I totally agree with what Ron is saying. We see this often in that we have companies that do not export because of the cost of creating secondary packaging into another country. It is a significant burden on the grower-shipper. The GMO labelling discussion is one that is sensitive. We have to try to move away from socially driven regulation towards a science-driven framework.
When we look at how we're currently structured in Canada, we deal effectively with biotech and genetically modified tools to enable us to feed the world in an effective manner in that if the use of the technologies creates an allergen or changes the product, it needs to be identified ensuring that we're clearly labelling and notifying the public.
We have GMO labelling now technically. We don't need to separate it out. No one is asking us to say you must label conventional and say this is how you grow. If we're looking at a science that has been regulated by Health Canada and effectively delivered for many years now, how do we take that sound science forward and look at alignment with our trading partners to ensure that two pieces don't happen and we end up having multiple packaging to ship? We need to look at how we reduce that hard core cost, and that's very difficult because front-of-packaging labelling is one piece, nutrition labelling is another. The U.S. and Canada have two totally different nutrition labelling models.
If you want to ship to the U.S. and you're packaging your apples and you want to make a claim, you must put a U.S. nutrition panel different from Canada and vice versa coming into Canada from the U.S. Right off the top, it's not as simple as just saying what are the commonalities. There are many differences that we're looking at right now. It's a complex issue.