Agriculture committee  Again, on that one, actually, I'm very interested to hear about it. It has not been a part of this specific request that Ukraine has made to Canada. Those requests have come to the Minister of Agriculture, of course, and then through Global Affairs. That specific situation has not been brought to our attention at this point.

Agriculture committee  For the situation that you've just described, in that case we haven't received that request. On the request we've received via the Minister of Agriculture for some of the lab equipment, I think that letter was received approximately two weeks ago. Again, that would have been received directly by the Minister of Agriculture, but we've been working with agriculture and CFIA to identify what we can do, what that would look like and how we can respond.

Agriculture committee  I would just add that you will have also seen that we have returned to Kyiv to engage in high-level diplomatic interactions with Ukraine, and so on that side, we do have our head of mission in Kyiv engaging with the Government of Ukraine. As Peter said, there are specific scenarios and in occupied territories it's very difficult, but we're doing everything we can to engage with the Ukrainians to understand the situation and to understand where there can be assistance and coordination and alignment with Canada.

Agriculture committee  Just in addition to that, we also are doing a broad-based diplomatic engagement through which we do outreach to countries. As Peter said, we don't always have the same influence in certain countries, but we are engaging with multiple countries to make sure they're aware of the issue, they understand the realities and they align or try to advocate for not purchasing the grains.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that. I can start with that one, if you don't mind, Peter. As I spoke about, we're looking at various options to respond to the Ukrainian request, and those include lab equipment and grain storage, which are complementary to the various other activities we do to support local farmers.

Agriculture committee  Thanks. Perhaps, if I've understood your question correctly, I'll say that it's a combination of agriculture and military equipment and how we are actually getting items in given the logistical challenges. On one side, there is a lot of coordination with our NATO allies on the military equipment specifically and how it's coming in.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. As Peter mentioned, we have received this specific request for grain storage, so we have been working very closely with Agriculture Canada, CFIA and others to go through the specifics. We're very cognizant of the time frame, so we're pursuing finding a number of options and exploring organizations we've worked with before that have procured this type of equipment so we can move fast if we're able to do so.

Agriculture committee  Sure, if I may, I will add a bit more to Peter's answer. We have a long history of a bilateral development program with Ukraine, and so we already have the connections and funding going to local organizations. One of the first actions we took was to provide as much flexibility in that programming as we could so that any of the organizations working within Ukraine could adapt and change their project activities, and be flexible and respond to the needs.

Agriculture committee  That's my understanding. There are a lot of organizations, and Ukrainians are supporting and working with a number of the entities that are in Ukraine. Of course, there are a lot of Ukrainians who have stayed in Ukraine to provide support. The areas that I was speaking to were where we're providing the Government of Canada funding, but you're absolutely correct that there would be many other national entities and civil society organizations.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. Again, I'm not able to answer it in detail. What I can say is that in our bilateral development assistance, we do provide support to some of the dairy processing facilities and some of the smaller farmers. But I can't speak in detail to that particular question.