Mr. Speaker, I have the honour this morning to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “The Investigation and the Government Response Following the Discovery of a Single Case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy”. Also, in presenting the report, we request that the government, within the normal 150 days, respond in its usual way to the committee.
I might say that this single case of BSE, which is what we more commonly know it as, has certainly forever changed the beef industry in Canada, but because of the transparency and our identification systems we were able to have the countries with which we normally do business, because we are an integrated industry, allow us to get back into the export market.
Because of this very commitment we have made, we as a committee put forward recommendations that I think will mitigate against these kinds of situations in the future, not necessarily to keep them from happening but certainly for us to be able to accommodate in the way we have this time and certainly encourage other countries to do the same.