Thank you, Chair.
Actually, it appears we've started on something that I think a lot of us on this committee feel—the frustration. Sometimes you look at the Competition Bureau and what it can or can't do, or seems to be unable to do, and that frustration shows up.
But there are many different ways to have competition. For example, you can have competition on railways by having value added on the Prairies. Another way to have competition is to have another means to use the product somewhere else that they're not handling it. I look forward to the days when we're going to see more of that competition in the grains sector.
One thing I want to talk about is our competitiveness. As we look forward and try to make sure that our farmers are competitive on a global playing field, we need to look at what we need to have that edge.
I'll start with you, Richard. When we start looking at the niches or the edges we need, research is a big one. Where do you see or how do you see the research—there's a combination of research for research, but then there's also research for specific industries and specific products.
How do we as a government allocate funding to one or the other, or should we even be involved in that? Is this something that we should just let the private sector take care of, and we just encourage it to keep moving along through tax incentives and stuff like that? I'm looking for some input on what you think we should do there.