Madam Speaker, my colleague from Fundy--Royal spoke to this issue and what we are seeing as members of Parliament in our ridings, especially in rural Canada. The situation is not dissimilar anywhere in Canada, whether in the heart of beef country in Alberta, southern Ontario, New Brunswick or rural Nova Scotia.
I listened to the government earlier. One of the issues discussed was our relationship with Japan, and our opportunity with Japan to build new markets for beef and our lack of response very early on in this crisis to deal with it in an equitable manner. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food spoke earlier and said they had 76 meetings with Japan. That is all well and good, however, it was the first three meetings that did not occur where the problem arose.
When we had one case of mad cow, the Japanese asked to come to Canada to loan their expertise on this subject and to see for themselves how we controlled the health of our product going out into the marketplace. Rather than accept that help and build goodwill with Japan, the minister responsible for agriculture and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it was okay, we were fine, and we did not need their help. The Japanese called the second time and got the same answer. They called the third time, but they have not called a fourth time. That is why we have had 76 meetings trying to open the Japanese market back up, because they got a total ineffectual response.
The other comment by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food was that we have had 250 to 280 interventions on behalf of the department in regard to opening the border. Again, it is not the amount. We could have 2,000 interventions. What we need is a delegation that is non-partisan, non-political, and led by the Prime Minister and all the leaders of all the parties in this place, to go visit our partners in the United States and bring the message forth to open that border up. That becomes the issue.