Mr. Chair, it's great to have the witnesses here.
One of the things you spoke about earlier, Mr. McInnes, is developing our food brand around trust. I think that's so critical, but by the same token, we have so many different fads that are coming about. I mean I think you can go to the Calgary Stampede and you can buy lard on a stick, but you're going to have gluten-free buns that are being advertised at the same kiosk. We see these types of things happening, like the issue with A&W as far as hormones are concerned. If you do any research on it, you realize that you could probably eat 50,000 burgers to get as much estrogen as a male is going to produce during a day. Yet these are things that we see become marketing ploys.
I understand the significance of that, the types of things that are associated with it, but then you start to fear where this is going. We also hear in the beef industry that people are saying there should be restrictions because of the methane gas coming from beef animals. Those become some of the things producers are looking at and they are nervous about them. We may end up with the same situation if we have all of these groups that come in, because as Canadians, we apologize for everything we do, and therefore Brazil will take up the beef production in the world. It will be the same as bringing in oil and gas from the Middle East because we don't want our oil and gas moved. These are the kinds of issues that people are so concerned about, when all your hear is media turning things around. Farmers are concerned about that.
I mean the issue with Earls on the humane treatment of animals, again, was a marketing ploy. There are people who will say, “Well, I can do that because that's how I run my operation anyway, so if somebody wants to sign me up, go ahead.” These are the concerns that people in agriculture have, and they are going to affect our industry and our manufacturing industry as well. What can we do to try to make sure we can stay on top of this, as it is so important for every one of us?