I call this meeting to order.
This is meeting 39, and today we're doing our study on the impact of the farm income crisis. We have a number of witnesses before us: from the University of Regina, Annette Aurélie Desmarais; from the Manitoba Farm and Rural Stress Line, Janet Smith; from the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec, Carmen Ducharme; from Au coeur des familles agricoles, Claude Barnabé; and from the National Farmers Union, Grant Robertson. Jim Smolik is here from the B.C. Grain Producers Association, and William Van Tassel is here from the Fédération des producteurs de cultures commerciales du Québec.
We welcome all of you to the committee. We're going to do this in order of appearance on the agenda. Please keep your comments to under 10 minutes.
With that, I'll turn it over to Madame Desmarais.