Is Canada really in the wrong here when it comes to dealing with dairy TRQs? Well, when it comes to the USMCA, maybe that's up for debate. On today's issues panel right here on RealAg Radio, you're going to hear from Tyler McCann of CAPI, Calvin Hepner and Shaun Haney of Real Agriculture and of course me, your host, Lindsey Smith. We've got lots to unpack on today's show. Shaun was in Washington D.C. and has all sorts of insight into what is happening down in the US as far as farm policy goes. We've got a farm bill that's moving forward, but here at home, plenty of stuff to unpack. We've got an update on the Monette group and creditor protection. We've got some discussion about an AI data centre taking the place of a protein facility. Stick around for that and of course we'll talk about all the top news that starts right now. The most important part of any game is being there. Enjoy more flexibility with your time. Thanks to the wider application window and enhanced performance of Spherex fungicide made to show up when it counts. AgSolutions CA.
It's time for RealAg Radio on rural radio channel 147 on Sirius XM. Reel ag Radio and RealLikeCulture.com is your home for insight and analysis of the issues that are impacting your farm business. Let's get real and get connected with Real Egg Radio.
Hi everyone. Welcome to RealAg Radio here on rural radio channel 147, SiriusXM. It is Friday, May 1st. It is Mayday. I am your host, Lindsey Smith. But don't worry, Shaun Haney's still here. He'll be on the issues panel later in the show, but he's actually going to start the show with Anne Wasco and the Beef Market Update. Let's hop to that now.
It's time for a Beef Market update here on real agriculture.com and of course we're joined as always by Anne Wasco, the Gateway Livestock Exchange. And it is great to chat with you after a number of different weeks off here because of schedules and even the middle of calving season. How's that going?
Not a snowstorm today. I'll just be clear, but a week ago. Yes. Yeah. So that's spring in western Canada.
Yeah.
And we've really seen across the western Canadian prairies, the northern plains as well as we're really into calving. Really up and down weather one day, short sleeves the next day we're in winter jackets and in Toques or beanies, however you're going to put that. And it's presents some challenges. And yeah, at a time where those calves that are hitting the ground, they are worth something.
Yes, as we've called them, little golden nuggets. So you don't want to be losing many of those. And so yeah, those are. The weather conditions are challenging for sure and everybody's at a different place. You know, early calvarys are on the back end of it but some would have been right into the middle of their, the height of their calving season when, when some of these storms have had a cold. So yeah, anyways, challenges today is May the first though and it's bright and sunny and I'm going to call spring on the way now finally maybe straight to summer. I don't know.
Anewasco is called spring.
I love it.
Okay, now consistent spring. That's what I'm looking forward to. What a wild week in the US cash market.
I love talking about these kinds of weeks. I mean I would never go out and predict a $10 jump in US live cattle prices. But that's exactly what happened on the fat cattle market this week in the U.S. so let's start with that Southern trade. Texas, Kansas trade 256. That's $10 higher than last week. Yes, last week. And in the north the dress sales are coming in right around $4 delivered dressed. So that's $14 higher than last week on the dress market. So just an absolutely explosive week. Thank you very much. We flipped the calendar to May. It was kind of interesting. So this, this is easily into new, new highs, new cash highs. The April live cattle contract yesterday. So that was its expiry date obviously and it closed at an all time high over 258. Never seen a closure there. And I, you know, I remember even just back to when when February live cattle expired at 244. That was 14 ago and we thought that was good. So I mean this market just continues to, to perform in an absolutely remarkable way. Wow, you're just wild. So the next piece we're going to be watching for is that cut out that wholesale price. Is it coming along with it? Well, it gained $5 this week. It's been slow. So 388 is where the choice closed at last night. The select is sitting back about $2. So like I said, that's $5 higher than last week. So it's obviously on a much slower grind, higher than the cash market. But as we've already alluded to We've just flipped the calendar into May. So our, you know, that time for beef to shine in terms of demand is right in front of us. We've got Mother's Day coming up, Memorial Day, we've got the Father's Day and then of course the grilling season as we head into summer. So I think, I think the cutout is going to keep moving. I'm going to watch. So we're at 388 today. Most analysts are looking for that number to get up towards $4. And, and that's kind of would be in line. Now these prices, John or Shaun just are, they're already 15. These wholesale prices are already 15% higher than last year and we're still looking for it to come some more. So we're in new territory, no question about it. But we do need to see this wholesale price catch up a little bit.
This is where, this is the decision making challenge for the feed yard. They continue to place cattle at a loss and we get rewarded with record high prices. And we know, and this is the challenge, this doesn't last forever, but trying to time it and decide when that last forever ends is, is, is really a big challenge. And we're, there's big money on the table here. And yeah, I, I don't envy that decision making. It's.
It.
This is a tough one.
No. And let's just, excuse me, just finish on that Alberta market. We did see it jump as well. So for those listening, we saw the dress sales for fat cattle here in the West, 560 to 565 delivered. That's nine to ten bucks higher than last week. So that's going to put, sorry, the live average in that high 330s towards 340 for the live market here in western Canada. So again, these are new highs. We peaked last fall if you recall, just shy of 320. So we're well into, into new territory. And if you look at the map or the map or the chart on fed cattle prices in Alberta since the start of this year, each week has just inched higher, higher, higher. Well, this is more than inching when you jump 10 bucks, but just has continued to grind higher solidly. And we're into May, so just absolutely remarkable. I did want to mention while we were talking about nuggets, we've started to see on some of the forward sales, the team and the DLMS sales, some forward pricing for fall delivery obviously on some, some grass cattle coming off grass, but also on some 20, 26 calf crop numbers. So there's more I see on today's listing there's more for sale as well. But last week, just to give you an idea, some Saskatchewan calves at 550 for October delivery this fall bringing right around $4,000 Canadian.
And what weight would that be?
I 50.
So kind of set the pace and, and so I think, you know, we'll certainly see more forward pricing and that's great. I mean there's an opportunity to, you want to manage from price some price risk and take some risk off the table. There you go. So, you know, I think bottom line, Shaun, we've got North American cattle supply still very small.
Yes.
This Mexican border has been closed since late 24. You know, we're talking a year and a half now. So the supply side is just plain old tight. And so then the other piece that we keep wondering about is the demand side. And I read an analyst just yesterday said, you know, beef quote, beef demand has been reliable and remarkable, end of quote. So I mean, like you say, we're all trying to figure out when does this demand piece kind of run out of steam. The answer right now is not yet.
One thing I keep on hearing in US circles is concern that the longer this border between Mexico and the US stays closed, the greater the probability that Mexico becomes say a boxed beef exporter versus a live cattle feeder cattle exporter in the future. Is that a reasonable concern?
Oh, for sure.
