Thanks, Jim, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing Jim to give more of a national review.
What we'll now do is narrow this down to the effects on the plants in Montreal and Saint-Cyrville.
We'll focus on country-of-origin labelling first. It's probably costing us about 10¢ a pound on our bulk boneless beef going across the border, because of its exemption into retail at this point. They have mandated at the retail counter a target of 70% product of United States. I was down there a couple weeks ago, and of course, being a meathead, you always have a look at the retail counter to see what's happening there. They seem to be successful: it is 70% product of United States on the counter. They comingle the product I produce. It will end up in a further processing operation or a food service industry, and this has created a two-tier meat block. That's the only downside to it. So I would estimate there is a 10¢ to 15¢ a pound spread from what I used to get going into the United States to what I'm getting today, because of the United States' restriction of use. That's one immediate impact that we see.
As for the other impact, the United States is our major trading partner. It's a convenient partner. It's by road, it's overnight, it's fresh, and on and on. It just has all of the right things for us to be in business there. But we do need equivalent regulations. We've looked at harmonization with the United States since 1998, and I'm sure you've all read the free trade agreement signed by the Honourable Mr. Wilson. It's a fairly lengthy document, but it is worth having a read back in history, because that document mentioned harmonization with the United States, our number one trading partner, and we respect them.
I think the best we can shoot for is maybe equivalency. We should take that word “harmonization”, because I think it has been 20 years in the making. It has created a lot of jobs for people, but we're not quite there. The SRM policy has really hindered my ability to maximize my capacity in the plants in Quebec. I used to bring livestock up out of the eastern seaboard over there, the Vermont area, and we'd slaughter the cows in the plants when things got low in Canada.