Agriculture committee  Sorry, one of my colleagues just caught me up on that. It would affect about a thousand plants across the country. There are about 500 in the province of Ontario. It's a big number in Ontario.

Agriculture committee  The total slaughter in provincial and non-inspected facilities is currently about 12% a year in this country.

Agriculture committee  Very little.

Agriculture committee  I think in terms of what you're looking at, you only have one. It slaughters cows just to fill the kill. So I don't think that would be an issue.

Agriculture committee  Again, you have to understand that we're the federal system. We represent the federal packers at this particular meeting. But we are also very sensitive to the ma and pa corner butcher stores. We would expect it to affect all of us--the total cow slaughter in this country. We u

Agriculture committee  Well, I'm not sure it's going to open them, but it'll maintain them. It will give us opportunities. That's what it'll do. It will stop us from reducing. If you put a business model together.... I appreciate all the federal funding, the $9 million or $10 million. Don't take that t

Agriculture committee  I just want to add that maybe we'll talk a little bit off-line. It just dawned on me what you were talking about. Yes, that's a positive thing.

Agriculture committee  You brought up the American dollar. We've been through turbulence with the currency in the past. We compliment our country's efforts on maintaining its own status and understanding the devastation it has to the total manufacturing in this country, not just the meatheads. So I thi

Agriculture committee  I fully support Laurent and his comments. Mr. Easter, I think some of your questions are valid, such as the question of country-of-origin labelling and the opportunity to just stand up and say no. It continues to be a fear of ours. Currently we have the U.S. market back. It's b

Agriculture committee  It's hard to quantify the value to the producer, right?

Agriculture committee  Those are two different subjects.

Agriculture committee  From an industry standpoint, that's why we're working due diligence with the working group that's been struck by the minister, with John Ross, Agriculture Canada, etc. We're looking at $31.70. We're also looking at finding ways to improve this rule. That's the intent. For example

Agriculture committee  We're looking for equivalency with the United States.

Agriculture committee  Thanks a lot. That's an important question. I sure don't have all the answers for you, but when we were looking at this rule, we asked, what's the advantage to us? In this case we ended up with none on the OTM. One thing that will happen when we're complete and the $31.70 is a

Agriculture committee  Everything takes a year, because we have to go through the House to change the regulation. The regulation lists the skull, the brain, the dorsal root ganglia, the ganglia, the tonsils, and the eyes. It lists all those under the regulation. If we want to, say, not take the eyes ou