Mr. Chair, I thank the member for Wild Rose for that suggestion. I have recently met with the Canadian Bankers Association. I know many members of our caucus have been meeting with various banks to discuss this problem. In fairness, the banks have attempted to be very patient for the most part with this situation. I know the concern that has been expressed to me by the banks and frankly a concern that I share, is that this situation does not appear to have an end in sight. This has been the fundamental problem.
We have been listening, not just to the government in fairness, but to many that have been telling us since the inception of this crisis, some in the leadership in the industry itself, that the solution is just a couple of months away, and all we have to do is be patient and many of us have. The banks in many cases have been, but they are running a commercial business and cannot continue in that mode forever.
This is one solution. I want to encourage the House to do tonight, and I have certainly encouraged our agricultural critic to do this, is to look at solutions that will deal with a range of possible situations. We could certainly have the border open sometime or not long after the next presidential election in the United States. That is possible. We could have a situation where the border stays closed for a period of time. We could have a continuation of this partial closure that we have now.
The other thing we could have, and we have seen how capricious the actions have been in this situation, is a situation where the border opens again and then some incident that never even touches our food supply like this one causes it to be closed again in whole or in part.
Therefore, I would encourage all members on the government side not to propose just a solution. This is an important short term suggestion. We must look at a range of solutions that are going to deal with a range of possible outcomes.
Accuse me of rhetoric, but part of the solution must include having a proper attitude toward our most important neighbour and trading partner, standing up to them when we have to stand up to them on issues like this, but let us not poison our relationship on things that do not matter to the people of this country in a way that hurt our vital interests.