Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with Mr. McTeague.
I actually have three questions for Mr. Rice. I'll just pose them for you to then answer.
I guess the first one is about the pork industry and its famous cycle of good times and tough times. I wonder if you can tell us where we are in that cycle right now, in this perfect storm of high grain costs and an increasing dollar that has hit us.
My second question is about the global demand for pork. Did we contribute to this by overproducing in the past? The industry was fairly healthy over the last five, six, or seven years, but did we overproduce?
The third one is with regards to the urgency of the situation. I know my colleague from Prince Edward Island was saying that half the hog industry on the island is gone, and it happened in a very short period of time. I have friends in the industry who are losing $40,000 a week in Manitoba. So it is urgent.
My understanding is that the industry is asking for short-term relief that is repayable. Can you talk to us about that?