my own capital to do my job, and it's all going to be two- to five-year contracts rather than a career path.” Many of them are burnishing up their CVs right now and applying to the USDA and the European institutes, the ones that we think are doing better than us. Our people are wanting to leave there because they're saying the direction in which we're going right now will make them less creative. It will make them into the bureaucrats and managers and research design people that we were talking about in response to a previous question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Fraser, thank you very much for joining us today. We very much appreciate your testimony. With that, we'll let you go and turn right to our next witnesses.

We have Anne Fowlie here. I think, Anne, you've been before the committee previously. Welcome back.

We also welcome Mr. McLaughlin.

Mr. McLaughlin, you're the first one on the list, so you have ten minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Chemistry Alliance]

Thank you for inviting me.

I apologize for not having a formal, written program. I've been travelling for the last couple of weeks. It's always a pleasure to come in and speak. I have this in PowerPoint form.

I've spent over 30 years in the agricultural industry, the first 15 years with the industry in research and development and marketing. Then in Saskatoon I started up Ag-West Biotech in 1989 and helped build a cluster around the ag-biotech sector. I was then Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Saskatchewan. After that, I started Ontario Agri-food Technologies, which is run by Gord Surgeoner today.

I ran a venture capital fund for seven or eight years, where I focused on investing in agricultural technology at the university level. Then I moved a little bit away from agriculture. I went back to Saskatoon and for three years I was the director of business development for the Synchrotron, helping to build the business development side of that research facility.

Two and a half years ago, I came back to Ontario to manage Sustainable Chemistry Alliance and the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre in Sarnia. They are focused on agriculture and the commercialization of the bioindustrial sector.

I wanted to touch on Sustainable Chemistry Alliance and the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre. Sustainable Chemistry Alliance is a facilitator, adviser, and investor in green and sustainable technologies, while the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre is the incubator that provides pilot facility space for green and sustainable technology. We are located in Sarnia. I work closely with the university systems in Ontario, particularly Western.

Our key objective is to establish Sarnia as a model cluster community. We are building off the petroleum expertise in the region and the farming community in Lambton County and the surrounding counties of the region. BIC and SCA are a centre for excellence funded by NSERC and the national centres of excellence.

With respect to the Sustainable Chemistry Alliance, we've set aside some $5 million for investing in startup companies. These are companies that are entering into a kind of valley of death. We're investing in companies and projects on the pilot-to-demonstration scale. We might invest up to a half million dollars in any given project. We ended up with 12 investments. We're just finishing the legal work on the last two or three. We've been able to leverage well over $100 million in other investments. One investment that we recently closed on is BioAmber, which is going to build a full-scale facility in Sarnia. That will create 40 full-time jobs as well as about 150 construction jobs over the next year and a half. The investments we've made have pulled in well over 200 jobs.

We've attracted two companies back to Canada: Ecosynthetix, which uses corn-based materials for paper coatings, selling their product to big pulp and paper mills; and BioAmber, which produces succinic acid. A lot of this research was funded outside Canada by the USDA or the U.S. Department of Energy, and now we have them back with Canada as their headquarters and their first commercial opportunities ahead of them.

The first full-scale biotechnology plant is something that we look at. We look at how to commercialize what we have locally and to help move some of those technologies forward. But how do we attract technologies back into Canada?

The bioindustrial sector is really biomaterials, bio-based chemicals, hybrid chemicals, biomass production and processing, and new crops for alternative use such as switchgrass, miscanthus, and camelina.

I should clarify the term “hybrid chemistry”. In Sarnia we have a strong petroleum-based industry, and as we're developing these bio-based industries we see a partnership between the petroleum and the bio-based industries to build new products, which would be bio-based plus petroleum-based to create what we refer to as a hybrid chemical or a hybrid product. An example of that would be Woodbridge foam. About 20% of their foam uses soybean, and the other 80% comes from petroleum. Almost every car seat for vehicles produced in the world today uses a hybrid foam from Woodbridge.

