Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of you for being here this afternoon. It's great to see you here.
Unfortunately, I only get five minutes to ask questions, so I'm going to stick to one constituent.
I'm going to talk with you, Mr. Van Ankum, a grain farmer from Ontario. I'm a grain farmer from Saskatchewan. One thing I know about farmers is that if you say you're a farmer, you have a best friend, anywhere in the world—it doesn't matter where you are.
You made some really interesting points in your opening comments, which I found to be something we should be listening to and talking about, for sure.
I noted your disappointment in AgriStability and AgriInvest and the changes there. I will highlight the fact that with AgriInvest now, farmers can actually invest more in their accounts on a yearly basis, so even though it has gone from 1.5% to 1%, they can actually put more in and have it matching. I think that's a positive.
I think we also have to highlight the fact that AgriStability is a joint program with the provinces, so any changes to that program wouldn't have been only the federal government's. Actually, it was eight provinces in conjunction making the recommendations for the changes. I think it came down to the fact that we've had such great years in the grain sector across Canada, and the margins these guys have now are so high that if there were ever a trigger of a huge payment, we'd be paying farmers who would be still making money, more money on top of that. I think taxpayers would have trouble with that. I think that justifies some of the changes.
One thing happening with those changes is that it's freeing up cash to go into the research side of things. I know that in Ontario you talked about the winter wheat production and the cereal production. Could you highlight what you'd like to see as far as moving forward goes with research in the winter wheat and the grain sector, what you'd like to see that might be something we could support or help you with?