Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
My first questions are for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
We know there are a lot of incredible challenges that the agriculture industry and farmers are facing. To list just a few, there are the announcements of restrictions on fertilizer usage and there are the yearly increases in carbon taxes. There's the announcement that was just made by the Bank of Canada that it's holding interest rates high. For any farmers who have loans or lines of credit, this is going to continue to cost them more. Payroll taxes increased on January 1, and there are others.
I'm wondering if you can speak to the cost pressures that Canadian farmers are facing, and how this may affect the business decisions they're making.