I think so, Shaun, as we go forward depend, depending on the timing and the timing to build some infrastructure and all the rest of it. But you know, I think even looking back to what happened for us in Canada back in oh three, I mean we, we're not exporting the kind of numbers that we used to in terms of live cattle pre bse. We still export cattle certainly because the US is the most valuable, highest price market in the world. And that will still be the case for Mexican cattle as well. There's still going to be the economic driver to move cattle into, into the US but at the same time this infrastructure is likely going to continue to expand and grow the longer this happens. So I don't think it's an all or nothing, but I do think things get spread out and, and things will change just like it did between Canada and the US after all three.
Yeah, and really still we continue to think that borders going to be opening soon. It just, it hasn't been the reality and it's, you know, it looks like a regional sort of opening, not exactly open to the entire night United States, but there's a lot of talk about it being regionally opened into Arizona as an example. But yeah, we're still lacking timelines on that.
Right.
It's, it's, it's a bit of a moving target and we understand why. That's not a criticism. That's just the reality when you're.
It is what it is. And of course over the last few weeks, I mean, we had a great week this week, but over the last few weeks, some of those rumours about opening and closing have been driving these markets kind of crazy. Up and down, up and down. But you're right, we don't know. We haven't got any news on that. We know markets will respond when it happens, but for now, the answer is no opening yet.
Yeah, you know, but hey, we keep on talking about the consumer. I was in D.C. this week, was at one of my favourite steakhouses, Capital Grill, packed full.
That is so good to hear.
And not a cheap place to eat a steak either, by the way, but definitely full. Consumer continues to support beef protein even with some of the prices. With, even with those, even in those higher end cuts. Not just in ground beef like we have seen. Ann, thanks a lot for joining us here today. Really appreciate it.
Hey, thanks, Shaun, you too.
All right, thank you, Ann, and thank you, Shaun, for that. We are going to take a quick break here on Re Like Radio. When I come back, we've got the issues panel ready to unpack. The the top storeys, the top news, the top interesting places we were this week. Right after this, I'll have Tyler McCann, Kevin Hepner and Shaun Heath.
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Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on revolution radio channel 147 SiriusXM. Yes, I am your host for the day, Lindsay Smith. And hey, boost your yield and your bottom line with top performing varieties from Alliance Seed including AAC Wavern VB Durham that features a solid stem for soft light resistance along with wheat midge tolerance and top count on genetics that deliver. Visit allianceeed.com or call 1-877-270. Well, as promised we bring in the issues panel for this Friday show. Let's start with a familiar name and face to the show. Shaun Haney is here. How are you Shaun?
You know I'm doing fantastic, Lindsey. It's been a great week and no shortage of stuff to really talk about.
Indeed you have been out and about so we are going to tackle some of that in just a bit. Also joining us, Kelvin Hepner out of Altona, Manitoba. Nick did not go out and about this week but I feel like maybe you were busy anyway. Calvin, what were you up to?
Oh, we're in hurry up and wait mode right now as much of Western Canada waiting for warmer temperatures to warm the ground up so we can put some more seed in the ground. I know some, some farms have started rolling but in this neighbourhood not a lot of activity so far. A neighbour did try harrowing a field and his big four wheel drive tractor was out. They're stuck in the middle of the field for a couple days so I think the rest of us can wait a little bit longer.
Had the old walk of shame back to the pickup on the headlands. Also joining us, Tyler McCann with Cappy. Tyler, we did not see each other this week but we were in the same location. What kept you busy this week?
So on Thursday I appeared before the parliamentary committee but I started off Thursday morning helping put a prolapse back in at my parents place. So really covered the spectrum, you know it's important.
Probably some parallels there, right?
I don't know.
Yeah, stuff and everything back in.
Yeah, much, much less bloody after the committee appearance to start the day.
But Not. Not bloody. He just said much less. So there you go. Okay, Tyler, maybe we'll start there. It has been an interesting week, of course, in Ottawa. We started the week with a economic update. It's not a budget. We started the week with the Ag Committee and other committees, of course, now reflecting the majority. But, yes, as you mentioned, the meeting on Thursday, what was up for discussion? What were your takeaways?
The I committee is studying business risk management. This is a study that they launched some time ago. They're trying to cover the basis here from a lot of people, especially the context of the next policy framework. I get the sense that the members of Parliament are working together to try and come forward with some meaningful recommendations on this. You know, I think for all of the talk about committees this week and the change in the nature and extra Liberal MPs that are on it to reflect the new majority government, the AG Committee remains a committee where by and large, there's a collaborative approach and they're working together to make things happen. To go back to the spring economic update, it is interesting. I mean, first, it's the first one of those we've had, right? So they switched the budget to the fall and the fall economic statement now to the spring economic update. And it is much more like things used to be, right? Gone are the days where you have kind of a second mini budget in the year. And so it was, I think, probably a good news to see kind of the way things should be coming out of that. But really, the government, I think, continues to struggle with kind of big announcements and the follow through is tough. But again, I think that all across Parliament, they're settling back into what does this new majority dynamic look like and how does that play out? And it'll be interesting to see what that looks like over the next couple of weeks and months.
And we are getting some sense of that. But, Kelvin, we will talk a bit more in a moment about some of the specific things that were in the update, but I want to stick with the committees for a moment. How impactful. And Tyler does mention it is true, the AG Committee, at least, is typically quite collaborative. But we did see the government, of course, move to put more liberals on these committees across the board. What does it really mean for the government functioning going forward?
Well, this enables the government to move things through committee stage real quickly if they need to, or if push comes to shove, if other parties don't support legislation at the committee stage. So because they added two liberals to every committee, it gives them a clear majority at committee. It doesn't even give the opposition the opportunity to walk out of the meeting and break quorum and that type of thing to shut things down. So there's been some question whether they needed to add to or whether they could have gotten by with, with just adding one liberal MP to every one of these groups. But yeah, it means that things can move quickly. We should remember that committee stage MPs are supposed to. They're not working for the executive. They are supposed to be working for their constituents. And so whether that happens or not at agriculture, I think we do have a good example of where they are standing up for stakeholders in the agriculture sector and trying to come up with productive solutions. But yeah, when push comes to shove, if there's a big wedge issue, we'll have to see. But this should give the Kearney government clearance to get things through the committee stage without having to worry about whether it'll make it so.
Shaun, one of our critiques often of the Canadian government is that it is too slow. It is like moving a barge. This does, as Kevin points out, speeds things up. But this isn't without controversy. There are those that say this doesn't really reflect what people voted for. So how do we balance our need for speed with potentially some pushback on the democracy side?
Are you talking about the number of people that got put onto the committee?
Yes.
Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. Like, at the end of the day, I think we're sort of picking at straws. I don't know if we should be really surprised by this. I get why people are pushing back on it. You know, conservatives are very much in still dealing with a loss mode. I think the Oilers are potentially going to get over last night's loss quicker than some Canadian conservatives are, to be
honest with you had to get that in there.
