Thank you, Minister. It's good to see you.
I would like to begin with the pest management centre and its funding. The budget has cut the budget for the centre down to $8.9 million. The Canadian Horticultural Council is requesting another $5.3 million for this centre. In particular, the pesticide risk reduction program has been reduced from $1.2 million down to $200,000, resulting in the closures of Bouctouche, New Brunswick, and the Delhi station in Ontario. The testing capacity of this risk reduction program is down from 37 projects to 10 in just a year.
The result is that our competitors get access to more benign products sooner, and they take our market share. It seems like the budget had money for everybody except agriculture. Agriculture's not looking for handouts here, but we're looking for the tools to become competitive.
Why would you cut funding for research, particularly when it's a source of data for new crop protection products that are more selective and of a more benign environmental footprint?