What are the benefits to agriculture of what we do? Biomass is a new source of income for a number of farmers as we move forward in trying to develop this as a commercial opportunity. Some new crops such as triticale, camelina, sorghum, miscanthus, switchgrass, etc., are being researched today and developed into future crops. And then there's consistent or improved value at the farm gate as we have additional products that the farmers will be able to sell, whether it's corn stover or wheat straw, as they manage those opportunities. Hopefully, as we see these develop we'll see more rural jobs coming from that as well.

Based on the questions I have of what should Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada be doing, particularly as far as Growing Forward 2, there are investment programs. I think a lot of the investment programs like the Agri-Opportunities program that we had in Growing Forward 1...we need to look at those and learn from them. They were excellent programs, from my perspective, but probably were not fully utilized in the way they should have been. And maybe by looking at arm's length and with a little bit more flexibility in those programs, it would help make them much more productive in the future. I use our example of taking $5 million and creating well over $100 million in investment as something that was done at arm's length using funding.

Focused research and development with farmer and industry input into the projects.... I think the earlier speakers talked about the length of time, and I think that's one of the things that we.... Time now has become shortened on a lot of funding, and we need to think about that. As I look at Europe, most European countries now have plans out to 2025 or 2030 on their programs, and they don't change those programs. They might tweak them as they move forward, as they learn from this year and going into next year, but they have a plan that's out there for 20 or 30 years on how they want to develop their agricultural community. We tend to operate on a two-year to four-year timeline, so I think we need to think longer term than that.

Bioindustrial programs, I think, are going to be more important going forward, supporting innovative ideas from the agricultural commodity sector. We'll see new biomaterials, new plastics, and new bio-based chemicals coming on stream, and if we don't do it here, it will be done somewhere.

Attraction to Canada is important. We do not invent everything here, so we should be looking to what's out there that we can bring back into Canada at the same time. Examples are BioAmber and the Ecosynthetix projects that we've had. Recently, I was in South Africa, where we've signed an MOU with an organization down there that has investments in start-up companies in the same sector, so there is an opportunity to create collaboration between companies in South Africa and here in North America.

I have a couple of other quick comments. I think the regulatory framework is a very important one, but I will comment that I've been involved in regulatory for 30-plus years and it's been an ongoing topic for that length of time. My simple solution would be that we have one of the best regulatory systems in the world and I think we should just learn how to use it. That's our biggest problem, that we don't use the system properly. We use it as a system that basically says we're here to protect the Canadian public by not allowing new products in the system, rather than looking at it as something that is a strong science-based system that can be used to get products into the market and create economic benefits for the Canadian consumer and Canadian businesses. That would create farm benefits and so on.

There's an opportunity for Canada to take on a leadership role in bio-based chemistry and the biomaterials sector for agriculture and forestry. We can develop alternative crops and new uses of biomass through the development of innovative ideas; establish a sound science-based, user-friendly, and efficient regulatory system; and have a program for attracting to Canada the right agriculture and bioindustrial companies that we are not seeing here today.

Let's be leaders in that sector and consider arm's-length concepts to increase efficiency in some of our programs.

In summary, Growing Forward 2 has an opportunity to look back at Growing Forward 1 and evaluate what worked well and what did not. There are lessons to be learned and concepts to be improved from Growing Forward 1 to 2, whether it is to continue to support those projects that were innovative, change those with limited success, and/or consider arm's length for programs that need to make timely decisions.

Some research-supported initiatives need to be assessed for progress to development and commercialization, and they need to be supported if progress was made from Growing Forward 1. Then a user-friendly regulatory system should be created with economic development as a mandate.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Fowlie, 10 minutes or less, please.

[Anne Fowlie, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Horticultural Council]

Thank you very much.

Good day. It is always a pleasure and a privilege to present our ideas to you.

The Canadian Horticultural Council is the national association that represents packers, producers, and storage intermediaries of over 120 different fresh fruit and vegetable crops. It's certainly a challenge, and it's an exciting one. Membership includes provincial and national horticultural commodity associations, which represent more than 20,000 producers across Canada, as well as allied service organizations, provincial governments, and individual producers.

