I would like to call this meeting to order.
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the international trade committee. My name is Mark Eyking, and our study is on Canada's future trade relationships with our North American counterparts, Mexico and the United States. We started this study a couple of months ago.
We've already visited many states in the western United States. They were very receptive there. We felt it was very good to get outside of the Washington bubble and to visit the states, especially the ones that do a lot of buying from us. We had good dialogue and met many people and are going to continue those visits, ending up in Washington. We might even travel down there in the fall. We're also trying to visit our counterparts in Mexico.
I see that today we have quite the agriculture panel. Welcome.
I recognize many of you from having been on the agriculture committee previously. Farmers are having a rough time across this country with the land being so wet, but let's hope some sunshine will come out and people can get their crops in.
We have a slew of witnesses here, and I'm going to start with the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. I think we have Brian Innes, the president, here.
I'll just let everybody know that we try to keep it to five minutes so that we can have lots of time for dialogue with MPs.
Without further ado, Brian, you have the floor, sir. Go ahead.