Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for coming.
We had a very interesting meeting with the minister, obviously, beforehand, and I'd like to talk a little bit about something the minister mentioned, the “Beyond the Border” initiative and the importance of trade to the agriculture sector, not only in the last couple of years but moving forward. It's one of the reasons why we're able to not have to budget as much, as I understand it, for business risk management.
What we'd like to see, hopefully, as western Canadians, is our producers being able to get their revenue from the marketplace. That's what they would like to see as well.
Part of this, and I think an important part, is making sure that we take a science-based approach to trade. That means not only for trade that we're putting out but also on imports coming in. I'd like to ask you gentlemen if you could talk a little bit—because the committee has seen a lot of debate on this—about the importance of a science-based approach when it comes to trade.