Good afternoon, everyone, and to any members who are visiting us, welcome to the trade committee.
Today's meeting is very important. We have discussed this before. It's about the challenging trade issues facing our canola industry. It is a very important industry. Canola is a crop that was developed in Canada and represents over 250,000 jobs, $11 billion in wages and almost $30 billion in sales.
Before I start, I want to give the committee a heads-up that things are working quite well with the whips on our very important trip to the United States that we're working on with the ways and means committee. It looks as though we might be going between the 8th and the 10th. I'm just letting the parties know they should put forward the names of your designated travellers. Right now, it's looking good and it could be a very important meeting.
Without further ado, we're going to get right into our meeting. We have a very busy one today. We're going to have to be done at 5:30 sharp because there are votes.