I have been with the council since 1999. From 1978 until then, I worked in eastern Canada with the potato association before coming to Ottawa. A good portion of that time was spent working with producers and producer cooperatives, doing their sales and marketing.

As I indicated, horticulture is a highly diversified agricultural production, and it's one of Canada's largest agrifood industries. For example, Canadians spend more than $14 billion a year on fruit and vegetable products in retail stores. That's 25% of all retail expenditures.

So how do we grow? How do we maintain that market and grow the product category? Certainly it's going to be through a range of innovation.

With $5 billion in cash receipts, horticulture is also a very large sector of agriculture production. It's a major source of farm cash receipts in British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, and it accounts for more than half of crop receipts in provinces outside of the Prairies.

Of course, as in all sectors, we have been affected by globalization, loss of science capacity, which is of particular interest to you in the work you're currently doing, as well as a number of other items.

My comments will be centred around improving food diversity and security, enhancing agricultural sustainability, and developing new markets. To the extent possible, I'll try to tie that in to innovation.

When we do talk about fruit and vegetable sales and consumption in Canada, it's important to note that three of every four dollars that consumers spend on fruit and vegetables are for imported product. Our exports to the United States are significant, and, as you can well imagine, a favourable regulatory environment is important to us.

Now with regard to that three of every four dollars spent, obviously there are some crops we're not going to ever be in a position to grow, but certainly there are some imported crops we could look to perhaps replace with Canadian product.

As a group, I like to think we've been innovative over time, and certainly we do have some measure of success. The seasonal agricultural worker program is a good example. That began over 40 years ago, through the efforts of the Canadian Horticultural Council and its members. The original memorandum of understanding for that program with the Government of Canada lies with the Canadian Horticultural Council.

We believe our efforts were integral in establishing the AAFC Pest Management Centre, which you've heard a lot about over time, and that contributes to our competitiveness. Certainly the work they do in liaison with the PMRA is helping to bring innovation to the sector, which is much needed.

On food safety, the CanadaGAP program, which we worked so hard on over a number of years, for producers, packers, and storage intermediaries, is the only food safety program in Canada that is benchmarked to the global food safety initiative. That's a tremendous success story for our minister, the department, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

With regard to improving food diversity and security, how do we do that? We do it by Canadians, for Canadians. It's a priority that can only be achieved through dialogue, understanding, collaboration, and a good measure of innovation.

So what do we need? We need adequate funding for research in innovation. The previous speakers have touched on different aspects of that and raised some very good points.

We need to take appropriate actions to develop and implement policies and programs that foster producer profitability. That includes a number of traditional means, as well as some non-traditional means, whether it be through innovation or various types of risk management programs in the very broadest sense. We need to ensure a favourable regulatory environment.

All of these things do begin on the farm, and prosperity at the farm gate will drive prosperity beyond the farm gate. A consistent, safe, and nutritious quality product that's produced in a sustainable and competitive manner, which includes timely access to new and innovative technologies, and a host of risk mitigation tools that are marketed at a reasonable price with full and timely payment, provides long-term benefits. That is a true recipe for innovation and sustainability.

Research and innovation are critically important to maintaining our competitiveness, and certainly the announcement of the Canadian agri-science clusters initiative was received with enthusiasm and a sense of opportunity for horticulture, and indeed all of agriculture, and I believe the program has been very well subscribed.

It certainly had a stated purpose: to encourage key agricultural organizations to mobilize and coordinate a critical mass of scientific and technical capacity within industry, within government, and within academia to create, design, and implement a national program of applied science, tech transfer, and commercialization plans in support of sector-developed strategies.

In 2009, again considering that we have a broad group of crops and very diverse needs, we did look to rationalize our priorities and needs vis-à-vis research and innovation, and those discussions brought us to five theme areas: health and wellness, food safety and quality, production and production systems, environmental performance of the horticultural system, which of course includes pest management, and energy management and efficiency. And certainly the greenhouse sector has been very much a leader in looking at that area, in particular through cost management, but also looking to ensure Canadian production on a 12-month basis. So I think all of those priorities certainly align themselves very much with Government of Canada priorities as well.

