Mr. Speaker, I listened quite attentively to the hon. member. I noted that early in his remarks he said that we must not capitulate to Ethyl Corporation. It is threatening to take us to court. He accused the Reform Party and the Bloc of somehow being in cahoots, being lobbyists for this huge multinational.
The member from the Bloc raised a good point. It is not only the lobbyists on one side of the argument who are making points here. If we want to get into throwing accusations across the floor, some Liberal members of Parliament could be accused of being lobbyists for automobile manufacturers. I do not think that would do us any good in the debate today.
I have a couple of questions for the hon. member. I noted that he used the words "potentially harmful health effects of MMT". He was very careful to use the word "potentially".
Why did the Department of Health not support the findings of this raft of studies he has put forward. If it can be substantiated why did the Department of Health not recommend an outright ban on MMT?
The second question is if that is the case, that he truly believes and his government believes that MMT is harmful and has been proven to be harmful, which I do not believe it has been proven to be so, why is his government not moving to completely ban MMT instead of bringing forward this half measure of banning the transportation of MMT across borders?