Good. Thank you.
I lived in Europe for 10 years. I'm also a Swiss citizen. I married a Swiss and lived there. I lived in the Swiss Alps. I learned to make cheese there. When I became widowed I moved back to Canada.
There are a few things that I learned through that. I learned that Canada is not on the radar of most people in the world. I travelled around the world, and I remember standing in line once on a Greek island to buy a ticket to go on a boat. Someone asked me where I was from, and I said, “Canada”, and he said, “Oh Canada. Canada is so banal.” I thought, little did he know it's such a wonderful place where everyone wants to be. We live the life that everyone really wants. We're so blessed in this country, because we're allowed to be pioneers and we're allowed to explore and to create and to grow. Living in Switzerland, I learned that if I wanted to be a farm-set cheese-maker, it's just so difficult. Everything's so nuts. So we have that opportunity.
I think it's a wonderful opportunity for people like myself and my family. We have a small family farm. As I said, several years ago when our kids left home and therefore most of our labour left home, we had to make a decision as to what we would do. My husband was an immigrant from England who started farming. He came in the 1970s with $75 in his pocket and worked his way to own a farm. This is possible in Canada, which is wonderful. There's that pioneer spirit. We're a country of many immigrants and wonderful blends of cultures. We're so blessed in that way. We had to make a decision. Do we sell out? Do we expand taking on more debt? Do we diversify? You come to that point where you have to do something.
We're within the supply-managed sector of dairy. The circumstances at the time were difficult in the sense that there was a response to consumer demand among the processors for lower butterfat in milk. It was difficult to make ends meet because there had to be some changes in the product. That also spurred on our decision to look into diversification. We felt supported along the way by the infrastructure, the systems. That's where we are.
We built the business up diversifying into cheese-making. We use the milk of our own cows. We changed our situation around so that we are not conventional dairy farmers anymore. What we found is that it's a very different perspective from the supply-managed farm that we were before, in the sense that we're in direct contact with the consumer now. We directly hear from our customers what they want. We directly respond to their demands, because we have to market our own products. What we have found is that hands-down the consumer wants to support local.
I was at a conference a couple of days ago on non-GMO. There was a survey done by Ipsos Reid at the behest of an organization from the Prairies. The one statistic that I brought along is that when it comes to the claims on packaging or products that have the highest motivational factors for purchasing, number one by a long shot is local. People want local products first and they want transparency.
I'm not afraid of CETA because I believe that in our situation as a small business we're close to the ground. We know and forge relationships with our consumers, with our customers. They know us. My husband delivers cheese to the city. He has his little cap on, and people see him on the street and recognize him. They want that connection.
All of you have to admit that you wish you could live on a small family farm. You really want that. My dad told me once that life is about relationships, and that we're living the life that everyone really wants. That's encouraging because there's a lot of work behind it, as you all probably can guess, or know.
We know our consumers. We know our customers. We know what they want and we can respond to that.
The agreement isn't finalized, but I know the numbers that are being tossed around are that there is going to be x amount of fine cheese or European cheese allowed in addition to what's already allowed into the Canadian market.
I believe—I could be wrong, because I haven't studied a lot of the numbers—that it averages out to be about a pound of cheese per person in Canada. A pound of cheese is something the size of this number seven we see here, and once you've eaten that pound of cheese, you still have a lot of time left in that year, so I'm thinking that the local cheese-makers are the ones who will actually draw you to them. Yes, that's what I think.
I believe that Canada is a wonderful place, with every opportunity, and also that we can make cheese just as fine as all those Swiss who think they're so great. I'm Swiss, too, so I can say that. As for the French, my youngest daughter graduated from McGill and is in southern France right now studying French. She was going to make something for a little get-together. It was a German pretzel thing that she was going to bake for a little potluck. One of the French girls said, “Oh, those poor Canadians, always trying to do things that other people do better.”