Mr. Speaker, if the government is as concerned about food safety as it has claimed throughout the whole Brazilian beef episode, why then would it consider the very scientists who are responsible for human health and food safety to be irrelevant to this issue?
The Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that it was okay to gag scientists for speaking out about public health because, as he said, they had no responsibility in the area.
That begs the question, why in heaven's name were they not involved from the beginning and will they now be included in developing a science based, fail safe system of dealing with the potential threat of mad cow disease?