Madam Chair, my colleague from Prince George—Peace River and I do share a boundary on our constituencies and we know the seriousness of this problem.
Quite frankly, it is a $30 billion industry in Canada. When we talk about losing a $4 billion export market, that is serious enough, but I am worried that there will be a collapse of the industry entirely.
Farmers are holding a lot of animals on their farms. They do not have a cash flow. They are hoping the border will be reopened. Normally the farmers put up so much hay and so much grain silage and so on to handle the situation. They probably have a 20% increase in animals that they are holding hoping that something will happen. In fact, there is no market for them. This is a very serious problem.
My colleague asked me what I would suggest. I noticed that there was a ruling today out of the United States which suggested that there would be some problems with the U.S. in the way they handled this. We will go back into a notice period where the USDA will post a notice of anyone who has any complaints about the process. We were almost home free the last time, before the second mad cow was found in Washington state.
I am hoping the Minister of Agriculture will talk to his counterpart in the United States, Ann Veneman, and get the minimal posting time here. We do not need two months. We have been through this once before. It could be as short as two weeks. I would ask the minister today to take notice that he needs to talk to his counterpart and have the minimal posting possible.
I do believe we will also have to harmonize our standards with those of the United States. There needs to be discussion. There are feed products that are not allowed in the United States which are still allowed in Canada. These will not meet the criteria. Consumer confidence is ultimately the thing that governs all of this, including the U.S. government's reactions. I think we have to gain that back.