Thank you, Mr. Drouin.
I think the challenge here is that we're fully supportive: we've had our animal care program in place since 2009. It's on. It's fully audited every year, and from that perspective it's mandatory for us. There is no ability from any government regulations to make it mandatory. We use our supply management regulations in each province to do that.
I take it that it's the same way with our food safety program. If you don't meet it, if you're not certified, we will pull your quota, or we will say you don't have your licence to produce, so you can sell your quota, but you're not going to produce any chickens there. We can't take that financial piece away but we can enforce it.
I think the challenge for us is communication. If we have a government third party audited animal care program, a recognition protocol, then it says we've gone through it, and they've met the requirements out there. We're going through this animal care assessment framework, that is being funded by Agriculture Canada, through the National Farm Animal Care Council. There are animal welfare groups on the National Farm Animal Care Council. There will be animal welfare researchers on this assessment framework. There will be farmers and there will be veterinarians and others who will develop it. It has to be developed so it is absolutely credible. Once credible, our farmers have to do the right thing and follow the program. We will make sure they follow the program.
I think it is a sharing of the funding, but the recognition part, the assurance system and the government role in that, I think can speak to Canadians who are concerned about the care of animals but are not those who perhaps have a different agenda in terms of meat consumption. This is where we have to draw the line between the two.