Mr. Speaker, it was some months ago, prior to May 20, that the government put in place a series of round tables. As minister I made the announcement.
There are many players in all of this. We put in place a beef round table. The first approach of the round table prior to May 20 rightfully asked how we could enhance the beef industry in Canada. How could they enhance it both domestically and internationally? On May 20 the concentration of their work obviously changed, but what we already had in place was a round table.
The hon. member asked what is happening. Unfortunately it is not like some people think, that we can just phone President Bush or Secretary Ann Veneman and say, “Excuse us folks, we are coming through with some cattle liners tomorrow. We are coming through with some culled cows tomorrow”.
It is not that simple. It takes a lot of diplomatic work. It also takes a lot of work with the industry. The resources have to be there within the industry itself to change some of the plants over to process some of the product that they have not been able to process in the past. That work is underway.
I mentioned in my comments about making sure that when we change the regulations that we can carry them out. They have to be meaningful, credible and enforceable. We will not act until we can because we have demonstrated to the world in the past that when we did these things, we could live up to them. They have recognized them and that is why we have borders open.