Thanks, Chair.
You talked about March 21. The Liberals control the committee. The chair could have had that meeting if he still wanted to, and we were going to be there. In fact, if he wanted to do it the next morning, we would have been there. The voting was done well before that meeting was to start. The CFIA officials are here in Ottawa. We could have had that meeting. He chose not to.
Liberals have majorities on these committees. I can't change that. When the chair says “I want to go home”, which is what he did, I can't do anything about it. What makes me even more upset is that he reschedules the meeting, and what does he do? He breaks his word. His word to us on the committee was that he was going to give each minister an hour and then have two hours for officials. What did he do? He combined it in one meeting because that's easy. It's convenient; we can do that, get it done, get it off the plate and get back home.
That's what we're facing on the trade committee, so make it right on the ag committee here. Do it properly. Do a proper study. Make sure farmers understand what's going on. That's all they want. There's no scandal here, so you don't have to worry—other than the scandal the Prime Minister has with relationships with other countries, but that's a different topic. It's really unfortunate that agriculture producers across Canada are paying for that. I'll use an example. Hutchinson Acres in f Nova Scotia had all this maple syrup in bottles ready to go to Saudi Arabia until one tweet. Thankfully, Canadians said that we would help them out. We bought the syrup in those bottles. They were able to move it here in Canada.
Those are the consequences when the Minister of Foreign Affairs just goes rogue. Those are the consequences when the Prime Minister doesn't take foreign relationships seriously. Those are the problems when you're not having ongoing relationships with countries around the world—even countries that you don't agree with. You know what? If you want to change them, trade with them. Show them a better way. Talk about how things are better in Canada because we let women drive. They look at that and they appreciate that, and they slowly start to respect what we do and how we do it, and they want to do the same thing. Quit preaching.
What this committee needs to do.... It doesn't have a choice, or at least I don't see it. If it does, then it's really neglecting its role as parliamentarians.... They need to do exactly what this motion asks for and they need to do it now. So let's bring in people tomorrow. Let's bring them in on Sunday and Monday. Farmers are making decisions right now, not on April 12. On April 12 in southern Alberta they will be in the fields. That's why it should have been done two weeks ago. We tried to tell you that. You won't listen. Please listen. Jesus....