I call this meeting to order.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the trade committee. This is our second meeting dealing with the trade challenges the canola industry is having.
Today we're going to split the meeting into two sections. First we're going to have members from the industry here, and second we're going to have individual farmers come before us.The first meeting we had was with ministers and government officials.
As many of you know, it's a very important industry. There are over $26 billion in sales, $11 billion in wages and over a couple of hundred thousand jobs. There are a lot of people working in-between those supply chains. Whether it's farm families or all the way through the supply chain, we'll hear about that today.
I welcome members who are new to the committee and just attending and who might represent growers.
Without further ado, we have with us witnesses from the Canadian Canola Growers Association, Richardson International, and Viterra.
Viterra is here by video conference.
If it's your first time here, we usually try to keep presentations to five minutes. That would be appreciated, so we can have good dialogue with the MPs.
Without further ado, I'd like to go to our video conference first in case there is a glitch and we have to catch up. We will go to Viterra.
Go ahead, gentlemen. You have the floor.