Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses.
We have already gone over with other commodity groups a number of the issues we're discussing here today.
One of the main obstacles, without question, is the provincial abattoir inspection versus the federal abattoir inspection. I have never really thought about it before, but maybe we're looking at this in the wrong way.
I want to throw this at both of you. We keep coming back to the federal government every time. We need the federal inspection for export; we understand that. We don't need it for domestic sales. So the plants that are already set up for federal inspection have an advantage over other plants. Maybe we should look at this with the provinces. It would be as simple as the provinces accepting one another's regulations domestically; then this issue goes away. We keep coming back to the federal side for the export opportunity, but we're not looking for an expert opportunity; we're looking for domestic sales, especially in the sheep and lamb industry.
I just want to throw that at both of you and get some feedback.