So the result has been an agri-science cluster for horticulture, which is enabling industry and researchers to collaborate and work towards the goals of enhanced profitability and competitiveness through the use of scientific and technical resources to support innovation strategies. The cluster has provided industry an opportunity to collectively leverage government funds and available research in a coordinated response to industry priorities.

We have heard some comments around the approval process and application process. I certainly do have to echo that, that when you have a five-year program and it's two years in before you can begin accessing funds, while they're greatly appreciated and are being put to good use, it does make it a little bit difficult, because obviously science is not a short-term undertaking.

Innovation does maintain and enhance our competitiveness, and there are potential benefits and synergies that will be accrued through the cluster by improving coordination.

In the document that was passed around, we do have a summary of the projects that we do have under way through the cluster, which you can review at your leisure. Some of them are certainly of note, I think. One in particular has to do with small fruit and is being focused on blueberries. It is working with the equipment manufacturers to look at better use of technology in the fields. In this project they're going through and looking to apply crop protection management technologies to the field, and through a series of sensors and cameras they're able to discern what is the actual plant and what is the weed and spot-spray accordingly. So it's quite fascinating. And certainly we'd love to make some of this available to you any time, show you some videos. So there are some interesting things going on.

As for challenges and opportunities, a lot of them are production-related. And we cannot discount that some of the very basic research lies in that area. It's not always making the best press or the most glamour, but again, that's where it begins. If there isn't that high-quality, consistently available raw product, then the processors and everybody else along the line aren't going to be able to thrive either.

As regards access to and commercialization of new varieties, again, varieties are a long-term undertaking, but that's what's driving a lot of market growth and innovation.

I did want to touch a little bit on markets, both domestic and international, and the Market Access Secretariat that's doing a lot of work. Minister Ritz attended a session this week where they released their first report. I think it's been a good addition to helping the industry grow and differentiate itself through highlighting different things we do.

I think perhaps I will leave it at that. I do know you have questions, or there are other things I could talk about.

Crop protection technology is critically important. I know you've heard that over time. But, again, research plays a big piece in addressing that. One particular problem that we have that we're working on through the cluster is wireworm. It's a huge problem in the potato industry across Canada, and particularly serious right now in eastern Canada. In Prince Edward Island itself, the Minister of Agriculture is chairing a task force because it's so severe, and the financial losses are pretty significant. It impacts carrots as well, and a lot of fields have been abandoned this year for harvest because of that.

I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fowlie.

We now move to Ms. Raynault for five minutes.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question is for Mr. McLaughlin.

Can you tell us more about the biomass? What can we do to raise the population's awareness of that sector?

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

That's a very good question. It's an area that we're starting to do a little bit on.... I think the biomass has to be properly managed as well, but to build the awareness around it. As we look at that sector from our perspective in Sarnia, with Sarnia being a large agricultural community as well, we have the ability to reach out for straw and corn stover in the region, but also to grow some alternative crops.

We have research plots now at our research park in Sarnia, looking at miscanthus and switchgrass and some other biomass types of crops, to learn more about them and how you can process those as well. I think the opportunity is there. These plots at our site are open to the public to come and have a look at so they can at least see what some of these crops look like, as they read about them or hear about them at the same time. I think from a farming community perspective, the key is we still have to learn what the real value there is. Is there sufficient value to justify growing these crops as alternative crops, and so on?

So there's a lot of work that will have to be done over the next three to four years I think to see a significant growth in that sector in eastern Canada. In western Canada we're looking at camelina, triticale, and a few other crops that could be used for industrial uses as well.

There is a lot of early stage work in the development side of biomass-type crops that need to be developed, and also in the research processes for maximizing the use of those crops.

Hopefully that helps a little bit.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

That is the case.

You referred earlier to an investment in that sector. Can you tell us about the order of magnitude of that investment?

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

On the biomass side?

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

I am talking about the biomass sector.

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

It depends on which crops you're looking at. In western Canada we've done a significant amount of work with triticale, I'd say, over the last five or eight years. There's probably been $20 million or $30 million in research there. It was a program that was funded through one of the ADF programs, with Growing Forward 2, and then the provinces also financed that one, and some of the camelina and some of the other oilseed crops.

