About BMO Capital Markets

BMO Capital Markets is a leading, full-service North American financial services provider offering corporate, institutional and government clients access to a complete range of products and services. These include equity and debt underwriting, corporate lending and project financing, merger and acquisitions advisory services, merchant banking, securitization, treasury and market risk management, debt and equity research and institutional sales and trading. With over 2,000 professionals in offices in 26 locations around the world, including 14 in North America. BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX:BMO), one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America with more than US$284.9 billion in total assets and 35,000 employees as of October 31, 2006. BMO Financial Group provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions. The organization's first branches in the U.S. opened in New York in 1858 and Chicago in 1861.

BMO Capital markets has over 70 equity and debt research analysts, who provide coverage on more than 800 public companies. Our Canadian equity research team has been ranked first every year for the last 26 years in the Brendan Wood International survey of institutional investors. Additionally, StarMine has ranked our Canadian research team first overall for both stock picking and earnings estimates, for the last two years.

About Bart Melek

Bart Melek, as a Senior Economist for BMO Capital Markets, has closely analyzed trends in global commodity markets, as well as in the Canadian and global economies for over a decade. He contributes to the Economics department's strategic view by providing commentary on commodity pricing and how they relate to the economic outlook. Bark Melek is a key contributor to many of the department's publications including Focus and AM Notes and is the author of "The Goods, a Report on Commodities". As well, he is often quoted in the print media including the Globe and Mail, National Post, the Wall Street Journal and Barron's.

Before joining BMO Nesbitt Burns, Bart was a senior analyst in Treasury and Risk Management at a major Canadian chartered bank. He was responsible for analyzing and forecasting commodity, industry and global economic trends and advised the bank on opportunities and risks. Bart also met with clients and was a regular commentator on market trends to the media. Before that, Bart was an Industry/Commodity economist at another Canadian bank.

Bark earned a Masters degree in Economics from York University, with Specialization Certificate in International Finance/Banking.