Agriculture committee  It depends on what you would consider a barrier. Yes, you've got to go through customs, you've got to go through the liquor board to get into that province. Then, if you're going to move it from one province to another, you've got to move it to the other liquor board. So, yes, there are all kinds of....

Agriculture committee  In terms of fairness, if the wine industry is now able to do this, then we want to be able to do it, too. Are you going to ship cases of beer the same way you're going to ship bottles of wine? I doubt it. I don't think the market opportunity is the same as it is for the wine industry, so we don't have members clamouring for the same as the wine industry got.

Agriculture committee  Market access is vital, right? You need to be able to put your products in front of your customers.

Agriculture committee  Historically, we have had a positive trade balance. Now we're almost dead even with how much we're importing. That's a function of changes with consumers as well. Consumers are demanding more imported products, more choices, and the provincial liquor boards, too, with the portfolio they want to offer to their customers, and what's attracting premium pricing and all that kind of stuff, and that constant turnover.

Agriculture committee  There's a beer for every occasion right where we are.

Agriculture committee  Sure. They're importing hops as well. They're not all buying locally grown hops, as the market is just not big enough, so they would be buying and importing it just like the larger players.

Agriculture committee  Everybody wants the compositional standard for beer fixed. Everybody wants it modernized, and we're in the process of consulting with our non-members as well to let them know what we're doing here in Ottawa to modernize the compositional standard for beer.

Agriculture committee  It would make it much simpler for all brewers.

Agriculture committee  These hop farms are very, very intensive from a capital expenditure standpoint. You need lots of land, but also these trellises, or whatever they put up with the wiring. They grow really tall, and then they have special tractors that come and cut the vines down. To get back into it is going to be a massive expense for a commercial-sized hop producer to undertake.

Agriculture committee  Yes. We have fewer of those MRLs established. Our list of MRLs doesn't marry up well with the United States. The approach we're taking is to say we're going to focus on domestic registrations. So if you had hop producers here in Canada, you would be going through that domestic registration process.

Agriculture committee  Oh, for sure.

Agriculture committee  I would imagine the way it works is when they're establishing import MRLs for a fruit or a vegetable, or something like that, they'll look to see if there are any other uses or applications where this applies, where the hop producers could come in and ask to have hops included in their analysis.

Agriculture committee  Yes, we do. We've got all the majors, and then we've got 21 either regional or smaller craft brewers from across the country.

Agriculture committee  There are also breweries that can sell at their own sites.

Agriculture committee  And restaurants, right.