First let me welcome you people here today.
Obviously, as all of us here know, Canada and the U.S. have a tremendous trade relationship. Were it not for our American neighbours, we would be duly filed with a whole lot of product for which we probably wouldn't have a home. So we do appreciate the openness we have.
But there have been a number of issues, and I think you're quite aware of what those issues are. I would be remiss today, as a person who has been part of this committee and part of this ongoing BSE issue for a long time—in fact it's going on three and a half years....
While we have some degree of openness in terms of the cross-border movement of live animals under thirty months, and certainly product taken from animals under thirty months, we still have that irritant of not being able to move older animals. I quite understand the reasoning, which you mentioned earlier, or at least I think you said that you base your decisions on science. But I'm wondering whether sometimes political science gets in the way of animal science, going both ways. I'm wondering how we can reconcile true science, in the fairest sense of trade, and allow these products to flow more fairly.
Obviously when we look at the causes in the first place, on a percentage basis it would have taken thirteen animals to have caused the Americans to close the border. But the border was closed with one animal. So it was a decision taken, and we didn't argue the decision. I guess the argument we have is, why so long, when so many times we thought we were getting close but the border remained closed?
I know that's a long preamble to perhaps not a short answer either. But can you respond to that?