I can talk about the price of oil and ethanol but not about the impact on agriculture, which is not my specialty. Mr. Row or Mr. Teneycke might have an opinion on that.
To tell you about the impact on oil products, let's try to simplify the issue by taking only the case of gasoline. The pricing system of gasoline on the North American continent and in Europe is well-known and is transparent. When you see the price at the pump, it's easy to understand: there is the price of oil and all the taxes and there is the wholesale price that you can find in Europe, New York City, etc.
When you blend in ethanol, you get a new product called E-10 which means it's gasoline with 10% ethanol. If our policy leads to harmonization of E-10 in Canada with other countries, there will be a global market for this product, prices will be transparent and the prices of gas and of gas-ethanol blends will probably be the same. The danger is that provincial or federal policies might create some isolated pockets in Canada that would be disconnected from this North American market because they would only be able to buy the blend within their borders. In that case, the price would be set according to local demand and I have the feeling that it would be much higher.
It is very important, when national policy is set, to be able to compare our prices to American and European prices. And, for this comparison to be done, refiners have to be able to buy their product anywhere, from Europe, Brazil, the US or Canada. That would ensure that the prices of our oil products, including those with ethanol, will be coordinated with world prices. If we establish a policy, like Saskatchewan has done, of encouraging people to buy only in Saskatchewan and to sell only what is produced there, we would probably have a different price in Saskatchewan, since people wouldn't be able to import from somewhere else, and that price would not go down. History has shown that in such a situation prices move as high as the market allows. Therefore, it is very important, as far as prices are concerned, to...
The only thing that you should put your mind to should be to make sure that we, the oil industry, will be able to buy those products from all the provinces, from the US or from anywhere else. If so, the integrity of the oil market will be maintained.