Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I think this was extremely unfortunate and wrong on the part of the Prime Minister to do it this way. I really do think it's a slap in the face to the relevance of parliamentarians and the relevance of committee. I went through the transcript and I went through the Prime Minister's release. The Prime Minister has to know, I expect, that this committee has been holding hearings for a couple of months, but not a word. If the Prime Minister had even said in here that he's following up on the work of the committee or that he's looking forward to the committee work--but nowhere in his transcript, or even in the media scrum, is the work of this committee mentioned.
My first impression when I listened to the press conference was that I was glad to see we were moving ahead with “Product of Canada”, but what about the relevance of the committee? What are we, chicken soup? Why did we bother? I mean, go to the listof.... There's the Prime Minister own consultation process that he talks about in his release:
We’re seeking feedback from Canadians on our proposed initiative. Over the coming days and weeks the Minister of Agriculture and Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials will meet with a wide range of key stakeholders including farm groups, processors, retailers and consumer groups. .... The timeline for consultations is May 21 through June 11, 2008.
We met with all those groups. Why do we bother meeting? Why don't we just turn it over to the Minister of Agriculture and CFIA to do their thing? That's the way I felt.
I think it was wrong for the Prime Minister to do it this way and not at least give some relevance to the chair of the committee and committee members, who have done good work. I think we've done good work, but now I have to question if it was worth the effort. I see the role of Parliament and the role of committees undermined and undercut by the way the Prime Minister did this, and the lack of at least acknowledgement that the committee itself has done a lot of work here.