Agriculture committee  Yes. As I said, our experience over the last few years is that some of where the costs come from is shifting, and it's too new in the experience to really realize cost savings, because indeed there is, if anything, more examination because all the different scientists are very interested.

Agriculture committee  But one of the most important things, I think, for the grower in Canada is that we're a small market. By being part of these joint reviews, we avoid the old situation where they simply didn't bring the product to Canada. Now, being part of the joint reviews, they're getting the product in Canada as well, and that is really one of the things farmers want the most, that access to product.

Agriculture committee  As I said, we started with twelve products. It was our decision that they weren't eligible because they were not equivalent. The two others were withdrawn because of data protection issues. So it wasn't so much whether the manufacturers were collaborating with GROU; it was that these were new products, still with patent protection, and were inappropriate to use under this program.

Agriculture committee  In some circumstances we will set what's called an import MRL. Typically that's for a product where the food is not grown in Canada: bananas, oranges, grapefruit. We don't grow them in Canada. There is no need to establish a domestic MRL; it's only an import MRL. There could be examples of older products where we don't permit the use of the pesticide in Canada but they are still being used abroad, and those products are coming in and we're not seeing or detecting the maximum residue limit.

Agriculture committee  Any food. This doesn't typically happen with developing countries, but in the United States, both currently and historically, there can also be pesticides where the registrant hasn't brought it to be registered in Canada. So we haven't seen the information yet. We don't know whether the product is safe or is not safe.

Agriculture committee  That's part of it. And that's why there's such support behind the global reviews, because it facilitates regulators in getting a better understanding of things. We're allowing the same products and the same MRLs. It benefits farmers because they're using newer products and they have confidence that they can ship their product to all of these countries and meet their regulatory standards instead of perhaps taking a chance on not meeting the standards and being detected.

Agriculture committee  It has. I believe there are eleven submissions we've had since this past summer, which is a very significant increase for us in Canada.

Agriculture committee  Yes, because the registrants of generic products don't have the cost of building the database associated with those products.

Agriculture committee  It certainly is a potential side benefit. The regulators haven't been pursuing that as a specific objective, but as I just said, it certainly gives growers the assurance that the pesticides they're using are permitted at the same level in other countries. It started really with the experience just between Canada and the United States.

Agriculture committee  We have not only had discussions with CFIA, we have had discussions with our U.S. counterparts, and at a couple of NAFTA meetings we agreed to also have discussions on compliance and enforcement as part of the NAFTA work program. Quite often things happen in the United States before they happen in Canada, so we've agreed to exchange compliance and enforcement data so that either one of us is given a heads-up about what is happening in the other country.

Agriculture committee  That's us.

Agriculture committee  Not that it would go on to GROU.

Agriculture committee  If it's accepted into the GROU program, it would have to meet the same conditions as the other products under GROU. I don't know what the manufacturer intends to do with containers in Canada. As I understand it, they typically build container recycling costs right into their costs, and farmers don't see it.

Agriculture committee  FNA has the....

Agriculture committee  There is an OUI certificate based on FNA's application that's good until the end of June of this year.