Mr. Chair, now I am really confused by the member's comments. Now he is talking cooperation and a minute ago he was talking of consequences. He did not really lay out what those consequences would be.
It is easy enough to talk, and that is what we are getting a lot of from the other side. I have been to the U.S. and have talked about Canadian energy going down there. The fact is that we export more crude oil to the United States than Saudi Arabia does, that is to say nothing of the hydroelectric resources that we send down there and natural gas.
We are a big energy supplier and, yes, we have to continually tell the Americans that, which we have been doing through the Canada-U.S. parliamentary associations and some other endeavours when we were down on both softwood lumber and the BSE issue.
I wonder if the member could be a little more specific on what consequences we could enforce on the Americans. I agree with the cooperative approach to a certain extent. We do have to work with them and be friends but we can also have our differences, which what we have been trying to express as members when we go to the U.S.
We are good trading partners but we do have differences on this issue and the Americans should be opening up their border because we have the science behind us to back us up. As I mentioned earlier, they have gone a little distance. They have opened it up for beef product imports and that is really a first with a country that has been affected by BSE, but we need them to open up for live cattle, heifers, et cetera.