Thanks. I don't know about illuminating issues entirely, but I'd love to contribute. Thanks for the question, Mr. MacGregor.

Listen, this question about alternatives existing in Canada is troubling. I'll provide one example. We have actually already had a Canadian precedent, a public program in Alberta called the efficient grain dryer program, which funded 39 retrofits to grain dryers in Alberta. The program was poorly funded or short term and not that well publicized, but retrofits are possible, are definitely happening and are an alternative that helps to at least reduce the carbon tax that farmers would be paying on grain drying.

You mentioned biofuels. There's a made-in-Manitoba solution scalable to any size of farm. It relies on biomass produced on-farm to dry grain.

These are the kinds of innovations that I think we all wish our sector had decades ago so that we could have adopted them even before the price on pollution came into place, but we didn't. It is with these kinds of programs that we're going to see the innovation we need in our sector.

In terms of helping to solve this issue, Mr. MacGregor, I think one key thing to keep in mind is absolutely that retrofits to existing grain dryers that help to reduce emissions also help to avoid the carbon tax. When it comes to biomass and systems that use biofuel produced on-farm, I think we proceed with caution. Of course, that eliminates the carbon tax. We need to be sure that the life-cycle effect confirms that it actually reduces overall emissions too. That's obviously the ultimate goal.

Overall, farmers who are in our network and who have retrofitted and who are using alternatives have significantly lower fuel bills now too. In the long run, this actually makes really strong economic sense.

Ultimately, the way I see it, there's no choice in front of us, right? Our sector is transitioning no matter what, because the market is demanding it domestically and internationally. From the biggest to the smallest buyers, we're seeing essentially everybody asking for lower-GHG foods. The role for government policy, I strongly believe, is either to better support farmers to stimulate that innovation to help support those steep upfront costs so ultimately we can lower our fuel costs, practices that make more economic sense, rather than....

Maybe I won't present a “rather than”, Mr. MacGregor. I'll just conclude by saying that ultimately the urgency of climate change requires all hands on deck, all policies possible. I think what we were seeing yesterday was a substantial investment that helps to minimize the financial burden of the price of pollution on farmers, using natural gas and propane while also directly supporting the transition to reduce emissions. That's a win-win. That's what we need to see.

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