Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his presentation on BSE. It was a little disheartening because it was a presentation from a Liberal and was nothing but accolades for the Liberal government and for what it has done. All Canadians still have some major concerns with the border not being completely open. When that border is open and when live cattle are moving across that border, perhaps then we will stand back and give a little more applause. Until then, the majority of Canadians are asking where the government is now.
It was on May 20 that one isolated incident of BSE was found in Canada. The CFIA moved into action. It had the ability to trace and to track, and to show the genetic lines of that animal to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was one isolated incident.
Since that time, we have not seen the government step forward with a strategy to open the border to live cattle. We do appreciate some of the help that has come through the recovery plan and other programs, but we have not seen a strategy with timelines involved showing what the government is doing now to get the border open. We have a process and a protocol for countries that have an outbreak of BSE. Most of these protocols are put in place for countries that have many cases of BSE. We had one isolated incident.
Could the member tell us that he believes the process is flawed? Could he tell us that the protocol for reopening the border is flawed?
A government that should be applauded is one that puts a process in place before a crisis hits. Seeing how the crisis is here, what is the government's strategy toward letting the public and producers know that there is a process in place to have the Americans open the border?