Mr. Rice, I wanted to get to the crisis affecting the hog sector, particularly because of the flu that, as Ms. Lawrence was saying, people at the beginning were wrongly calling the swine flu.
Within this committee, obviously, we have spoken a great deal about bacteria. The entire agri-food industry is affected when something happens, for example at Maple Leaf's or somewhere else. It could be an issue of imported fruits or vegetables. It has happened that spinach coming from other countries—I believe it was from the United States—was contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. This is why people were buying less spinach in Quebec and in Canada. People's perceptions are very important.
Your industry was the victim of a crisis whereas there never should have been one. I am wondering if the government really did its job in terms of communications on this issue. People in my riding know that I am my party's agriculture critic, and many of them talked to me about the A (H1N1) flu, particularly at the outset when people were saying it was the swine flu. People were even making jokes about it because they knew that I was visiting a lot of producers. They asked me if I had visited any hog farms and if they were going to catch the flu.
I know there was a barbecue here on Parliament Hill and I believe that all of my colleagues present around the table went to it. Personally, I went to show people that you can safely eat pork. Beyond that, should we not have been a little more proactive by clearly explaining that there was absolutely no danger in eating pork throughout this period?
If you have any recommendations to make, I would like to hear them, as well as hearing your answer to the question I have just asked.