It could be, but it could also limit the financial opportunities for those farmers if the markets in the local region aren't strong enough, or if what they're growing isn't grown with the intention of being sold there. What we have to remember is that Canada is a net food exporter. We grow more food than we can ever eat. What we have to find is the dual path of having an emphasis on local so that people who want to buy local—sometimes they have to pay a premium—are able to do that because it's available and on the shelves, but at other times having an export orientation to where we know there are markets—east and west, and sometimes north and south—for the foods that we grow. The local issue starts to become very complicated.
I would say that, here in Ontario, the provincial government has been very effective, through Foodland Ontario and other regional programs that target where it's grown locally, either in Ontario or in a much more granular region. That's not for every producer, so we have to make sure that those programs are designed in ways that are attractive to the producers who want to be engaged in it and take an opportunity from it, but also that we do not force people to do something they otherwise wouldn't want to do.