Yeah.
Oh, I did. Hey, how's it going, Stu? You know, I, I think the reality here is is that they're going to have to look forward and figure out what where are the areas that they can provide some value instead of just talking about things like the industrial carbon tax and items like that that aren't really necessarily resonating, at least at this point with, with general Canadians. I, I am a big voter, big proponent of we need to move faster, need to be taking more risks and need to be less fear of failure if this gets us there based on this committee structure, I guess. But I also, I also think that's over promising on what the House Ag Committee is going to be able to deliver to Absolutely.
Okay. So on, on that note, I was at the CropLife Spring Dialogue Days for just, for just a portion of isn't a media invite event. But the health Minister spoke to CropLife and at this meeting, and not only did she deliver remarks, she sat down with Pierre Patel, president and CEO of CropLife Canada, for 45 minutes and answered questions and went back and forth on things. And the room was, and I'm not overstating this, they did break out in applause at least once, maybe twice. And there were many people looking around going, what is happening right now? But one of the things that really got people excited is she exactly said that, Shaun, that we don't need to consult and meetings to have meetings. We need to actually do some things. And she also shared, and we've got some audio that'll be
[email protected] to go cheque it out, that she said that everything. She was given three points. One obviously is the health of Canadians. That's a key aspect of her portfolio. But the other is cutting red tape. And that means action. That means actually doing things. And that to her means consulting with the actual industry. But, but that was a key part of her message, that everything is seen through an economic lens. And that also means that things need to move, that we need to actually push things forward.
So, Shaun, I think the challenge, I think the challenge, though, is Lindsay, that sounds. That is awesome. I think that's very refreshing verbiage and the way that she's putting that. And that's awesome. That's, that's the talk. Now let's move to the actual doing it, because that's, that's, that's a, that's a whole nother thing. And I think that's a little bit that, that's the test for Canadians. Right? Because we're, we're kind of in this mode of like, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. But now this is the harder part, which is to grab hold of it and actually reduce some of those regulations, which we're not very good at. We tend to, what we tend to do is just rephrase the regulations we already have and then call it red tape production. So that's the challenge for us.
But the good news is, Lindsey, that we saw in the spring economic update a commitment to change the mandates of the CFIA and the Pest Control Products act to deliver the campaign promise that the Liberals had made to put those economic interests right into the legislation. But I think one of the interesting Things that's playing out is that this cultural shift or that, that that maybe hasn't happened inside the government where they're starting to do some of the right things but they haven't figured out how to talk about them. I continue to be mystified why the Liberals weren't more interest, interested in talking about the decision that they made on strict nine in Western Canada.
Right.
Like that is a good example of Sean's concerns in practise, in action. But it seems like they've not wanted to go out and.
Yeah, well, I think the reason is because, Tyler, I think the reason they don't want to do that because it's not exactly a science based decision. That was very much a political decision. And I think they're trying to walk as far away from that one as they possibly can, to be honest with you.
But Shaun. But I think that we play too much into science based decisions.
Right?
Because science doesn't say this is the only answer. Science will tell you here's an answer, here's a range of risks, here's how risks can be mitigated. That is all still a science based decision. Right. So. And I think if you go back to kind of political interventions, the biggest political intervention that we saw was in 2021, in the weeks before the election campaign when the Liberals intervened on the glyphosate reevaluation and paused it like that was a political intervention. You can still have a political base or a science based decision. I think that this, by all accounts, this STR91 can fit that, that reflects a different set of parameters. Like these are decisions that need to be made. That is a science based decision. I wouldn't downplay that at all, Kelvin,
to that point that was really, for the most part, most of the attention that Agriculture got maybe directly was this mention of the change to CFIA and PMRA are PRD or whatever it's called now. Pdr. I don't know. Okay, well, we'll get used to it. And that that also meant that the wording in there is that the, the rules and the regulations, the decisions have to be made with food sovereignty, food security. Food security, sorry, food security in mind. Which yes, there's a difference that I did see and did hear from Minister Michelle that that was, that is the economic lens, right, is that people have to be able to, to access food and be able to afford food. How important do you think that is in the change in the mandate, in actual seeing action change?
Oh, I think that's what sends the clear signal a the health minister being in public in the spotlight saying these things sends a signal to the bureaucrats and the department that there needs to be a culture change. But if it's in legislation, that certainly alters the mandate and gives the clear message that the way things were done in Health Canada and CFIA in the past needs to be updated. The thing is though, that this was only a commitment to introducing legislation. So we don't actually have the legislation yet. We don't know when it will will come for sure. It sounds like there could be something around food security in the next couple of weeks here, but yeah, what we don't actually have the bill. Again, this was an announcement of a commitment to introduce and amend the mandate for CFIA and the Pest Control Products Act. So yeah, that's it's still up in the air. But yeah, this is, this is sending the signal, I'd say, as clear as it can be to the bureaucrats who have maybe been the ones who have been slow to adjust mandate and adjust focus priority here to what Tyler says, where the scientific balance has maybe shifted from not only health and environment to also realising that affordability and the price of food and having nutritious domestically grown food for Canadians is also important.
Okay, there's so much more to unpack on that one, but we've got to take a quick break. We're going to be back with more RealAg Radio and the Issues panel right after this.
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Welcome back to RealAg Radio here on rural radio, channel 147. Siri, it is Friday. It is May 1. It is Mayday. I am your host for the day, Lindsay Smith. We've got the issues panel. We've got Tyler McCann, Kelvin Hepner and Shaun Haney all joining us here on the panel. Shaun, you were in D.C. this week. The pictures were amazing, I gotta tell you, the videos, etc. What a week. What were you there for? What was it like? What storeys do you have to tell?
Well, just trying to solve all the problems. I was there for the national association of Farm Broadcasters Washington Week, or Washington Watch, they call it, which is really fun getting to connect with fellow members of the farm broadcasting community. And I was there last year, too. Last year, that was Mark Carney's first visit to D.C. when I was there this year, the King was there.
Wild.
I don't know what we're doing next
year, but Elvis, Lindsey already, Lindsay already Lindsey. And Bruce Holmquist said, Elvis, somebody had
said to me that that's when aliens are coming to Earth.
Yeah, next year.
Yeah.
But no, it was, it was really good. It was a. It was a great week to be in D.C. because the king was there, definitely had traffic locked down more than, than ever. But it was also a lot of farm bill negotiation. There was a House vote on Thursday on that and the 57 different amendments, amendments that they had to deal with. It was really cool because the, on Wednesday when they thought they were going to have the vote, I was actually on Capitol Hill. We had numerous US lawmakers on the House and the Senate side come through our press room and give it like a 10, 15 minute update and take Q and A, like live in the moment of all that happening. You know, Congress has difficulty even finding bipartisan community on something like the farm bill, which, you know, we talked about the House Ag Committee in Canada, traditionally being kind of that bipartisan group. That's the same thing when it comes to the House Ag Committee as well, and trying to get the farm bill across the line. And we're not living in those kinds of, kinds of days. So it was, it was a great week and I really learned lots of great insights.
