Mr. Speaker, Canada has a long history of trade disputes with the U.S. over agriculture, one of our most important industries.
The P.E.I. potato dispute is just the latest example. It is pretty clear that we need to spend time with the Americans whenever we can to make our position clear, which brings me to my question.
The Americans thought agriculture was an important enough issue to warrant the presence of their agriculture secretary at the summit of the Americas. It was probably a good opportunity for our agriculture minister to spend some time bending her ears to make our position clear. Why was he not there?