Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I certainly understand Mr. Brison's intent. I think that would be best accomplished by another motion, which I would certainly support, on Mr. Brison's part.
It is true that we are underfunding our Canadian promotional budgets in most sectors. There are a few sectors where that is not the case. In this case, very clearly, the cattle and beef industry are underfunded. There's no doubt about that. They've come before this committee twice to say it very clearly.
Though I understand his intent, I think it would best be served by having another motion that the Liberal Party could bring forward talking about the overall budgetary envelope, and I would certainly support that.
In this case, the cattle and beef industry has been historically underfunded. They've come here, they've spoken twice to the committee about this. And I think we have a responsibility as a committee to acknowledge the very clear message they gave to committee about that underfunding, and as a result of that, provide for that playing field, an equal playing field with Australia and the United States.
The other issue of course with the amendment would be, then, that in various sectors we have various competitors that are funding their industries to a higher level than we are, setting a higher standard than Canada is, so the motion wouldn't work as well with the amendments. It would essentially talk about Australia and the United States, which are clearly our competitors in the cattle and beef industry but not in other sectors.
So I understand the intent, and I hope Mr. Brison will understand that I would be supportive of his bringing forward a motion that is more global in scope, but for the purposes of this motion, I think what it does is it turns the focus away from the cattle and beef industry, despite the fact that they've come to us twice.