Yes, you've touched on a topic I've been working on for a number of years, and the position that a group of similar-minded organizations, including Grain Growers as the national body, but also a number of provincial groups where I'm from in Saskatchewan....
Just to put it in perspective, it's not an east-west thing. Yes, there are different climates—somewhere between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg it changes or something. It's also the fact that western Canada is home to somewhere around 75% of the grain production acres in Canada, so it's a much more dominant part of our landscape, literally. We are one of the few places in the world where our climate is such that we can sequester carbon.
I'm not trying to get into a debate so much about how a carbon tax might impact us on the cost side. We just know it's likely going to filter down into some costs. Regardless of that, there should be recognition of the great good we're doing with that sequestration. It's not trivial. It's millions of tonnes, every year, not just once in time. The minimum tillage practices are the primary driver of that, but also other things too.
The fact is we are doing those things, and yes, we're benefiting from them to some extent anyway, but these practices were brought in at a time when carbon credits were talked about, 25 years ago. This file has been around that long in some of the circles I've been working in. We are very cognizant of the different politics around it, but we are really pushing for some recognition that sequestration is a public good as well, and that we're trying to be part of the solution, and not just be penalized with an extra cost that we can't pass on.