Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the Food Security Policy Group once again for your ongoing leadership, and to our partners from the global south for bringing living, breathing examples of why we need to take seriously the kinds of recommendations you've placed before us yet again today.
I'm not sure whether you all are familiar with the fact that there was, for a time, a Canadian climate change development fund specifically crafted to focus on the punishing effects of climate change and remedial mitigation programs...on developing countries where agriculture, as you've pointed out, is 80% of the economic baseāfor example, in countries that you represent.
That program, I think, was considered to be quite visionary initially. Unfortunately, the previous government allowed it to expire, and it now no longer exists. I'm wondering whether particularly our guests from the global south had any experience with that program in their countries and whether one of the things we should be doing is looking at relaunching a similar program.
Secondly, thank you for pointing out the really quite alarming reduction in the resources allocated for the agricultural programs under CIDA that have been seen in the past, I think, to be quite important. I'm wondering whether you can comment specifically on whether it is your feeling that the recommendations from this committee to the government should be around stepping up those specific funds or whether your recommendations would be primarily around particular programs that we should be advancing and advocating.