Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
Mr. Townsend, perhaps we can engage you about bees since it's your first time here, and bees actually fascinate me anyway. As someone who lives in the Niagara Peninsula, I see bees as fundamental to the value-added crop we grow, the tender fruit industry.
Perhaps you could talk to us about what you see as the need for research and development. You are absolutely right about the kill rates. You know it because you're in the business and in your position.
We know in the peninsula that it actually goes beyond the 30% kill rate. In some cases it actually has destroyed entire colonies and hives and has put some folks in the position of almost being out of business when it comes to honey. We're a little bit further south than you. We seem to be getting the influx of whatever seems to be manifesting itself in our hive colonies, and of course that is a great danger for tender fruit crops, in the sense that we won't get them pollinated. We'll have a very difficult situation.
From the research and development perspective, are things lacking? Are there things we need to be doing? Are the things we are doing now insufficient? How do you see that developing as far as your particular industry is concerned, and what do we need to help with that?