Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Larson, you seem to dismiss out of hand the studies concerning the differences between U.S. fertilizer prices and those of fertilizers sold in Canada. The KAP, Keystone Agricultural Producers study, conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, has been cited extensively in committee. It seems very solid to me. In your presentation earlier, you talked about studies based on anectodal evidence and you cited some government studies. In your brief, I see a short passage from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Bi-weekly Bulletin stating that, between 1993 and 2006, prices for certain fertilizers only were equivalent to those of fertilizers sold in the United States.
I'd like to know what you think about the KAP study, which states that the price cap was only 1% in 2004. I agree with you that we can understand why prices were equivalent in that year. Starting in 2006, however, the gap was 10% and, in 2007, it was 33%. I understand that this is a comparative study of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota, but it was very well done. You referred to a number of Canadian government studies, and you cited the Bi-weekly Bulletin of March 30, 2007 to us. Do you have any other studies showing that prices are equivalent? Since 2006, do you agree that the gap, as the KAP study showed, has been quite a bit bigger than what we experienced in previous years?