That's not a problem.
Thank you, folks, for coming.
I want to start where Mr. McGuire left off, and that was talking about the improvements that are there with biotechnology. What is clearly obvious to us is the tremendous...and maybe it comes from the Frankenstein foods that Michael mentioned earlier. But there is such a misunderstanding that biotechnology is exclusively GMOs and it's not. I guess it's one component in the tool chest.
The other area that relates to that, and what I'm really coming at, is how do we get a better understanding out there in the general community, not only on GM but on biotechnology? We're getting over Bill C-474. Bev, you're wrong. We didn't support Bill C-474; we supported the discussion, and we'll be voting against it today.
Frank, you said the potential bias to biotechnology--I think you meant companies--has to be overcome, or that perception that there's a potential bias there. How do we do that? I hear some horror stories on corn strains in Mexico as a result of GM corn moving into Mexico. It's the reality. There's a lot of power by Monsanto, Syngenta, and others...farmers always having to go back to get their seed stock. There's certainly economic profitability in doing that, I will admit.
But how do we get to a transparent system that's not overly cumbersome for companies that want to make the investments but is understood by the public that it is based on science, that it is based on safe food and the protection of the environment?