Thank you very much for the presentation today. It is very important for this 43rd Parliament to undertake this task.
During the 42nd Parliament, we began a pre-study. We heard from a number of witnesses verbally and through written submissions. Among the groups of people who presented during our pre-study for NAFTA were the Dairy Farmers of Canada. I want to hear your thoughts on this particular statement by them, and whether you agree, disagree or want to expand upon it:
Full and fair compensation, as committed by the federal government, is key to sustaining the dairy sector following concessions made in recent trade agreements. Maintaining previous import levels was the objective of dairy farmers.
They also said that compensation was the government's response to trading off the Canadian dairy sector against other potential gains in recent trade deals.
Could I have your comments on that statement? Do you agree with that?