Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for being here, or virtually here.
I will start with you, Mr. Van Acker. I want to ask a couple of questions that touch on some things you said in your opening remarks.
One thing you talked about was canola and its prevalence in western Canada. It has obviously been a huge success story. Many producers in western Canada looked at canola as an option when they were looking at ways to avoid the restrictions put on their marketing of their wheat and barley because of the Canadian Wheat Board. Obviously, we as a government have opened that market up, and yet we find that many producers are still looking at canola because it has become a great success story.
What you said in your opening remarks was that well over 90% of the canola grown in western Canada is genetically modified. I would think that GM seeds would cost more, both in the research phase and in production as well, and yet clearly farmers have overwhelmingly chosen to grow GM products.
I wonder whether you could tell us what you think the reasons for that are.