Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
Yesterday I was with the Ontario Cattlemen's Association, and certainly there are challenges facing the producer sector. One of the things I spoke to the Ontario Cattlemen's Association about was some of the work that Minister Ritz and our government has been doing to open foreign markets and to basically increase demand worldwide for our fine Canadian beef products.
I'd ask you to share your thoughts on the importance of foreign markets on the beef sector. Secondly, I'd also like you to comment on the National Farmers Union. They put out a report, which you're probably very well aware of, and in that report, just on exports, they made a comment regarding an export over-dependence. I wonder if you could answer both those questions.
The first would be based on your perspective and the perspective of the Cattlemen's Association on foreign markets and the importance of those. You did mention some of them: for example, Jordan, which had been closed to our beef for 10 years and now is open, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Mexico, and we've got more chips coming up.
In the second part, could you also comment on that aspect of the NFU report that says that part of the difficulty of our cattle sector is related to what they would call an export over-dependence?