Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome, folks.
I want to say at the beginning that your survey shows that Canadians can indeed take pretty good pride in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and what it does, and I think your poll showed that. I think we would agree that you manage to protect the integrity of our system; we do have one of the safest food supply systems in the world, and you're to be congratulated for that. However, there is a problem. We've just completed two weeks of hearings with this committee, and certainly primary producers feel they're bearing too much of the cost in terms of inspections and maintaining the integrity of the food system.
You may or may not have this information, but can you produce for us any comparisons with--and it's complicated--especially our major competitors to the south in terms of what they have to pay in inspection fees and costs, really basically from field to plate, as compared with Canadian producers? We know those fees, to a great extent, are GATT green. Certainly we on this side of the table believe the government should be moving in a direction of covering those costs that are GATT green. Do you have any of those kinds of comparisons, either on the tip of your tongue or that you can table with us at a later date?