In Ontario, where we've been doing work on biomass, it's probably a little bit more hit and miss. I don't know the exact amount of money that's been put into the research, but it's probably fairly early stage and probably not as much funding as we really need to see how those crops will develop. A lot of interest now is in getting away from using the food-base crops for the biomaterials and biochemicals. So biomass is really the route that most people are swinging to now. That's where we need to see a lot of effort over the next three to five years to see the biomass come into the market from a marketing perspective and to utilize the biomass for producing the new bio-based chemicals that we want to be producing.

There's been some money into that area, but not enough money--probably more in the west than in Ontario, to date. I think we'll see a lot more effort in biomass in the next two or three years.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Does the funding only come from the federal government? I believe I understood that the provinces would also provide funding to research.

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

Yes, the provinces are certainly participating. When you start looking at biomass, it draws in the forestry side as well. We aren't talking about that at this meeting, but there's a lot of effort on the forestry side as well, to look at the utilization of biomass in those sectors through FPInnovations and other organizations. We'd definitely have to be working province by province, because geographically and climatically there are differences in what types of crops we'd be able to grow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have a little time left, if you want it--very briefly.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

My question is for Ms. Fowlie.

What are the long-term employment perspectives in horticulture or small fruit production? We want to attract a new generation.

[Anne Fowlie]

You are talking about the next generation, are you not?

It is a difficult issue, and we are concerned. I think that we may manage it with innovation and some other methods. Profitability and quality of life must also be considered. Life is sometimes difficult for horticultural producers since production costs are very high, especially if we compare them to costs in other productions. I think we will have to find an array of solutions.

There is farming, but there are also very interesting careers in the industry. That includes all of the sciences that are important for crop production. We have to think about what we will do to attract people and interest them in farming and in the industries that support agriculture, the sciences in particular.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Time is up. Thank you.

I'll now move to Mr. Gill. Welcome to the agriculture committee.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentations, for being here and providing us with very valuable information.

I have a couple of questions. Maybe I could start with Dr. McLaughlin.

Recently, Azule Fuel Inc. in Sarnia received $1.6 million from the federal government to continue its groundbreaking work on biodiesel. Could you please explain how important funding such as this is to the agricultural sector?

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

Yes. All of these things are very important as we look at how we develop these alternative fuel uses, biodiesel being one of those and Sarnia being one location. But the benefit of Sarnia is because it is a petroleum-based community. I always have to remind people, particularly when I'm south of the border, that the first place oil was discovered in North America was out in Oil City in Petrolia, outside of Sarnia, and not down in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was two years after us.

That started a whole realm.... Having that discovery of oil in the 1850s really created Sarnia as a major centre for petroleum. But as we've seen, some of those companies left the community. In the late 1900s, early 2000s, the community said, “How do we maintain what we have but also grow going forward into the next century?” And they decided that green and sustainability were key components of that. Therefore, the bioindustrial, biofuels, became a key part of that, because you've already got the fuel-based businesses there that can start plugging into, as drop-in fuels, the petroleum-based fuels, and so on. So it's a natural fit to have those efforts going on in places such as Sarnia.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Fowlie.

Under Growing Forward, $4.8 million was allocated by this government to the horticulture science cluster. Could you please highlight some of the important projects this money has been used to fund?

[Anne Fowlie]

Of course, and again, we have a number of them highlighted here.

One of the challenges we had in addressing the science cluster was—of course, you have 120 crops—how you are going to manage that in terms of defining priorities. We already had some experience working on our food safety program in crop groupings where some things made sense. We had done that in food safety based on risks. We had potato root crop, leafy greens, small fruit, and tree fruit somewhat based on risk. We followed that pattern because we did find it to be very successful. Our members were comfortable with it and already accustomed to working together. We went through deliberations on trying to identify priorities within those crop groupings. Then there were priorities that rose to the top, and projects were submitted. Some were approved and some weren't.

