Thank you very much. I'll have to ask to be excused. We have a lot of students coming to Ottawa these days and they're very important to members of Parliament.
I found your presentations very interesting. We found many of them interesting, but I was particularly enamoured of Mr. Doering's comments. I could almost give an “amen” to everything you had to say. I'm sure there were places where we might have some differences, but much of what you said goes right to the core of what we've come to do—to do something as expeditiously as we can, as quickly as we can, and with as little government red tape as possible.
We know that labelling is important, particularly during these difficult times in agriculture. Perhaps never in history have we experienced, particularly in the red meat industry, such difficult times. We know what Canadians will do. Canadians expressed their appreciation for the safety of our food supply during the BSE crisis. Nothing could come close to giving us the kind of feeling we had when Canadians clamoured for Canadian beef during that time.
I think we need to move quickly. I believe the Canadian brand should be a new branding that denotes the safety of our food supply through CFIA, PMRA, Health Canada, and Agriculture Canada. All of these agencies have given assurances. Canadians have that. It's one thing that Canadians truly believe in. They have assurances: when a product is Canadian and they know it's Canadian, they will buy it. We need that brand, and this is where government needs to become involved. We should sell that idea to Canadians and promote Canada. Let's become salesmen for our country, as provinces and certain regions of our country have done.
I want to know from all of you what you think about that whole idea of a Canadian brand. I'm not even sure that we need to change the 51%. At the end of the day, it's not going to matter a whole lot if we continue with the “Product of Canada” label. When it says “Product of Canada” now, we may need to do some promoting to tell Canadians that it may not necessarily be a product of Canada in its entirety. We know that the one brand is the best we can do. The quickest way we can do it is by taking your advice, staying away from regulations, and moving quickly towards making these changes.
I'm wondering whether we have consensus or whether there's a difference of feeling about this. Jeanne, I know you're in the marketing in a different level, in a different way. Certainly, Mr. Loney, I sympathize with what you've had to go through. We're seeing it with PMRA and in many other areas.
Those are my comments. So take it away. Take whatever time we have and tell us. We need direction quickly, to move forward. We've been here 12 years. Mr. Doering and I go back 12 years, maybe longer. I'm not going to be here 12 years from now, but I'd like to see something happen before I leave this place.
Mr. Loney.