Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here and participating in what I think is going to be a very interesting process. Before I get started, I want to thank my colleagues Mr. Dreeshen and Mr. Poissant for bringing this forward. I think it's a very important issue that has come to the forefront, certainly over the last several months. I know we can all work together and put together a very worthwhile study on this issue.
I think many of us have been dealing with this long before these last few months. This hits particularly close to home for me. Growing up we went to several funerals, and we were never allowed to say the death was due to a suicide; this happened on the farm and was never talked about with anyone else. We were supposed to keep this to ourselves. It was a family issue. We didn't want anybody else to know. I think we can all relate to the phrase “cowboy up”. It's very frustrating that it has taken this long for us to come forward and be able to have a conversation about it.
Mr. Hoffort, can you go into a little more detail for me, please, on the ag crisis fund? You brought that up initially, that it helped in times of funerals, accidental deaths, things like that. How is that funded? What money is set aside for that? Is there a lot of awareness about it? We're starting to talk about this issue. Do people know it's there? Can they access that when they have mental health issues or they think a family member needs some help?