We may come back to. There are some really interesting things about what went through on that farm bill and we could probably Do a whole show on it. We're not going to, but maybe we'll touch base on some of those in the bonus because there are some really cool things. So stick around Everybody who's on YouTube or on our podcast feeds. But I did want to touch on Shaun, from seeing it from that angle of, you know, obviously all the broadcasters having the politicians there, the farm groups, of course, are too. You carried some of that on the show earlier this week. What was your general feeling about, you know, what the farm groups are asking for and what some of the challenges are moving forward?
Oh, yeah. I think when it comes to, you know, so much talk about the USMCA review, for the most part, we know that US Farm groups and Canadian ones, some that signed that letter, talked about do no harm. That is very much the attitude south of the border. And I think that that was also what was being said during the original NAFTA negotiation. But if you look at this situation with this review on cuzma usmca, I think it's. They're taking it to another level where even if there are issues that they want to have dealt with, they're parking them and they're not necessarily bringing them up because they don't want small, nitpicky, like, you know, friction things to be, you know, a mound turning into a molehill or so to speak, and creating a situation where maybe those small issues are potentially weaponized to an extent that they're really not worth that, and it creates more downside risk. I do believe, I continue to believe that the agricultural issues are more between the US And Mexico, not between the US And Canada. Of course, dairy comes up. I think the big question for us to watch on that front is how hard US Dairy groups push. I had some audio we posted on our Instagram account from House ag Committee Chairman G.T. thompson, Republican out of Pennsylvania. He said he want. I want USMCA to continue. We just gotta fix this dairy thing. That continues to be a common message on both sides of the aisle. That actually is one thing that American lawmakers actually agree on for the most part.
Yeah. Now, Kelvin, though, I feel like what we're seeing on the Canadian side, and frankly, the Ag minister has said it, we've seen it from a few other politicians as well, is it does still feel like we have this disconnect that there this, you know, absolutely no talk on dairy or no movement on dairy. And I think we even had the ambassador mention something along those lines. Are we, are we missing the mark here that, like, we don't Are we putting up too much of a, of a fight on something that isn't really that big of a fight just yet?
I think.
Well, that's a good question. I think we, of course, had that bill passed last year that going into summer that, that prevents the Canada's trade negotiator, at least in theory, from offering more concessions on this. So we've heard from Ambassador Wiseman, we've heard from Canada, U.S. minister or the minister responsible for the file, Dominic LeBlanc, saying that there won't be any movement on Derry. This is, of course, also setting the stage for going into negotiations. You're not going to play your cards and make your concessions in public before negotiations actually happen. So, yeah, I think there, and there's still, when you read the actual words that they say, there is still wiggle room, always in terms of technical adjustments and tweaking that can be done that could potentially satisfy what the US Is looking for. It may not. It certainly won't be what Canada's dairy sector is looking for. But there is probably some middle ground there where both sides can come to some agreement. And that's why I think the talk coming out, there's still people. It seems like the greatest opposition to Canada's dairy or the people that are looking for the biggest change are in Ottawa, are in Canada, not, not in, in the northern U.S. or in, in D.C. when it comes to the lobbying effort. Because we saw an editorial in the Globe and Mail again this week where somebody said, well, this is, this is the time to give up supply management, that type of thing. And I'm not sure that the U.S. is even asking for that at this point.
That is not the U.S. ask U.S. dairy groups. They continue to be consistent now, it, Canada should push back on it, and they will push back on it. We'll see what the give is. But all around the administration of those TRQs, that is the US grievance. It continues to be so.
But the issue is that those, those U.S. grievances are kind of reflect the traditional way of doing trade negotiations, Shaun. And we do have this kind of elephant in the room of the fact that the US Is not doing traditional trade negotiations. Right. We know a year ago traditional US Trade negotiators got a deal with India, and yet the deal didn't go forward because of political dynamics in the White House. Right. Like, there's always this risk of things that will kind of happen outside of the normal that could play into this. So I don't think, like, you don't want to downplay the Trump factor in all of the negotiations and how that might play out. And I think the other thing to keep in mind is that there is a different, I think we've seen references to kind of this demand that Canada pay an entry fee to get into the negotiations and to move things forward. I think you see kind of dairy and TRQ administered or kind of talked about in that context. But also, you know, we all talk about, everybody talks about do no harm. But I think that that really is increasingly masking divisions in approach and context and position and stakeholders on both sides of the border. Because I think do no harm is the kind of the easy thing to say. But there's a lot of other things happening kind of underneath that messaging that reflect very different positions around the state of the North American trading relationship.
From an agricultural standpoint though, like what's the example of that though?
Well, so if you, again, so if you look at the, especially the broader
trade relationship and no, no, from an agriculture. I was talking from an agricultural standpoint, they're saying do no harm. I wasn't talking about the broader context.
Right. But again, but what I mean is even the broader context within ag, because I don't, I guess I'm a sceptic that it's just USMCA issues that are part of this, that get caught up in these, these dynamics. They do seem to pull other things into it. Have kind of a cattle sector that's got some concerns around country, virgin labelling and where that's going and how that that plays out. We do have kind of this dairy dynamic that's bigger than kind of where others think it's at. We know that there are grain issues across North America that are here that again, people, you said this earlier, right? Nobody wants to raise these issues because they don't want to complicate the negotiations and they risk making things worse. But that doesn't mean that everybody kind of is going like it's all sunshine and roses. Don't worry about it.
Yeah, I do. I do find though, like specifically on the dairy topic, I really do hope that, you know, we've got this advisory council and we've got that realistically, like to the point of what we have consistently heard out of the US is the issue around the TRQs. And I feel like it is something that is surmountable. It is something that can get hammered out in the closed door meetings of the negotiation. I think on the Canadian side, we're doing ourselves a disservice by continually bringing it up and making it more than it is. I feel like this is something that is incredibly manageable.
It's actually a good point.
Right. If we trust our negotiators, I think we, the royal, we nod to the king, are making it worse by making it, you know, exactly that. Like making it a far bigger deal and clutching our pearls and whatever. Tyler, we have to take a break. So you can make that face all you want, but you don't get to weigh in until after. And we come back for our next segment with the issues panel right here on Real Agri.
