Good evening, everyone.
I now call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Pursuant to the order of reference of Saturday, April 11, the committee is meeting for the purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.
I'd like to remind our witnesses today and our members to please wait until I recognize them by name before speaking. When you are ready to speak, please unmute your microphone and then return it to mute when you have finished speaking. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly so that the translators can do their work. Please use the language channel of the language in which you are speaking.
As is my normal practice, I will hold up a yellow card when you have 30 seconds left in your intervention, and a red card when your intervention time has expired.
Now I would like to welcome our witnesses. From the Beef Farmers of Ontario, we have Mr. Rob Lipsett, president, and Richard Horne, executive director. From the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, we have Bob Lowe, president, and Fawn Jackson, director of international and government relations. From the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, we have Keith Currie, vice-president, and Scott Ross, assistant executive director. From the Dairy Processors Association of Canada, we have Philip Vanderpol, vice-chair; Dominique Benoit, treasurer and member of the board of directors; and Gilles Froment, secretary. From Morton Food Service, we have Robert Calcott, president.
We will have five-minute presentations by each of the five groups, followed by our normal rounds of questions.
With that, we will start with the Beef Farmers of Ontario.