Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't take long.
We just had Mr. Easter say that they were going to oppose this bill. I'm trying to understand something here that isn't really very clear: if that, in fact, is his view personally or whether it's the party's.
We have a bill in front of us that is not supported by industry. I know what Mr. Atamanenko and Randy said. I give you credit. I know that your heart's in the right place in bringing it forward.
I have not had industry people of any kind come to me to say that this is a great bill. In fact, they say it should not be in front of you. I'm not going to repeat everything that was said by my colleagues, but what it is doing is an incredible detriment to our research and development. It's also a big concern to our farmers, because the development of those types of grains and oilseeds and other commodities we now rely upon as farmers, whether they are drought resistant or pest resistant or nutritional products developed and approved by Health Canada and CFIA and PMRA, are now put on hold.
Now we've said, wow, we're going to put all this science in place, but now government is going to have an emotional reaction. That emotional reaction made by politicians is going to carry an incredible amount of weight. That incredible amount of weight brings uncertainty. I want you to remember when we were going through the issue of the recession and losing markets. When we're opening markets, those markets are not made on emotion. Those markets are built on scientific research, and we can always go back and say that this is the science, this is the science, this is the science. That's why we've been able to open markets. That's why we've been able to go and reopen markets, particularly to beef and pork, because we've always relied on science.
Quite honestly, the industry people are saying that we are going to make them look like hypocrites.
When we say it has to be based on science, and now we're going to say.... We're the only industrialized country, actually. No other country has ever gone down this road, for obviously very good reasons. But Canada is actually going to step aside. Canada is now actually going to interject an emotional political view so that our research will actually come against and discredit the agriculture industry and its farmers for not knowing what is going to be good for the industry and what is going to be bad for the industry.
I know that Mr. Valeriote talked about demystifying the provisions. I think for those in the agriculture industry it isn't an issue of clarification. Certainly, I can't vote in favour of the extension.
Mr. Chair, before we broke I talked about it, back in May, I think. I have my concern about the future of farming. After meeting with the young farmers I was adamant that we continue to move on that. We now keep putting things in front of it. At that time, quite honestly, the deal was that we were going to finish that debate before we broke for the summer. That's what we had agreed to. But when things keep coming forward, unfortunately, we get the crisis of the day.
Mr. Easter, you know, there are things that come up. I don't disagree with you in terms of things that are important. But we cannot deal with every crisis of the day. Somebody has to determine what it is, and quite honestly, the one that came up in your last motion on the advanced payment....
You mentioned the other day the Ontario beef producers. I talked to the Ontario beef producers and their past president. I had two of them in my office. They had three or four items. This was not one of them. In fact, the past president said he wanted to thank me for doing it. The issue was that they were concerned that there wasn't going to be an extension. They were getting anxious that there wasn't an extension. They wanted to thank me for actually doing that.
So the crisis of the day should not be one that is manufactured, particularly ahead of those that we've all agreed upon, for example, the future of farming.
Quite honestly, Alex, this whole bill is going to make the difference on whether agriculture is sustainable in the long run. If you remember, as we went through the country and we talked to our young farmers, those progressive, innovative farmers were relying on the fact that we were going to have the research and development and we were going to be able to move ahead. These are positive people. They looked at this industry on agriculture that has so many opportunities in it. That opportunity comes because they have the processes in place that our other competitive nations have, and we shouldn't be putting more barriers in front of them.
So I will not be able to support the extension of this motion. I'm glad we're able to have this small time for debate.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.