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I'm Lindsay Smith from RealAgriculture.com join me Monday nights for the Agronomists, a one hour live and interactive show broadcast across YouTube, Facebook and X. Monday nights at 8pm Eastern, I host expert agronomists from all over the country to give you answers to some of the toughest agronomic questions. Join us live or catch the replay Tuesday morning. That's the Agronomist with me, Lindsay Smith. Monday nights live at 8pm Eastern. Welcome back to Real Egg Radio. I am your host for the day, Lindsey Smith. It is the issues panel on this Friday, May 1st. Whether you're planning for your next crop or looking to sell what's in the bin today, your G3 rep has the great marketing expertise needed for success because we're always moving for you. Learn more at G3Smarter CA. All right, we do have. Okay, Tyler, I'm going to start with you because I cut you off there. And for Those watching on YouTube, you saw that remarkable face that Tyler made when I was talking about dairy and USMCA and disgusted. Yeah, that was, that was a. Lindsay,
I'm disappointed because I think that this show in particular should be one of those times where we do get to talk about the issues. And too often, Lindsay, it seems like you don't want to. You don't want to talk about supply management. I think it's just worth noting that
while we may These are like, wow. These are like the most baseless claims that one could never talk about this. Yeah, this isn't being covered. Oh, how come nobody's talking?
Because then I get to say my piece because I'm the host. Okay, Tyler, have at her.
Well.
Well, we may have partly won some dispute panels on Darien. While we may in USMCA be respecting the letter of the law, I don't think it's very. I don't think you can argue with a straight face that we're following the spirit of that original negotiation and agreement. This is a very legitimate issue and I think too often we downplay it and we make this into something where this is like a be all and adult. Like, no, the US has legitimate grievances. Canada I don't think is doing how it should do this. We should be prepared to make changes and we should not be characterising kind of any impact on this as part of like the end of supply management or something. That should be avoided. This is my issue with this. Do no harm. No, we should be prepared to take concessions on this because we have made decisions around how that TRQ is administered that are inappropriate and don't reflect the intent of the agreement.
Okay, so this is my point. And so we actually do agree on this. Tyler, is that. My point is Canada is exactly that. We have not respected and we have not respected the spirit of what those were. The dairy industry has tried its best using the rules as written to protect that. That influx potentially of, you know, American dairy products into Canada. I get why they're doing it. What I'm saying is, is that the grievance that the US has is a legitimate one and I think it can be dealt with behind closed doors. And the dairy industry is going to have to get over it. It's not extra concessions, it's just actually meting out what was in the original agreement. And honestly, and I know this isn't entirely correct, etcetera, but like we've seen these trade deals go through and then we see all this money as compensation run to the supply management sector on the dairy side for supposed access that they give up that sometimes that access doesn't get filled. So just putting it out there, that that's something that we hear from the audience members also is that realistically, you know, so often the rest of agriculture or the taxpayer or whatever has to put up for this. And this is one of those ones where the dairy industry should be following the spirit of it. I think they will from the negotiation standpoint. I Know, they're still going to be angry about it. But realistically, this is one of those ones where I'm on the side of let's work with the spirit of this. That is one of the things that we can do to get this trade irritant out of the way.
Yeah.
And countries, countries do this with TRQs all the time. Like, you know, this is, Canada's not on this island of like, you know, this is how the, this is called, you know, non tariff trade barriers. In some ways. I, you know, one of the issues as you allude to, Lindsey, is that compensation was given to dairy farmers for the NAFTA renegotiation for this market access. And the tariff rate quotas haven't even been filled. And so there was, there was compensation for access that was never actually fulfilled. One of the things that I'm, and I don't know an answer to this is it's clear that Americans are trying to push Canada or starting to, trying to push countries into some sort of quick agreement on things. Okay. We've seen this pattern. Canada is taking a different strategy than Mexico, for example. That's fine. Canada's doing, I would think, more culturally accepted. Like we're taking our time. We are, some would say, who I talked to this week on the US side, slow playing. Okay. And that is a strategy and I'm not being critical of that. That's, that is they're choosing to do that. What I'm wondering and trying to, I'm watching really closely is at what point does the slow playing become a negative four candidate in those, like you can slow play, but to what extent can you, can you slow play where it becomes a negative, a really super negative reaction and we actually do end up hurting ourselves. I think that's something to watch.
It depends if you're in the steel and aluminium or auto sector versus in agriculture. I think in agriculture we should slow play as long as we can. As long as we can. And we're seeing the Trump brand get weaker by the day in several different fronts. And so the longer that goes, at some points we potentially have a change in administration in the US and it's a protectionist Democrat government that we're dealing with. So that's where there's no more return on slow playing.
But this is where the slow play thing, Kelvin, I think you point to that. I think the slow play, that's where there's a bit of a problem with the slow play strategy because there is
a floor to it because protectionism is on both Sides of the aisle.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you talk about those, the sectoral tariffs. Calvin, though, like, it's also not clear that going faster would take those away. Like it seems like if anything.
Totally. Yeah.
Codifies them in. I think slow playing works until Trump serves a 60 day notice that they're withdrawing from the deal.
Right?
Yeah.
Like up until that point,
I think right now Canada is getting some cover from, from, you know, members of the House and the Senate on the US Side. Slow playing too much. Eventually that wears thin with some of those people with their constituents. So I think Canada's got to really have their finger on the pulse here. Maybe at some point ignore some of the domestic politics in Canada of the benefits of the slow play and pay attention to what those lawmakers are saying because eventually they won't be able to give Canada cover on this trade to go review topic.
There will be a time to sort of pull the chute that it just, it has to happen. Okay, switching gears a little bit, one of, of course the major storeys really taking up a lot of coffee shop talk and online as well is the Monet Group in creditor protection. Kelvin, we did get an update today on where that sits.
Yeah. While we're waiting for the full update. But creditor protection, the court protection, the initial order actually expires today and so they back in court today seeking an extension on or the stay of proceedings, having it extended until June 19 to allow them to get through the seeding season without disruption and to develop more ideas in terms of restructuring potential sales of assets to generate cash flow. They're also seeking to increase their borrowings under their DIP financing facility. That's the debtor in possession financing from Scotiabank. They receive $40 million in financing under that through the initial order and now they are looking to get another 50 to bump that up to a $90 million maximum amount. And so they're also looking to approve the sale of some land in Saskatchewan. There's also a separate application from Scotiabank regarding the life insurance policy and some things happening there. So, yeah, we should see some more developments on this front and figure and maybe a little bit more clarity as to what the next steps are for this massive farm in the next day or two here.
Lindsey, I was in New Ulm, Minnesota yesterday speaking at the bank in Minnesota Ag Conference. Great group of community ag bankers at that meeting. And as predicted, the very first question that came from the audience after my ag policy presentation, what's going on with my nets? Right. You know, one of the things is that at the end of the day, whatever the details are here, one of the outcomes for me is, and I said this to the group yesterday, this is a good example of that we need to change some of our KPIs in agriculture where we assume that bigger is better, that, hey, look, look how many new trucks that person has or look how many acres they're farming. They're so successful. We have to quit doing that because it's leading us down a path of not evaluating successful farm businesses based on what they should be based on, which is actual financial success. Yeah, that farm's big. They got a lot of debt.
