Thank you very much, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
And Ted, it's good to see you again. I'm going to direct my first question to you.
You mentioned in your presentation the fact that GE alfalfa is awaiting commercialization. I've been trying to follow this file fairly closely, and I haven't found anyone who feels there is a real need to have herbicide-tolerant alfalfa in Canada, whether they're conventional farmers or organic farmers. In spite of many promises, we know there are basically two traits of GE crops: one is herbicide tolerance, and one is insect resistance. We've seen some problems like super weeds coming; and there are studies linking health questions to the use of glyphosate, etc.
We had quite a discussion on this in the last Parliament, even after my bill on alfalfa was defeated. I'm not sure if it was by Frank or Wayne, but we had a motion to have a moratorium on GE alfalfa and for reasons I'm not going to elaborate, that didn't go through. We tried to get it into Parliament.
But this is specific. It's not as encompassing as my Bill C-474 would have been. Should we all get together and support a moratorium on GE alfalfa until we really do a thorough analysis of the economic effects? Specifically, should we be recommending that our government do this? If that's the case, who should be involved in doing this analysis? Should there be cooperation between the farming sector and government, for example?
Also, the second part of the question, for the record, what exactly are the specific concerns you have as a farmer with regard to GE alfalfa? I'll stop there.