Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank you for being here, and I thank our other guests with us today. This is an important subject.
A minister has tasked the committee with this study. He sent the committee a letter. It's interesting that in his instructions to the Liberal members to bring the motion forward, he said we should be trying to adequately address the full range of potential issues around the approval of products involving genetically modified animals, beyond those of health and safety.
I guess I'm thankful. If we're going to have a discussion, hopefully we're not going to rehash a lot of those old debates about those two issues. I thank you for your presentation and for doing a good job on that.
You mentioned that we need an approval process that takes place in a timely manner. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little about the Canadian approval process, how it compares with those in the countries around us, and what we can do as a committee to recommend changes that might work more effectively for the beef industry.