We've actually done an analysis of where Canada sits in comparison to every major country, including the OIE. That can be found in our documentation, in chart format. Unquestionably, we fall behind every other civilized country in terms of animal transportation. While we don't fall particularly far behind the United States, we are still behind. We certainly take the position very strongly that, as Canadians, and in particular as Canadians who don't want animals to suffer, we have an obligation to make dramatic change at this point.
The other thing I just want to comment on is the ongoing question about the EU. At the end of the day, while we are not the EU, animals certainly have the same capacity for suffering, whether those animals are sitting in Germany or they're sitting in Canada.
When we talk about the number of hours in transport, there are alternatives. When we talk about animals being offloaded and reloaded, yes, that's extremely stressful, but there are trucks available that have on-board food and water, on-board ventilation, and on-board monitoring of temperatures. When we know those transport times are going to exceed maximums like eight hours, they should be utilizing separate trucking systems.
We also believe that there is an opportunity for job development in having more slaughterhouses so that they simply would not have to be in transport for 52 hours, which is grossly unacceptable. We know there are job opportunities here, and there are better trucking systems.
It's no different. If you're going to take your kids to Florida, what are you going to do? You're going to pack a lunch and put it in the back of your car, and you're going to do a few other things, and you're going to stop. There are opportunities for animals as well. As Michael has indicated, every animal feels suffering, and not one death is acceptable. Where we can reduce that dramatically, we have that obligation on the global stage, to Canadians, and quite frankly, to the animals.