Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity provided by the comments the hon. member for Frontenac just made to lay stress on how illogical this decision was. A few years ago, the federation of purebred sheep breeders made a decision on where its artificial breeding centre would be located. They chose the experimental farm with a mandate for ovine breeding in Canada, namely La Pocatière. They decided to locate their insemination unit in La Pocatière, so that there would be a direct link between researchers and the industry, which would promote efficiency.
New breed development was just mentioned. This is precisely the type of work you can expect any experimental farm involved in production to perform to develop more productive breeds, groups of animals or individual animals. All kinds of research can be conducted on sheep to ensure they can compete and will enable us to break into the New Zealand market from which we are currently importing. No one here can tell me today that it makes more financial sense in the long term for Quebecers and
Canadians to keep importing sheep from New Zealand when we have been working for 20 years towards self-sufficiency.
Now that we are halfway there, the federal government is taking the wind out of our sails, without any consultations. No one had heard about any such plan before budget night. The industry is raising up against this plan and asking the minister to reconsider his decision, meet with the survival committee to ensure that sheep production will be allowed to continue with adequate research and development assistance and that the experimental farm in La Pocatière can remain in operation.