Mr. Chair, approximately three and a half years ago I stood in the House when at that time we were very concerned about an impending crisis in the agricultural sector and certainly in the beef sector as we saw television programs of burning carcasses in Great Britain.
Everyone will remember the emergency debates we had regarding the foot and mouth disease back then, because we realized that the industry was a fragile industry. We realized that if foot and mouth were to hit Canada, the borders would slam closed. This summer as I was travelling, I suddenly heard that we had an isolated BSE incident in Canada. The same fate as there was for foot and mouth was not what we experienced. We have a closed border.
We are here tonight because there is a crisis and it is a fragile industry. It is a very fragile industry. In fact, some would say that the death of the industry is upon us. Action is what is required right now.
I was very dismayed tonight as I sat here and listened not to our agriculture minister but to a former minister in the government who said that he believed we need to play hardball with the Americans right now, that the only game they understand is a tough response and we need to play that type of hardball. He says we need to look at other markets.
I very sincerely wish that before the government begins this hardball game with the United States it finds and accesses those other markets. To be quite frank, we have not seen that coming out of this department yet. My question to this member is, does she agree with those comments from the government side that we should play hardball?
The second issue is with regard to the feeding of animal byproducts to other animals. What measures are going to have to be put in place somewhere down the road? What measures does she believe are going to have to be put in place in order for us to show consumers that there is a safe meat supply here?