Agriculture committee  I'll take the first two. In terms of the retailers' access, here are two comments. First of all, we'd be happy if you could come up with the regulation to let them have that access. We know from experience that they won't exercise the right. People have to understand. I'm not

Agriculture committee  First, on the cashflow issue, it's a transition problem being recognized. It's essentially a first-year problem, because once you've done it, you've simply shifted when you'll bank. You're going to buy those things next year anyway. It is a serious problem in the first year, bu

Agriculture committee  If you're looking at it as general competition policy, there's a concept called “innocent collusion”. In other words, nobody is claiming these people are purposely being illegal or colluding. They're not sitting down in a boardroom somewhere. But the simple outcome of the situati

Agriculture committee  We have a complaint currently being looked at by the bureau. It's been under investigation for three weeks. It has to do with a refusal-to-supply situation. In order to try to find a way to work with the existing chemical marketers, FNA purchased an actual chemical dealer. As soo

Agriculture committee  The idea of regulating input costs sounds appealing, but the problem is that, in my view--and now I'm not speaking necessarily for FNA, so my president may overrule me on this--from my own studies on this subject, it's just not practical. You're never going to get there through r

Agriculture committee  Because the phrase is being used multiple times with its own self-contradiction, the phrase being that the price of fertilizer is a function of demand, I want to quickly comment that the facts belie this. For example, at least from the Canadian situation, in terms of the idea tha

Agriculture committee  I apologize. Because it's a single program, because it can be made to look complex, it is easy for it to fall off the table. But it is a single program that can have a profound effect on operations, on input costs. The fact is all of the issues that have been put against it, and

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to begin with two apologies to the committee. The first apology is that I am not able to speak in French. My vocabulary is very limited and my grammar is not very good. So we're all better off if I stick to English. The second apology is tha