Thanks very much, Chair.
We, as the government side, are certainly very concerned about this bill. It's definitely a step away from the sound science approach that Canada has used and advocated for around the world all these years.
As this committee knows, as Canadians know, we base our decisions on sound science. We hold other countries to account for basing their decisions on sound science. When they don't base their decisions on sound science, we take them to task over that.
We've had tremendous success opening foreign markets. We've had many, many witnesses come in front of this committee during our study on competitiveness, as well as the future of farming, to explain the importance of opening foreign markets. There's no question that this bill undermines our ability as a government to open foreign markets to our farmers.
Chair, I also want to highlight that of the four parties, ours is the only party that voted against this bill at second reading. I think this is important.
Another thing we've heard in all the tours we've done, with all the witnesses we've had, is that farmers and the market and the industry like stability. They need stability in order to grow.
I'm surprised that the Liberals voted in favour of this bill. By doing so, I believe they have injected instability into the markets. What I mean by that is that the seed and the farm markets...certainly the letters I've been receiving say it's only to get at the committee, Mr. Chair. But I'm willing to tell you that the canola growers, the soybean growers, and many, many other groups have absolutely no idea what the Liberals are going to do when this comes up for a vote in the House again. Therein lies the stability.
I'd love to ask how many hours they've invested in preparing reports and coming here to be witnesses to talk about their concerns on this.
I'm a bit surprised the Liberals voted in favour of this. It actually goes against what we're trying to do in agriculture, which is to stabilize the market--