Those are great comments, and I think it's good for the committee to hear in concrete terms what the impact of biotechnology is on farmers. I think we all have the interest of farmers at heart, and we want to see them succeed. When we did our study on the economic challenges facing competitiveness of agriculture, these were things that we were looking at, and you've helped to add some meat to the bones.
On another question I have, I've been approached a number of times saying farmers use the government, and you're in the pocket of the seed companies and that type of thing, which isn't true. As I said, I think as a committee, as a government, we want to see farmers succeed, and we want to offer them the tools to succeed. Let farmers decide what tools they want to take advantage of and which ones they don't.
You made an interesting point, Mr. Phillips, about SeCan being owned by farmers, one of the largest seed providers, and you made some comments about research too.
I'd like to follow up on the comments you made about public research versus private sector, because people make the charge that this is all being governed by big private companies wanting to make lots of money. Can you comment on the public side, and the value of public research versus private research, to help put that myth to rest?