Eugene Whelan tried to get it in, and they fought it.
I'll try to answer your question and the other question at the same time.
The ranching industry was built on the free market, and that's what it survives on. I'm not afraid of the U.S. food bill. If it were handled right, we could go and compete with them, no problem.
We have Canadian back bacon that outsells down there, as well as Canadian cheese and Canadian Club whisky. I have no fear of competing with them in an open market. Granted, it has to be handled in a different way from what it was.
I'll go back right to the start of the BSE. I'll have to do a little history there. I was invited by a group in 1999 to go to China to look at grazing and to improve their grazing in the upper highlands of Tibet. I couldn't help them, but I did make a lot of contacts there. I have been invited into the Chinese council several times for supper. Since then, BSE hit, and I saw an opportunity as a businessman: they have lots of people and we have cheap food. So we sat down and negotiated a tentative sale of 2,000 head of cattle to go to China in beef.
I couldn't get to square one because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would not allow me to test for market access. I didn't ask them for money. I didn't ask them to test. All I wanted was permission: If I find somebody who wants to buy some cattle that are tested, can I have permission to sell them? I couldn't get to square one.
That's where our problem is. It's market access, but it's taking away the freedom of entrepreneurs in this country.