Thank you. Merci beaucoup, monsieur le président.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I was saying to someone earlier that I come from a riding, Halifax West, that is primarily suburban, and it also contains a few small fishing villages. But the one thing people all have in common there, like the rest of us, is that they like to eat. And they like to eat good protein, and good pork and beef are among those things, of course. Most of them I think would prefer to have the confidence of knowing that it's well-produced Canadian product that meets Canadian standards in many ways. That's important to people.
This whole issue is one that should concern all Canadians. In the same way that the dollar--in this case, it isn't just the dollar, because obviously the cost of grain is a huge element of this--is hurting a lot of industries, as we've heard, I can tell you that the fishery is hit hard by this as well, along with agriculture and forestry, and so on, certainly in my province and across the country.
Let me ask you about what you're proposing. I think you've talked about a new program, and I'd like a clearer understanding of how much that's going to cost over the long term, in your view. For instance, if you're talking about a loan program, obviously you want to avoid it being countervailable. We don't want the Americans saying it's a subsidy. So if we're going to have a loan program, how are farmers going to pay that back when they're already having problems with their existing debts? And as we go on, how much do you see this costing per year?