Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I think the first thing we need to start with, point of fact, is that this government continues to work with Canadians and continues to listen to Canadians. This committee is one stream of information that has come in. These consultations that were announced is another stream. I'm sure the minister and the Prime Minister and the government will take all the information, all the recommendations that are gathered from all the streams that are out there, to make the recommendations and final changes that are going to come forward.
But addressing the political side of this.... I mean, this is a joke. The only thing this threw a kink in was when Wayne was going to send out his press release taking credit for all of it. Mr. Easter willingly admits that the Liberal government looked at this for two years and didn't get anything done. He admits it in his own press release.
We are finally trying to get something done on some of these things. This committee has done a lot of good work on it. There are going to be more consultations, more stakeholders involved. We want to see action on some of these things.
The only response I've had from constituents is that they're happy to see the Government of Canada moving forward for consumers and for producers. Mr. Easter even admits that we knew long ago that this measure could improve farm income and provide valuable information to consumers. Why do you want to delay this any longer? Let's move forward with getting this done. These are Mr. Easter's own words.
We need to move forward and continue to work together and put forward strong recommendations. I think it helps to see where the government is coming from on some of these things. Maybe we can strengthen some of the recommendations we want to make, but there's nobody saying we're not going to be relevant when it comes to the overall result of this.
Each and every one of you put out press releases, and none of you are going to give the committee chair any kudos for the work that was done on this. It's embarrassing.
We have people like Len Troup, the chairman of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers' Marketing Board, saying, “...this is absolutely an improvement. It's the right thing to do, and I shook the prime minister's hand and thanked him for it.”
Now, let's continue moving forward with getting things done for Canadians.