Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank all of the witnesses for being a part of the discussion today.
I'm from southwestern Ontario. As you know, it has been one of the hot spots in terms of activities that have initiated some of the discussions and court actions regarding the use of neonics, etc.
Mr. Kirby, these numbers that have come out in 2014-15 are not new. The season, as you indicated, has just finished. It will be interesting to see, because actually we went into a very cool, wet spring and one thing that has been consistent is the wind, even when it has been dry over the last while.
The decrease of 70% to 80%—that's not 10% or 15%, but 70% to 80%—happened prior to the ban that Ontario put in place on the availability and use of neonics for planting. Is it all because of the working together in terms of the lubricant that has been used, the machinery manufacturers, and also the awareness of farmers? I have a number of farmers who continue to use neonics with bee producers right beside them, as they always have, and there's not the issue.
I'm wondering if you could make a comment about why there's that 70% to 80%. If it's another good year this year, there might even be an improvement on that. Why are we moving towards banning a product when it takes that working together to find out what the issues are?