Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Ward, this report is very well done. I appreciate how stark the information in it is. Just in reading some of the statistics, Canadian farm debt has nearly doubled in the last 20 years and is now realized at over $100 billion. It looks to me very much as if farmers have been doing their job in getting our production up, but despite the fact they have been working so hard and have gone to some great lengths to increase our production, they're still seeing such a small slice of the pie at the end of the day. I think all of us around this committee and the Government of Canada really have to take a look at this because there are some very sad figures.
I like your holistic approach to this. The business risk management programs are the federal backstop to when times are really bad. However, I think the crux of your comment was that the best way we can help farmers manage risk is to make sure they have that sizeable income to help them.
Can you expand on that? I think it's important that our committee report really drives home this fact.