Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to flag this as a concern. We seem to be seized, at the top line, about the potential food shortages that we could be looking at this fall, but we don't seem to be reacting to farmers on the ground in this country, who, through provincial and national organizations, are raising alarm bells about the huge tariffs being imposed on nitrogen fertilizer.
This is directly impacting farmers as we speak. The land is drying out. Wheat, soybean and corn crops are going in. Farmers are making decisions, as we speak, about what to do. The price of fertilizer, if it's 35% higher, particularly for purchases they made before the war started, will have a direct impact on how much they apply and how much yield they're going to get. Compound that with the fact that only about 20% of the corn crop in northern Ukraine has been planted and we could be looking at an intersection of a number of issues here that could have pretty devastating consequences for the people of Afghanistan and for people in other developing countries later on this year.
I have two questions concerning the process under the special immigration measures, or SIM. What is the process for someone to receive a referral from Global Affairs for the SIM program? Perhaps you could quickly describe that. What are the criteria for the referral to the SIM program? How are applications for referral assessed?