In tree fruit, there are two projects currently on the go. One is advanced post-harvest handling and storage technology for Canadian apples. There are a few details here listed with the objectives. That work is nicely under way right now. One of the newer projects that is under way now—and this is a longer-term one that is going to have a good platform and applicability for a whole host of other crops—is identifying genetic markers to enhance apple breeding in Canada. It's really looking to lay a foundation for a large-scale marker-assisted apple breeding program by collecting genomic data from over 1,000 different apple cultivars. What you have is a filing cabinet of material, as you need to quickly react in the market, whether it's pest disease, consumer demand, etc.—a whole host of things—to move perhaps a bit more quickly to changing variety. Those are a couple.

I spoke on the blueberry piece already and what's going on. That one is quite exciting. It's certainly getting a lot of attention. We have a couple of water projects on the go. Those are really related to food safety. Those are very key. There are some gaps in food safety in terms of the science needed to support programs. Certainly, we very much want food safety to remain--let's keep it to the science and nothing else. Water is an area where there are some universal gaps.

Those are exciting pieces.

With regard to the potato, we have some ongoing work—the late blight, and then now the work on wireworm. The potato is a particularly interesting one in regard to expertise in Canada. With wireworm in particular, the only game in town is Agriculture Canada. All that is to say that we need Agriculture Canada facilities and scientists. Certainly, we have a concern that we see that diminishing. We've heard earlier about how the capacity is being lost. How are we attracting and bringing in new scientists? We very much need the department and its expertise.

Those are just a few. I could go on and on, but I won't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Valeriote, you have five minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you so much. Thank you both for appearing.

Mr. McLaughlin, I remember meeting you at the bio-lobby at the Château. That was a good event. I am glad you are here.

I am part of a group that's trying to develop, and has actually developed, an innovation centre in Guelph. The reason we've done this is because it seems there is a gap between the minds and the money. We refer to it here, as many have, as the “valley of death”. It is that gap between innovation and ideas, and actually commercializing it and getting it out there. I was reading in a Saskatoon newspaper that we have an agricultural productivity clip of 1.7% growth per year that's needed. We need 1.7% if we are really going to meet the demands of the world as our population grows.

I've talked about incentivizing the industry. I talked to you about incentivizing the industry—flow-through shares and credits. Governments don't want to pick winners and losers. SR and ED, on the research and innovation, allows them to not pick winners and losers, right? I'm wondering if you agree with that idea of flow-through shares and credits. If not, is there anything else you might add to the conversation as an incentive? I know we have the developing innovative agriproducts component of Growing Forward. I'm told it's not enough. We need more. What more do we need?

[Dr. Murray McLaughlin]

Well, I think a lot of it is....

The flow-through share is one concept that we use a lot. I have been on the board of BIOTECanada, and we've always positioned that as something that would be good to have on the life science side beyond the oil and gas sector. If you look at the success it's created on that side, we feel it could benefit this side as well.

I work closely with the people in Guelph--Gord Surgeoner's on my board, and I'm on the board of Bioenterprise as well--and we talk a lot amongst ourselves on things that are needed, looking at trying to create a venture capital fund for agriculture through Bioenterprise, as you're probably aware, and having some success there. People aren't closing the door in our faces, anyway; they're listening to the story. We'll see what happens.

But that's more of a private sector fund. The other area I see that's needed, or that would be nice, would be some way to provide guaranteed loans. When I look south of the border, when we're having discussions with the bio-based chemistry industry about locating in Canada, a lot of them find that when they're south of the border they can get a $50-million-plus guaranteed loan quite readily from the federal system there, and probably some other state funds. We don't need that size, though, I don't think.

When BioAmber made the decision to locate in Canada, they looked at 100 locations. The other 99 locations were in the U.S. They looked at four or five locations very diligently, but at the end of the day they made the decision to come to Sarnia.

In that decision, we were able to work with them over the last six or eight months to help cobble together some funding of around $35 million between provincial and federal funding. They made the decision to be in Canada simply because it made more sense from a practical standpoint and a financial standpoint for them to be located in a place like Sarnia rather than in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa. They are, at the end of the day, in the chemical business once they produce their bio-based chemical.