Agriculture committee  I believe it's at three miles an hour, so once the truck starts registering a speed in excess of three miles an hour.

Agriculture committee  I think the biggest thing is that, as you said, there's a consideration for what's happening in that given environment. Whether you're ready to back up to a chute and load or you are just turning in and backing up, now your day has started. All of these factors are important. Perhaps you load as a group, so if you're going across the border, you need to cross the border as that group.

Agriculture committee  From my perspective, all of that information would be very beneficial. The U.S.A. does a very good job at this. You can see the statistics on the safety side of things with our industry, our subset of the industry specifically. If you compare it to the rest of the commercial transporters, we are the safest group out there on the road, and that supports their level of care and everything else they're doing.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. I'll use the example of transporting feeder cattle from Idaho. This is planned a week in advance. We are communicating with the vets. We've provided them with packages on how they need to assemble all of the documentation for the importation. We are communicating with the CFIA vet.

Agriculture committee  A fine can be imposed on the drivers themselves, and that also impacts the carrier, so things like insurance costs and all these other aspects are impacted. More importantly, I think the biggest issue is the fact that the driver has to choose what he's going to take care of. At the end of the day, he has a responsibility to care for the animals, and that's what his biggest priority is going to be.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. We're a feedlot operator in southern Alberta and we import feeder cattle from the Pacific Northwest in the United States. We're going as far as California, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and things like that. We encounter weather challenges, road challenges, all of these different aspects, and we're dealing with a whole host of different organizations and regulatory authorities.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I do. In the U.S., because 90% of our miles as a carrier are in the U.S., we find that the ability to transport cattle in that geographic area is a lot easier relative to Canada. The one aspect that I really want to emphasize is that we do a very good job of ensuring that we have facilities in place to bring our cattle in the event of something happening.