That banker group, Shaun, I think also has some lessons to learn in this in terms of their internal KPIs and incentives for loans officers too, in terms of their book size and whether they prioritise expanding that book versus thorough reviews in terms of what the returns are potentially on those loans, 100%.
That also came up yesterday in some of the coffee discussions as well. If your goal is based entirely a success of a bank is based on the size of your book, then you're, you're adding to the problem. Here's at the end. If that changes though, that's going to put a lot more pressure on farmers to actually have better control and understanding of their farm financials to be able to meet that new criteria that's coming from the bank. So be careful what you wish for. There's going to be some big changes here. Maybe this economic hardship, this P and L challenge we have right now is going to push the industry in Canada, the U.S. more in that direction.
What do you think of landlords requiring a look at banks, at a farm's financials before loaning land or renting land to somebody? Is that something that we're going to see more of down the road?
I wouldn't, it's not out of the question. It would be the case in other situations if you wanted to, you know, sign a long term lease on an office building or things like that. Those are things that happen in the real business world. I don't know why they wouldn't happen more in this situation. I know farmers are going to push back on that hard, but don't be surprised when it happens.
Yeah. Tyler, your thoughts? I mean, realistically, it is true in other forms of business. We would ask for some sort of, you know, assurance that you're financially viable to say rent something or lease something.
So we've been, we've been looking at risk management increasingly over the last year. One of the things That I think has been an interesting thing that's come out of that is that yes, there are some, like some gaps in the tools that are available, but the biggest gap is not necessarily in the tools, it's in the incentives that farmers have or don't have to use those tools. Right. Like it is. There aren't, again, to the point, like banks could ask for risk management plans, but they don't. And so that takes a big incentive away. You look at especially production insurance and I think there's some storeys there in the minette case, but it takes some pressure off producers to have a kind of a more sophisticated risk management strategy at the end of the day. And again, I think all of this just speaks to the fact that, you know, we, yeah, we need more risk management tools, but we also need farmers to better use the tools that are there today. And I think we don't talk about that often enough.
I think there's several ways that this is a competitive. Can be a competitive advantage to have a good set of books and be able to show it well.
And especially in a, in a kind of this volatile tight margin time. Right. Like, and you get into this world of if, I mean, heavens, if land prices go down, I guess like all bets are off and that gets to be crazy. But if we are kind of still in this competitive space where people are trying to fight for land at a time when things are narrower, that ability to kind of be very confident in your financial position, understand the risk exposure you face, you can really use that to your advantage.
But okay, so we talk about risk management all the time, but if there's not good financial management, the risk management, like having a risk manager plans a band aid on it.
Yeah. Having good financials is part of your risk management plan.
Plan.
Right. You have to actually do stress testing of your financials, etc to actually be showing that. And so now there's also two things we haven't really mentioned here. Shani mentioned those KPIs etc. There is human nature for one thing. I'm not sure how we account for that and our collective hate of paperwork. So there you go. I'm just going to leave that there because sometimes we're her own worst enemy and we need to take a break. We're going to come back for our last segment of today's show. Stick around. We'll be back right after the.
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Welcome back to RealAg radio here on Real Radio, channel 147, Sirius XM. It is Friday. It is the issues panel. I am your host, Lindsay Smith. We have a very quick last segment here. Thank you everyone for joining us here, for downloading the podcast, for watching us on YouTube. If you've got any feedback, zip me an email. Lsmithealagriculture.com if you're angry, it's shaneeyealagriculture.com so cheque that out just quickly, pal. Shaun, I'll start with you. Either biggest news storey this week or what are you looking forward to next week?
US issue has Canadian impacts. Currently they're trying to deal with Prop 12 in which is this California regulation in the farm bill. It's in the House bill. Save Our Bacon act is called that when the bill goes to the Senate, there's a lot of expectation it's going to be kicked out based on states rights issues and will have to be dealt with independently. Keep your eye on that.
Yep, absolutely. And if this is a animal welfare, animal rights mix.
So it has trade impacts though.
It does, absolutely. Yeah. So cheque it out. Kevin, what about you?
I think we've covered the biggest storeys of the week. But one to Note, today is May 1st. It's the day of no more Trifid testing for Canadian flax headed to Europe barrier that's been in place since 2009 when CDC TRIFID was GM variety was traces of it were found in a shipment to Europe. And so that testing protocol has been lifted as of today.
Talk about not acting fast. Europe.
Yeah. Okay, so. But for those of us of a certain vintage, this was quite the headache. Okay, Tyler, what about you.
So we don't know that it will be next week for sure, but sounds like soon this National Food Security Strategy is coming. And I think it will be a little bit different than what we think it will be. It sounded like it was supposed to be in. In April. We're now into May, but I don't think it'll be too far into May before that comes up.
I think it will be different than what we think it will be. So Tyler knows more than what we do.
I do not. Absolutely do not. I wish I knew, but based on the questions that come. Based on the questions that come, they're different than what they would have been under the Trudeau government.
Okay. Yeah, we are seeing evidence of that. Okay, we're gonna end it there. Thank you, each of you. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you everyone for listening. I'll be back on Monday for your agronomic Monday. Cheers, everybody. And we are in the bonus. Welcome here, everybody. Thanks for sticking around. Tyler McCann, Kelvin Kepner. Shaun Haney. Kelvin, I'm gonna start with you because we kind of let. I let everybody do what they wanted in segment five. So now I get to direct this. The defunct Merit Functional Foods plant is turning into something everyone can love. Calvin, what's it going to be?
It's a pickleball court, right?
It's pickleball, yeah. We go from the plant protein trend to the AI data centre trend as Bell Canada confirmed this week that it's renovating the facility in Winnipeg. It was financed with two thirds, maybe even a higher percentage of the financing for this plant came from federal sources. And then it entered. So it was built in 2021, went into receivership in 2023, has sat idle the last number of years and now Bell is turning it into a small data centre, much smaller than the one that they announced at Regina last month. But yeah, they're currently renovating it. And so it will not be in the value added agriculture sector unless we're using AI Somehow that runs through that plant.
Question here from one of our real agriculture audience members, Alan says, hey, didn't the CEO and CFO buy this back the banks for pennies on the dollar?
Indeed.
Well, I don't know about pennies on the dollar. We don't know the price that they paid for it. But the CO CEOs of merit functional Foods bought the facility back last year. It was on the market for a long time. The receivers were trying to sell it and last year the CO CEOs bought it back and I actually did A property search registry search this morning and they still own it today. So it sounds like Bell must be leasing it or have some sort of an agreement. So yeah. Interesting that the owners of Merit Functional Foods are. Are now the one or the former CEOs are now still own that building and are presumably leasing it or have
some sort of data centres are a huge issue in the U.S. yes.
