If it were Orwell, yes, it would be a piggymoron. I thank the hon. member for interrupting me and taking away some of my valuable time, but the English lesson is well enjoyed.
A poll done recently said that even after the BSE crisis in Canada, some 90% of Canadians still had confidence in our beef supply as opposed to something like 60% to 68% of Americans about their own domestic food supply.
When we talk about bringing into line our regulations with American regulations, there are serious questions we have to ask. We know that across the United States there has been intense pressure from large agricultural business on regulatory policies. There have been a number of times that consumers have fought these issues. In Canada there have been times when we have had to stand up. When we talk about merging our regulatory practices with the United States, we have to once again ask, are we dumbing down our regulations to go for cross border sales? In the long term that will affect consumer confidence and if it affects that confidence, it could affect our domestic markets. I am very concerned about that.
I am particularly concerned that we are looking toward expanding our trade with the U.S., which of course in a North American context is important. However, that kind of trade tends to favour the very large producers. In Canada we have a serious problem in that our smaller producers cannot trade food products interprovincially, thanks to CFIA rules. I and the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue raised in the House the other day the fact that cattle was brought across the Quebec border into northern Ontario, North Bay, to be slaughtered. The CFIA intervened and shut that down, even though we all agreed that there was a huge crisis in cattle. We agreed that the CFIA must work with the provincial organizations, but we had support of the meat inspectors out of the Rouyn area. There was no problem until the CFIA stepped in and said that cattle could not be killed and then send it back.