Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a privilege to actually have the opportunity to address this. I know that when this was brought forward, I had a motion that was ahead of it, and I was not even given the opportunity to address the committee as to why my motion should be debated prior to this one, which was brought up far after mine was.
I'm in support of this amendment, and it's simply because it makes absolute sense to debate this in the context of the broader issue, which is biotechnology, and looking at it as part of the study we're undertaking and presently doing.
A number of farmers and other witnesses have come before this committee as part of that study. I see some of the individuals here even today who were part of that study who spoke to our committee and were here to testify as witnesses to that study. I would say that it would be a huge insult to those individuals, those in the room and those otherwise who have been here as part of this study that we've been undertaking, to go forward with something, a motion like this one, outside of the context of the study and basically disregarding the testimony we've heard, disregarding the concerns we've heard and the points that have been raised by the witnesses and through the committee process as part of the broader issue.
Frankly, that does seem to be a pattern that Mr. Easter and the Liberal Party do seem to have, that they just want to do whatever they feel is the right thing to do that day for their political interests, and only for their political interests, and to heck with what we've heard and to heck with what witnesses want and what farmers want in this country. Let's just move forward with our political agenda and disregard all the testimony we've heard, disregard everything we've heard. I think it's completely disrespectful and completely irresponsible to move forward in that manner. That's why I believe this amendment is the proper way to proceed. We can look at this particular issue in the context of the broader study we are doing.
To go to the motion that Mr. Easter is making in terms of why this amendment is the way to go, rather than to look at it on a one-off kind of basis, as is being proposed in the original motion, I have to then look, to make a judgment on that, to the intent behind the motion and try to understand what that intent could be. I come to the conclusion that there could only be one of two reasons why this motion would have been brought forward. First of all, the one reason could simply be what I'm saying, that it's completely politically motivated. Obviously, there's no secret out there that the Liberal Party and their other coalition partners want to force an unnecessary election on Canadians at this time, despite the fact that it's very obvious that the best thing for the country would be to move forward, to continue to see the growth that we're seeing in the economy, to continue to move our way smoothly out of the recession.
Certainly our government will bring forward a budget later today that will be the next step in doing just that. Certainly that would be the right thing to do going forward. I would say that when we talk particularly about this committee, when we're talking about agriculture and the best interests of farmers, and there’s the study that we've undertaken looking at a very promising industry, looking at some of the challenges that might be there and some of the opportunities that might be there in that industry, being biotechnology, certainly the right thing to do in that instance, for the economy, farmers, and consumers, would be to go forward with that study. That's why this amendment is being proposed, I believe, and that's why I would support it.
But the Liberal Party, Mr. Easter in particular, doesn't want to do that. They don't want to do what's in the best interest of Canadians, what's in the best interest of farmers. What they want to do is pursue a political agenda, just like they want to force an unnecessary election. They want to try to get this motion through prior to the unnecessary election.
What I would say to them is, rather than do that, why don't we do things in the proper course, in the proper manner, which is to take a look at this issue in a broader context, move forward with our study, and forget about their opportunistic, unnecessary election that they want to force? We can move on with this study and get this wrapped up in a reasonably short manner. We can do it in a way that takes into account all the broad spectrum of issues within biotechnology, what some of those challenges are that could be there, what some of the opportunities are.
Then we can take into account what the witnesses have to say, hear from farmers, from Canadians, from consumers, and from those involved in the industry, and take all of that into context and into our understanding before making a decision about one particular small aspect of the broader context of biotechnology.
I would say that one of the reasons they might want to move forward would be just the political games they are playing right now by trying to force an election, trying to move something forward prior to forcing the election that they're trying to foist on Canadians.
As I travel my riding and elsewhere in the country, I have not really heard one person say now is the time for an election and wants to see that. Certainly to try to pretend somehow that this is an emergency.... The only reason why it's an emergency is because they want to force that election. As has been pointed out by a number of my colleagues here today already, there certainly has been no indication that there are any registrations coming forward. Certainly the Liberal Party would probably like to try to rewrite history a little bit. Mr. Easter would probably like to try to rewrite history a little bit. Certainly it was their government that brought forward trials on this. There has been no intention expressed to expand on that. There have been no registrations brought forward.
I don't really see where the emergency is at this point in time, other than, of course, the fact that they want to try to force this unnecessary election. For them, it's a political emergency, and that's the only emergency there is in this thing.
As I sat here thinking about it, is there any other reason why they might want to try to bring this forward on this kind of a basis right now, outside of the study we're doing on the broader topic that this fits into? The only other conclusion I could draw is that possibly—