Good morning, everyone.
I will now call this meeting to order.
As discussed at our previous meeting, Mr. Finnigan has a previous engagement in his constituency, so I will be stepping in as vice-chair.
Just to give Mr. Perron and Mr. MacGregor a heads-up, there's a very large thunderstorm rolling through rural southern Alberta right now, so I may lose power. If that is the case, Mr. Clerk, I would ask you to jump in and maybe get Mr. Perron or Mr. MacGregor to chair the meeting, but so far so good.
Welcome, colleagues, to meeting number 19 of our House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
We will be continuing our study on business risk management today, with two panels of witnesses, one in each hour.
I just want to go through a few housekeeping items. I know we have all heard this several times, but for the benefit of our witnesses I want to make sure they are aware of how this is going to work. I know many of them, Mr. Carey and Mr. Bergmann, for example, have been here before.
I will just run through this quickly. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Please select on your screen the language you will be speaking in your presentation. That makes the job much simpler for our interpreters. When you intervene, please make sure your language channel is set to the language you intend to speak, not to the floor selection. This will certainly reduce the number of times we have to stop because of inaudible interpretation. It will also maximize the time we have for questions.
Also, before speaking, please wait until I recognize you and give you the floor. Obviously using Zoom is a bit different from meeting in person in a committee room. The clerk will activate your microphone. When you are not speaking, please ensure your microphone is on mute.
I would now like to introduce our witnesses.
From the Canadian Canola Growers Association, we have Mr. McClean, chair; and Mr. Carey, vice-president, government and industry relations. From Agri-Food Management Excellence, we have Mr. Martin,who's a partner in that organization. From the Canadian Pork Council, we have Mr. Bergmann, chair of the board of directors; and Mr. Ahrens, chair of the business risk management committee.
We will start with seven-minute presentations from our witnesses, beginning with the Canadian Canola Growers Association.