Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for helping our committee make its way through this study. Your testimony has truly been very valuable to us.
Dr. Bedard-Haughn, I'd like to start with you.
Australia has just embarked on its first-ever national policy on soil. This is a framework that's really going to govern how Australians value, manage and improve their soil for the next 20 years. It's a strategy that has been launched in co-operation with state governments, with many industry and agricultural stakeholders and the larger community. There is going to be a lot of data collected from this initiative that they're going to make sure that they share, and really try to identify the priorities through research to figure out how they're going to manage this incredibly valuable resource.
I find this to be a helpful example because Australia's federal system of government is remarkably similar to what we have in Canada. They have their national capital in Canberra and they have their state governments just like we do here in Canada with our provinces. The distribution of powers is remarkably similar to what we have in Canada.
What is your opinion of Australia's national soil strategy, and do you think that is a model we could use here in Canada?