That's a very good question. Thank you.
Essentially, as Mr. Williams mentioned, I do consider processing the forgotten job of the entire food industry. I've always considered processing as the roots of the tree. We all see the tree, the branches and the leaves, but we never see the roots, and the roots will hold the tree up and straight. In Canada we've done a poor job of supporting SMEs in that particular node of the supply chain.
What I've seen over the years are SMEs dealing with listing fees, food safety compliance fees, R and D fees and lots of different things they need to pay but they never plan for. I do believe that there is something there that perhaps the government can do to support small and medium-sized businesses trying to venture into food processing.
We're really struggling with processing in Canada coast to coast, particularly in both the Atlantic and B.C. right now for different reasons. I don't think we've a done a good job supporting food processing in general and how we accompany these enterprises that don't necessarily have the resources to compete against the larger CPG companies that come from abroad.