Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to welcome our witnesses, Ms. Mithani and Mr. Hills.
As we know, various agricultural sectors in the last number of years have gone through some very, very challenging times. Our government did a lot of consultations with various sectors to find out what was needed to try to put in place a long-term solution, something we could go forward with and to have something in place that would resolve these problems over the long term.
Some of the suggestions that various sectors of the industry brought forward were that if we were going to be competitive on the world stage—and of course we're living in a world market—we need to have innovative research and development. That was one of the solutions or criteria they suggested that we should have in our “Growing Forward” framework. They said that if we are going to remain sustainable, we must have leading-edge research and development.
How do you see it from a Health Canada perspective? How does the “Growing Forward” framework help you to address the agricultural sector's needs?