Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for coming out.
I think a good point was made by my colleague Mr. Easter regarding BSE and the $500 million. We're looking at how we can be competitive. The $500 million that went out particularly and supposedly to the beef producers was lost in terms of the beef producers. That's why ad hoc programs don't work. Also, that raises the question of why it didn't get stopped when they knew it was happening. However, that's another issue.
When we were talking, first of all—this is more to Mr. Foster and certainly Ms. Ross and Mr. Tait—in terms of partnering with technology, we talked about GM commodities. Each of you obviously uses those except if you're in the organic sector, likely. The comment was made that there needs to be a larger public component. If you look back, in terms of research and development technology, we also believe there needs to be a larger public component to it.
Do you believe it should be all public? Do you believe there needs to be a partner with a technology, with the private companies so that the products you're growing that have a genetically modified component to them are actually available? Do you believe that government is the best place to be doing all that research?
Mr. Foster.