Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure to have these two witnesses before us today.
Serge, thank you very much for mentioning FCC and PIC, Protein Industries Canada, which we have right here in Regina. I also grew up near southwest Saskatchewan, and have family who worked at the Canadian agriculture research station in Swift Current. There is a lot of great things going on.
Dr. Mussell, thank you very much for your testimony.
My first question is for you, Serge.
What are some of the reasons that Canadian agriculture businesses and manufacturers are facing liquidity issues? We heard it from a couple of the witnesses, especially from Qu'Appelle Beef and Jason Aitken. In terms of meat processing plants, they face a big liquidity issue. They have to ramp up and have a lot of product on hand, but then when they send that out, sometimes it takes a while to get paid for the products they're delivering. If they have to wait for those paycheques, they're really having an issue bridging that gap. How do we fix that?
Second, do you know if their counterparts in the United States are facing that same issue?