Agriculture committee  Merci, monsieur le président. This is one of the issues that was raised by the representative of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency during testimony before the committee last week. The CFIA is responsible for implementing the labelling regulations. Obviously, certain aspects of the labelling regulations are highly technical.

Agriculture committee  Merci, monsieur le président. You asked two questions, one of which was about milk constituents in cheese. A committee is studying the issue, and the minister has announced a review. The process is under way, and we're awaiting the result of the committee's deliberations. With regard to import standards, I believe that the CFIA also raised this issue when its representatives appeared before the committee last week.

Agriculture committee  When the minister referred to there seeming to be a common opinion evolving that we should be looking at some form of regional flexibility, it is in that context: that the minister and ministers from the provinces are trying to look at what kind of flexibility we could bring to an agreement that would cover national objectives.

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's right. We've just started doing the work in terms of what kinds of principles we might attach to this. One of the very important considerations, for example, has been making sure we don't attract countervailing attention from the U.S. So we have to be careful how we design programs.

Agriculture committee  We have not yet made decisions as to what specific programs there will be, but there is certainly currently an initiative on branding Canadian products. We'll have to evaluate how much further to take this, what kind of changes are required as part of the work we're doing with the industry and the provinces, and the best way to advance the interests of the sector.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been holding consultations since late 2006. We've been hearing a lot of the same thematic areas, if you will, or the same issues that you've been hearing. Certainly the whole idea of giving importance to the domestic market has been a prevalent idea.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously your question is very broad. The vision is reflected in the agricultural policy strategic framework that is now in place. We have initiated consultations with the sector so that we can update the strategic framework, and we are discussing the vision for agriculture.

Agriculture committee  From a capacity perspective, well, it's roughly doubling the capacity. So we're going to have to work with the industry to see their individual strategies in each of the commodity groups, to see how they want to capture that and how we're going to be able to meet it. As part of this, we are also evaluating how much investment we have to put in.

Agriculture committee  It's in the early stages. That's what we're doing in these meetings with the industry. There's not a day goes by that we don't sit down with the industry. We're also receiving a lot of briefs. We're doing a lot of the analysis right now to evaluate this so that by the time we announce a strategy we've figured out exactly the kind of investment and the kind of initiative that the industry is supportive of and that will be beneficial to them.

Agriculture committee  What we have is an understanding of how much ethanol we're doing, but the 5% strategy was an initiative of the new government. So as soon as the government came into place, we started doing the work and meeting with the industry and developing all that.

Agriculture committee  The commitment of the government in developing the biofuel strategy is definite. That's why we have already started with the consultation. We're working very closely with the stakeholders, with the producer groups, in developing the approach. The underlying commitment is to make sure that producers benefit from the biofuel strategy.

Agriculture committee  Regarding the question about the Wheat Board, over the years there have been a number of studies done. I'm not aware of any recent studies that specifically look at a proposal of dual market or open market, but there have been a number of studies. The Wheat Board itself has also conducted a number of studies.

Agriculture committee  That's what we're looking at with the industry. Right now, through the consultations, we're exploring and defining the breadth and the specificity.

Agriculture committee  There have been no decisions made on that yet.

Agriculture committee  The minister is holding consultations. We're certainly accelerating the work in developing the strategy in support of the biofuel objective. The ministers of environment, natural resources, and agriculture had some consultations in Regina last week, and there'll be further consultations with stakeholders in the sector that have an interest in developing projects.