Agriculture committee  One of the issues you have is supply. You spend a lot of money on marketing a specific, and when you do get it into a major chain, you won't have enough meat to satisfy it. All of a sudden, you're going to fall short. You only fall short one week, and they'll delist it. This is t

Agriculture committee  You'd have to do some studies on it. I'd be guessing. I would say yes, but that's just off the cuff. Again, supply is critical.

Agriculture committee  I'll have to apologize for the three of us sitting here. Jim of course is the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council, but we do meet nationally with CFIA. We meet in Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario. We're looking to achieve harmonization across the country. I'm one of those

Agriculture committee  I'll start. The two countries have an agreement, an equivalent system. I believe we do. I think we can probably poke holes in each other forever, but at the end of the day it's imperative that we.... That's what we're asking for on the SRM regulation, that we're equal too. We c

Agriculture committee  I'm going to give you an overview. What you have to keep in mind, and what you're probably losing sight of, is the dollar. We trade in the United States, and we trade on the U.S. market. That's what drives the Canadian market. Whether it be livestock or meat, the dollar will af

Agriculture committee  If you have a free market, it's a factor.

Agriculture committee  Don't lose sight of it; that's all I'm saying.

Agriculture committee  We brought up at our last beef round table possibly stepping down from the OIE. That didn't get any traction at all. I think that question should probably be given to Dr. Brian Evans to see what the retaliation or the dark side would be. It's hard to see the dark side from where

Agriculture committee  Composting. These are two-year studies, and that's what prompted us to say that maybe we should reverse this thing, but there was no support at the round table to do that, Mr. Easter.

Agriculture committee  And I don't want that either, believe me. We've worked hard over the last years. Brian has alluded to the three-ton truck. He and I have both had a long time in this meat industry. We enjoy growing. We've seen major growth in our industry and we sure don't want to go backwards,

Agriculture committee  I didn't mean to get frustrated with the group. Yes, to answer your question, competition is good. Good competition is even better, and that's what we have in this country, whether it be for livestock in both Canada and the United States.... We see them as good competitors as we

Agriculture committee  I'd like to share this with Brian, if I could.

Agriculture committee  It's a broad question, but I've always been a believer in the fact that markets will find themselves without intervention. All I'm asking for is that we're on an equal playing field so we can evaluate without grey zones. The minute you throw grey zones into it, you start to disto

Agriculture committee  I don't have a black and white answer, to answer your question. The answer is that we don't have clear direction yet from the government, so the answer today would be no. I mean, we are proceeding with the intent, but the actual answer would be no.

Agriculture committee  I guess you're looking for what we currently do. We currently slaughter in establishment 53, which is in Saint-Cyrville-De-Wendover, east of Drummondville. Then we transport the carcasses in quarters by truck to Montreal for fabbing. That process has been effective and efficient