From the packers and processors' perspective, because they are not the producers, they are working in the continuum of the food chain. One of the challenges the industry has is how to work more efficiently and more effectively.
I'm very new to the industry. I have been here only five months, and I came from a background that has nothing to do with this sector, so I'm really struck by how integrated the industry is, but how fractured it is at the same time. I'll give you an example. We had a meeting earlier this year, when I first started, with Paul Glover, the head of CFIA. He said that he was happy to meet with us, but that he'd heard from six other trade associations that were essentially saying to him the same thing, but with a very small nuance.
As for what you are asking, what the industry needs to do, broadly speaking, is to be less fractured. You always hear people say that they want to be more integrated, that they need to be more integrated, but that seems to be—certainly to somebody who is quite new to the industry—quite a bit of jargon, frankly. In the industry I represent, for example, while there is consolidation, if you look at the number of trade associations in Ottawa that advocate on an issue, you see that there is a very narrow bandwidth.
If you ever got together and did what the Americans did when they formulated the North American Meat Institute, it would be far more effective, with far more clout and far more precision that it can give to decision-makers to say, “This is where the industry is really going, and this is what we need from government”—as opposed to your hearing a bit from us, and a bit from Ron, Dennis, and all the other witnesses you've had. It's a real challenge.
What would be very beneficial is if government, particularly Ag Canada, could give more precision, as opposed to these really broad thematic approaches, to narrow down the scope and make sure there is a very clear economic element to it, and not to diminish the economic importance of what we are trying to do from an export perspective as well.