Agriculture committee  Could I get the name of the fellow right here? What's the name that goes with that face?

Agriculture committee  I sure appreciate your comments, and I appreciate the way you put them. The only thing we're looking for here in the Maritimes, the only thing we can tell you in the short term to put profitability back into our industry, is that we'd like the federal government to come to the table, and we'd like them to come to the table to discuss how we do exactly what you want done.

Agriculture committee  I could try that. That's a hard thing to do. I'm not implying that we're being taken advantage of by these two big packing plants. I'm simply stating that over the course of the last 10, 15, 20 years there has been a gradual consolidation, which is a natural thing to happen, by the people who are in a position to become consolidated.

Agriculture committee  Mark, I'd like to address the first question. Pierre Lemieux suggested that export is a good thing. We don't disagree with that. Export is necessary. The problem is distinguishing between the two. I'll going to try to put it in one sentence. If you have national consolidated retailers and national consolidated packing plants--which, by the way, are both owned by U.S. private families, not by public companies--and you take those two things and tie them up with an export program of the federal government, we, in the Maritimes, actually become an export community for the consolidated retailers and consolidated packers.

Agriculture committee  Good. Let us run through this real fast. We need to begin the difficult transition away from imported food--and by imported, I mean imported from other parts of Canada into our marketplace. The beef industry will launch its strategy plan in the first week of June. The industry is committed to a new way of doing business and an approach dedicated to the principles that Nova Scotia will be better off when Nova Scotians put food in our own stores and on our tables.

Agriculture committee  To follow up on that, the maritime beef industry would like to reposition itself in the marketplace--

Agriculture committee  Are you? Have we talked that long?

Agriculture committee  I'll add what I can here, fellows. In particular, the Nova Scotia beef industry still suffers from various bans that were implemented as a response to the appearance of BSE in western Canada back in May of 2003. Most of the Canadian beef industry experienced a sharp drop in price as well as the collapse of the equity in cowherds.