Mr. Speaker, this is a very interesting question. I did not attend any of those meetings because the Canadian Alliance has such a depth of members of parliament with expertise in the agriculture field that we had members at every one of those hearings. While those hearings were ongoing and in that immediate timeframe, I was in southwestern Ontario representing farmers who were not being represented by their own MPs. Also during that time we had the agriculture producers hearings on the go. We had meetings with 3,500 farmers in 72 different ridings.
It is pointless for the NDP to say that we have not been doing our job. Hansard will show that the Canadian Alliance has done more for agriculture in the House than any other party since 1997.