Agriculture committee  It depends. I don't know. We shop around as best we can and make sure we're buying as competitively as we can. If a competitive situation arose, I would like to think our suppliers would try to meet it. But I guess it depends on how real that situation is. As an example, we've s

Agriculture committee  I can't speak on their behalf. I don't know what they would do.

Agriculture committee  It depends. We have an affiliation with Agrium--we're an Agrium dealer--and we have an understanding that there's a certain minimum volume of product we're going to get through Agrium. So what would happen? I don't know. We could lose our deal arrangement, which would involve som

Agriculture committee  No, not really.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Because of our location, we are very dependent on Agrium. We would not be able to function without them, so they do have a lot of.... At certain times of the year, for certain products, we take the price. We don't have the ability to shop around.

Agriculture committee  Most of what you said is fair. I'm not sure about the “you don't get it” part of it. Last fall we saw a lot of almost panic buying in the fertilizer industry. If you remember, you saw the news, the international media, there were food shortages throughout the world, food producti

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Viterra, I think in early January, wrote down in the neighbourhood of around—I could be wrong—$40 million of their fertilizer inventory because the price bubble on fertilizer burst, and then they just started fresh. Our independent members don't have the ability to do that.

Agriculture committee  Yes, we're at about four-year lows right now.

Agriculture committee  Yes, and from last fall it went from probably about $1,100 a tonne down to $350 a tonne.

Agriculture committee  Our organization does not have a formal position on that. I have personally been contacted by the Competition Bureau a number of times on different merger-related issues. In fact, I've even been contacted by a similar organization in the United States, looking at the potential Ag

Agriculture committee  I don't mean to contradict David, but you hear a lot of talk within the industry, and I did hear that the Competition Bureau was looking at one of the major takeovers in Alberta. That's just street talk.

Agriculture committee  Concerning agricultural chemicals and PMRA, our issues are exactly the same as the issues Jennifer is discussing. We have a great deal of frustration with PMRA in terms of approving agricultural chemicals. I don't think we would agree there should be a world body, but certainly w

Agriculture committee  Two.

Agriculture committee  Not really. The way the North American fertilizer industry is structured, everything flows up through New Orleans, Louisiana, up the Mississippi and out. Where we are, which is considered by the industry to be in the Pacific Northwest market, there are no import terminals to spe