Mr. Chairman, I'd really like to thank the member for that particular question.
I think the agriculture industry has a lot of potential in the future. Even in a dot-com economy, people are still going to want to eat.
Western Canada and Alberta produce high-quality food. We have the potential to add more value to it before we ship it.
One of the projects, for example, that we supported jointly with the Department of Agriculture was an investment of about $3 million—if my memory is right—in the Canadian Beef Centre in Calgary. They have already, I think, brought in about three dozen international groups to come and see how beef is grown and prepared in Canada and how to prepare it back home, with the idea of making Canadian beef the dish of choice when you have your in-laws in for dinner in Korea or China. They report sales in excess of $100 million, at least partly attributed to this kind of investment.
I agree completely that there is a lot of potential to further explore and expand food and agrifood shipments out of Alberta and indeed all of western Canada.