Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's great to have this opportunity to speak with both of you.
I think one of the things that you had mentioned, Mr. Lemaire, was popular culture, some of the trendy issues, things such as the 100-mile diet, and so on. It sounds very good; however, the practicalities of it and the realities of what we have in our country are somewhat obscure.
I think, as well, Cam, you had mentioned the same type of thing, where we have a perception of public opinion—and of course that's fed by different groups and popular culture—and then there's the fact that it's not grounded in science. One of the issues, again, as a canola producer in western Canada, is the discussion on GMOs and all of these types of things. When we look at the great strides that it has provided for the industry, those that pay attention would recognize the types of things that it could do for the rest of the world, as far as hunger is concerned, and as far as reducing the need for extra energy in order to produce, and for water, and so on. However, there is a popular culture that says they don't want to see any of that happening.
Now, again, there is some research that says, okay, we have to be careful in certain areas, and of course, I think that's perhaps where the discussion in Ontario is coming from when we look at the neonicotinoid seed treatments. They have moved in a certain direction. We use the same types of seed treatments in Alberta, perhaps applied in a different manner. We have seen our bee populations increase. There's no canola producer that isn't happy to have a bunch of bees brought into their community so that they can help in the pollination.
I think we have to make sure that the science is there and that people understand how that comes into play, or else we end up with these knee-jerk reaction situations occurring. Those that don't understand seem to be louder at the microphone than some of the others.
But I'd just like to have you talk, perhaps, Cam, if you could, a little bit more on how difficult it is for competitiveness when we're trying to bring in other information from other countries, science-based programs, in order to help our own industries, and how the difficulties that exist there also permeate throughout the interprovincial barriers that we see.