Madam Speaker, petitioners in my constituency have submitted a petition drawing the attention of Parliament to the continued problems of Canadian farmers due to the BSE import restrictions by the United States and other countries.
In addition to pointing out the hardships that Canadian farmers face, the petitioners draw the attention of Parliament to three proposed suggestions for rectifying the problem. The first is that Parliament ought to instruct the Minister for International Trade to renegotiate Canada's international trade treaties in order to ensure that restrictions placed for health care reasons cannot be maintained when in fact health care reasons have been dealt with. Therefore, these restrictions take the form of trade barriers.
Second, that Parliament provide for a public education program to alert Canadians to the safety of Canadian beef.
Third, that Parliament look at creating a new BSE compensation recovery program that will be more thorough than the previous one.