Thank you, witnesses. We appreciate your taking the time to be here.
Mr. Williamson, I have to commend you for your directness in your answers, and more so for the way you have run a crown corporation. You have a budget of $8 million, and half of which is in government appropriations. I know there's some difficulty with the CDC, in terms of the act and the three members. If there's a template to follow in terms of how crown corporations might structure themselves, I would suggest this is one of them. The Auditor General basically concurred with that, which is a significant compliment for your organization.
To follow up, I know there are questions for every organization about the budget cuts, and I thank you for answering that. One thing about people in agriculture, with the nature of our business, we're able to adapt to changes in how we operate. I think you would agree.
I'm glad to hear that because you were notified, you're preparing a plan and you will take that responsible action. Quite honestly, others will do that throughout our government, to make this an effective government, but also to look after our economic responsibilities.
I may be commenting more than asking a question, Mr. Chair, and I hope that's okay, but I will get to one.
It is important to understand that CDC is part of supply management. I was a dairy farmer, so I have the greatest respect for supply management and also for free markets. When you look at the interests of the stakeholders across the board who are involved, you include producers, processors, exporters, consumers, and the government. There isn't much that has that breadth when you're establishing prices, legislation, regulations, or your structure, or that involvement across the general public of Canada. It's important that we recognize that, and my question follows from it.
You mentioned that it's important that you direct fair returns. We continually hear from organizations and some groups—unfortunately some agricultural groups—that say supply management can't provide fair returns, they provide exponential returns to our producers, and these are paid for at exponentially high prices by our consumers. I don't know if you're in a position to make a comment on it. I read an article this morning that indicates in fact it isn't fair because consumers are paying two to three times because a product comes out of supply management. I know that's truly false, and I think you do also.
Could you expand a bit about that comment they had in terms of fair return for the producers and how that rolls out across the general public?