Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for braving the cold and coming out and being with us here this morning to talk about this.
You both touched on some very interesting things that we've heard before in the committee—for example, low-level presence, and Mr. Vandaele, you talked about that. That's something that is a must, whether it's in Canada or abroad. Low-level presence is something we need to have in our trade agreements and see brought about in the markets we're selling to. Your example of flax is a prime example of why low-level presence is required. Don't worry, we're going to fight for you on that one, for sure.
Mr. Rourke, you talked about public plant-breeding and you talked about farmers getting together to do plant-breeding. One of the complaints I used to hear all the time was that we didn't have a great stock of personnel coming through the ranks of the universities to actually take part in this public plant-breeding.
Do you see that improving? Do you see more skills coming through the university ranks and more people looking at that as a career opportunity versus what we've seen in the past?