Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First of all, let me thank you for accepting the invitation to answer questions from Canadian parliamentarians. We greatly appreciate it, especially since the Canadian agriculture sector also has a lot of expectations regarding the free trade agreement that we signed with the European Union, or EU.
The possibility of having exchanges with you today shows that, in the future, our links will surely be strengthened, and we will have to work together because we hope that what we are going to produce here will be increasingly consumed throughout the European Union.
Here are the initial questions I wanted to ask you. I want to situate myself so that I can make a bit of a comparison with what is happening here in Canada.
The European Union is an integrated market with a large number of consumers, and the European Commission is responsible for legislation and enforcement. How does field inspection work? The borders of the European Union are still quite extensive. Who is responsible for inspecting food, deciding whether a food is acceptable and whether it meets standards or not?