And they will be I think in Canada as well. So two things I was going to say. At least it's an existing structure and we're making use of it as opposed to taking up more land or building more bricks and mortar. And then the other is my cheeky comment which is the one in Regina. Is it in a defunct canola crash? Anyway. Okay, that's neither here nor there. I am.
That is complete on that one. It's using like the one in Regina. It's using a greater. It's. It's a percentage of Saskatchewan's power supply that will be going to that. Whereas this one in Winnipeg is much smaller. And they're saying that it's going to be self contained in terms of water usage too.
Right. So these are the big things. They are energy users, they are water users. It is. And of course land based. So all very contentious issues. Okay Tyler, what did we not get to this week? Week.
So I didn't know but the merit storey again, interesting examples ones that you bring up there of challenges adding value to Canadian agriculture products. And one angle is one angle.
Tyler, just. Sorry, just jump back in the Chinese pea protein low priced imports. And so our trade policy in some ways so we had government invest a bunch of money here in this plant. Meanwhile on the trade side of things, our trade policy allowed these cheap imports of pea protein from China that made it uncompetitive. And so it's one hand are you,
is this protectionist Kelvin coming out saying we need to block imports?
I think this is news Kelvin explaining how the world looks.
Maybe we shouldn't have made the investment in the first place if our policies elsewhere didn't align.
And so that takes me to one of the things that we can talk about that came up in the spring economic update is our new sovereign wealth fund. That is just this ongoing example of an easy thing for governments to do. I think is to spend money. The hard things for them to do is actually create the business conditions necessary for the private sector to invest. And you go back to some of the comments from the health minister, some of the things that we did talk about earlier. I do wonder if governments do Continue to get too caught up in just create a new fund. You know, I know Protein Industries Canada is out kind of continuing to tell the storey about protein ingredients and out trying to kind of raise support for their efforts there. But you do kind of hope some days that governments would just go back and say, let's just make it easier for the private sector to do what it needs to do. And then they will find those business opportunities where they're not exposed to significant competition from China or whoever else.
I also found it fascinating this week. The federal government never uses the word privatisation, but uses a lot of fancy other words that mean privatisation of things like airports, apparently as part of this potential plan of drumming up some capital.
Warren Kinsla, who's a former strategist for Krechin, he really thinks that Carney is making a political misstep on this privatisation of the airports. I didn't dig into that, but he was definitely posting on X yesterday that he thinks this is a horrible political idea for Kretzchen.
I don't know, Shaun. Again, I don't spend as much time in airports as you do, but my experience, especially in that airport, I had a kind of watch. My language there in Toronto tells me maybe we should turn that over to the private sector because the way it's being run right now is. Doesn't seem to be working for anybody. I'm not sure that. That there's that much support for maintaining the airports the way that they are.
Yeah, I don't really have a feeling on. I just. I guess one of the things, if we privatise them that we. And I really hope that means the parking places go down because it's. It's like. It is brutal. Like.
Yeah, yeah. So. Well, so there is actually a lot, I think I had never really. And this is my own, like, living in Lindsay world. I had honestly never given it two seconds of thought as to who actually owns an airport. Like, honestly, I'd never thought about it. And then when it. Then exactly this, when you start to unpack, it's like, okay, what does that mean for regulations? What does it mean for airlines? What does it mean for the cost of parking? Like. Like services? I mean, it just. Yeah, I had never even thought about it till this week.
If you're in a nice airport with services, it's probably a private sector airport.
Okay. So I'm gonna start asking.
People are everywhere. I go Pearson. Like, I think people
worse. Tyler is Montreal. Montreal airport is.
Well, yeah, I put that in Worst category. I think Edmonton is not great.
I mean, this is like a race to the bottom.
Yeah, Winnipeg is great. Hey, everybody, let us know what's your favourite airport in Canada? And I'm Canada wide, so if it's a teeny little one in the north, that's cool.
Does Grand Forks count?
No, that is not in Canada, but
I was gonna say great balls, but yeah, no, apparently they can't.
Yeah, sorry, it's not open. It's not open yet, but Porter is opening up a new air terminal outside of Montreal that will compete with Trudeau Airport. And apparently like Trudeau Airport is quite defensive and they don't want to give an inch because this new terminal, this new Porter terminal is going to drive.
Nice Montreal. Montreal's terrible. Anyway, so yay, Porter. Okay.
Yeah. On the sovereign wealth fund. Did we hear. You made me think of. Did we hear any comments from the Prime Minister this week about Trump signing related to that Keystone pipeline? I know we saw Daniel Smith, Alberta Premier, talking about it and the positivity about it, but did we see the Prime Minister? Because I didn't see anything.
Yeah, I haven't yet.
It was just yesterday, so I'm not sure.
Yeah, okay. There's opportunities, but yes, new route.
New route.
Yeah. That was a significant news storey that just broke yesterday that, yes, I think there's more to come on that. But that we may see at least parts of the Excel line be used and that we may see. So this revival of this. So that one, Shaun, I think is an incredibly important one that I think we'll have more details by the start of next week.
It's going to go through Montana, it's going to go through Wyoming. Wyoming cut across the northern or northeast tip of Colorado and work its way down to Nebraska.
Yeah.
There was a BC natural gas pipeline that was approved within the last week in the Canadian context. So there is like also this. And I don't think it's this kind of earth shattering, as big of a deal as some of the others that are, that are talked about. But there is action happening on that energy front. And again, I think this is like some of these things. I know that there's a lot of criticism. The Carnegie government's taken a long time and I think a lot longer than they kind of led everybody to believe that they would take. But it does seem like some of these things are starting to move and action starting to happen.
So. Yes, but, but also in the face of look at what else is happening in the world, I feel like there's an impetus for some of these things to happen. And really Tyler, to your earlier point, we need government to get out of the way to allow them to, which is where maybe we are seeing some differences. But I also, I feel like Carnegie gets a lot of credit for being who he is at a time when things are not looking good around the world. And so I'm just saying this could all go against him in a little while. But for now it seems like we are seeing some action on these things. Calvin, go ahead.
