Thank you very much. It's certainly an honour to be here and to be able to speak with you folks.
It will be no surprise that perhaps I want to talk about the Canadian dairy sector. I was on the agriculture committee for a number of years. When I was on the industry committee, we went down to the U.S. and talked to various New York senators about dairy and the issues that are taking place there. Of course, one of the things that they mentioned was a simple technical thing: simply going from milking two times a day to three times a day, increasing the volume by 15%. Then they wondered why the price was going to go down because of the extra milk in the system, and of course, after that, having the ability to take the milk solids, split them, and then move them into Canada. They perhaps wondered why it was that we got a little testy in that particular area.
I'm wondering if you can expand upon that because—and you mentioned it somewhat in your discussions, Mr. Lampron—there are so many U.S. subsidies out there as well. When we talk about what is taking place, that seldom comes up on the table. Could you expand a little bit on some of the issues that you see as far as the dairy industry is concerned and the issues that keep getting thrown at us in the discussions?
Could you then talk about what the U.S. subsidies are, specifically in the dairy industry, but obviously with your other sources you would no doubt know what some of the subsidies are for other commodities?