Thank you, Chair, and thank you, panel.
Maple syrup excites me, and that is the reason I say, Chair, that we should talk to Tim Hortons and accept their apology about not having maple syrup, and maple syrup blend, with the iced cappuccino. We should write a letter to Tim Hortons on that for sure.
I have a quick story before my question. I was down in South America. I used to work for Case on the New Holland side, and I took maple syrup with me as a gift wherever I went. There was one sugar cane farmer just outside of Ribeirão Preto, and I gave him a bottle of maple syrup. He didn't know what it was. He wasn't sure. He asked what he should do with it, and I said, “Well, put it in your coffee”. Two weeks later he emailed me and asked if I could send him some more of that maple syrup because he didn't like his sugar anymore and wanted maple syrup in his coffee.
I look at that, and I see all the examples of where we can use that as a sweetener around the world and how people embrace it. I think the industry is an untapped gem that has lots to go to. That's my little story about maple syrup. When I travel I take salmon, maple syrup, and of course blueberries from Saskatchewan, or Saskatoon berries, with me to give away as gifts.
To finish off with a question, I want to stress the importance of this deal with the dairy sector and the compensation factor. You talked about the impact it's going to have on your sector and on the smaller farms especially. You really laid out the argument to have a proper compensation package, because they are going to get hurt, and I think it's the responsibility of government to mitigate that loss as much as it possibly can.
As a final word—because I know the chair is going to cut me off here quickly—how important is that compensation, and not seeing it in the budget, and not knowing if it's there? How alarming is it to you and your producers that it may not be coming?