Another similar storey. I maybe should have brought this one up instead of the flack storey in the last segment is this labour framework labour relations reform that the federal government is undertaking. The Ag Transport Coalition came out with a new study this week showing that a week long shutdown of Canada's railways and ports due to labour disruption costs up to $540 million per week to the green sector. And quietly the government about two weeks ago now launched consultations on an update to the Canada Labour Code and potentially giving the Minister more authority to impose binding arbitration and that type of thing. There are some goodies in there for the unions as well. But it sounds like this is a positive move in terms of reducing that risk to our supply chains when we talk about getting things to market and reducing those hurdles. Not only pipelines but also on rail and through ports. And of course labour stoppages. Two years ago we had that dual rail strike unprecedented or stoppage I should say, because there was also a lockout at the same time with CN and cpkc. And so this could be deal with that potentially. So expecting we'll see legislation there. And it's worth noting that the House leader for the Liberals right Now is Stephen McKinnon, who is also the transport minister in Cabinet right now and was the Labour minister who oversaw and had to intervene in at least four significant work stoppages a couple years ago. And so I think there is potentially room for movement there in the direction that the agriculture sector and that shippers would like to see.
No titles.
One of the things that one of the things I've heard over the years from people that are far smarter than I is that kind of this ongoing ag ask of just make kind of railways essential service is kind of a non starter in the Canadian context. The Charter rights and freedoms effectively means that the courts will strike all those down. And so it's interesting to see what the feds are talking about is that I think that they're kind of pulling out a lot of other strings. It seems like the direction they're going to try and get to a similar outcome at the end of the day. But it will involve things like a special mediator or something. I think Calvin right. Is what they're talking about.
Special mediator and also more clearly defined authority to the minister which is one of the issues with section 107 now is it's maybe not as clear and a court could potentially get involved and prevent something from happening. And so yeah it sounds and I actually had the chance to interview Greg Northey of Pulse Canada with the Ag Transport Coalition as well. And I'm sure we'll have that that interview here on the show and on Real Agriculture at some point too.
Worth highlighting. The work that Greg and the groups do in the Ag Transport Coalition is probably one of the kind of underappreciated ag collaborations that are out there. So big shout out to Greg and the team behind that.
So many Greg's Shaun, closing thoughts. We're going to wrap it up here.
The one thing we didn't talk about was there was a lot of talk in D.C. this week about fertiliser.
Kind of important.
Yeah. And it reminded me a lot about when the Canadian government was trying to attract grocers. Remember we were talking about grocery prices. I had this like parallel sort of like weird thing going through my head. So many parallels. You know, the closure the Strait of Hormuz has hasn't created. Well, yes, it has been a factor where fertiliser prices are. But the problem relates some of the logistics around fertiliser and pricing were concerns prior. They're even more concerns now. And so it's really brought this to the front. It is a different issue in the sense of this is not easy to solve. Time is your enemy. And I was actually I will. We were at USDA on Tuesday. That press. Where we were Tuesday morning is where the press conference that the cabinet did on Tuesday afternoon. But I was the exact room that I was in and I have pictures to prove it. But you know what they're trying to do is attract new entrants. That. That seems tougher to do than.
But isn't the difference that they're putting money on the table, Shaun, to do that.
There is word. I don't know if it's confirmed but a lot of people are thinking they're actually going to use the remember the Japanese deal where there was that Japanese contribution capital project. That's. That's actually what people think. That's why Howard Lutnick was in the room. They're going to use that Japanese fund for, for. This is what I was hearing as rumours. I don't actually know if that's. They've said that or not. So attracting new entrants. I kind of think if there was going to be entrance to the largest fertile, one of the largest fertiliser markets in the world, probably would already be there. But prove me wrong. That reminds me of the grocery situation. We're talking to all these grocers, we're talking to all these fertiliser companies and we never did have a grocer that came to the country. The other, the other problem, what is real though, is talking about removing some of the regulations related to increasing phosphorus production and mining a phosphate rock in places like Florida. That is a. That is a. I think that's a. That is a smart one. That is real. So that, that is good. Especially on the nitrogen front. And there was, There was a lot of rumours around would they increase or do something around LNG that wasn't mentioned in that press conference. That was kind of a miss what some people thought was going to have happen. But the reality is this is big bucks and you just don't put. Don't put up a fertiliser plant tomorrow and be fully operational. And there's duration risk. All at a time where the US can increase domestic fertiliser production as much as they want. It's good, it would be a good thing, but without export restrictions. And it's kind of like, you know, the US is an underpriced market compared to the rest of the world. There's a lot of export risk here. And if you're going to put export restrictions on, that's going to potentially take away the benefit of investing the capital in the first place. And so there's no easy answers here. But they are working really hard on trying to solve it. It's just not like the egg issue.
But Shaun, I think that there's such a difference between the Canadian grocery situation and what's playing out, especially now in the United States. The Canadian government was not actively destabilising the grocery market in Canada.
Again, you're not listening to what I'm telling you. What I said was running in parallel was the fact that we, we're. There's all these people that are looking to come to this market. We just need to tell them about it and we're going to find all this increased competition, that. That's what the parallel is.
Yeah, but, but again. But I guess what I'm saying is that Like, I don't think that we. It is quite something to watch the US Administration today kind of destabilise a market on one side and then come in and try and kind of find money somewhere on the other side to fix it. Like, they wouldn't have as much of this issue if they hadn't done what they did in the first place. And kind of everybody's ability just to gloss over that continues to boggle my mind.
I don't think it's a glossing over, but. So I'm not glossing over it. What I'm telling you is that some people look at. You know, I talked to one person this week who said this was a major issue that had to be dealt with prior to the closest straight Hormuz, and they couldn't get people to really take any sort of action. And so he was actually looking at the closed restraint of Hormuz is actually pushing USDA and government to actually do some things related to the regulation front around the creation of more mining. So. And I know that, like the strait of Hormuz closure is not a good thing. The war in Iran is not a. You know, people have died, it's not a great. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm saying from a political lens, his point was don't let a good crisis go to waste. We need to use this to try to push some of these things that we've been trying to get across the line for a number of years. On the regulatory front was a perspective that I heard this week.
I just. To Tyler's point, it is a Israel and US created crisis nonetheless. And I think that.
Well, I think Iran had a hand in it too. I think they're sort of a player in this.
But yeah, the strait was open before, it's not now. So there you go. Okay, we're gonna.
I do wish I'd filled up the fuel tanks earlier this week.
Exactly. And, and so this actually plays to my. My comment earlier about Carney being seen as doing all these things, or whatever really relates to this directly, is that the global economic shifts that are happening of the price of energy, the uncertainty of it, all of those things creates exactly this, Shaun, that you're talking about. It creates economic opportunity that really would not have existed without a crisis. And that then means that suddenly all these things that maybe didn't work on the back of the napkin math before do in a world of much escalated energy prices, is my point. And so do we see some of these things move forward because of that. And that, Shaun, to your point is. Okay, but how long do we expect such things to last? These are.
Who knows?
Those are way above my pay grade kind of questions. But I put it out there to the world. Okay? Issues panel. Calvin Tyler. Shaun, thank you so much. Have a wonderful weekend. It's my birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday, everybody.
Thank you, everybody. Go have a lot of coffee in my honour. Thank you. Cheers, everybody. We'll talk to you on Monday.