Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
If the report was produced in November 2007, someone must have it. My concern and the public's concern is, what is in this report that is so worthy of being kept secret? If the report was defined as being secret, what does the term “significant communication risks” mean to the public, and is that enough reason for us not to receive it?
Also, the implication here is that farmers, as has been very clear to me, want the same rigorous rules to apply to imports as are applied to them. Does this report change that, or does it actually make it easier for imports to not be inspected? I think that's the concern about health risks to Canadians.
I'm asking that the report be presented to us tonight so that we can study it and at least have some basis for more detailed questioning, Mr. Chair.
The minister has been before us a few times, and in our questioning I don't know if he was duty bound not to tell us about what was in that report in his responses. I would like to know if that tempered the way he responded to some of our questions in terms of the past six months of the committee. It would really come down to, as was mentioned, that we actually see this so we can determine....
Right now there's a lot of speculation. Is there a $25 million cut from avian flu preparedness, yes or no? I'd rather know definitively as opposed to trying to guess, because since November 2007 we probably could have done a lot in terms of avian flu preparedness.
I thank you for the opportunity to make those points, Mr. Chair.