Mr. Chair, I want to comment on the minister's address here tonight. I do appreciate one thing about his speech. Unlike many of the other speeches I have heard from the government side tonight, I have not heard a lot of answers as to what we should do. I have heard that we need to keep working to keep the border open and that we need to keep talking to the Americans. However, what happens if that border does not open? What happens if we are in this thing for the long term? At least tonight he suggested that we start looking at certain things.
Before coming here tonight I had the chance to speak to two constituents. One lady from the New Norway-Ferintosh area posed a question to me. She asked me why no one was doing anything. We have shown the genetic lines, we have done the testing and the CFIA has done its job but there seems to be no plan B.
One of the comments that the member for Miramichi made was that we should begin to question the feeding of animal byproducts, bone meal and others, to other animals that will be put into the food consumption.
If the member believes the producers of our nation are saying that we should ban all animal byproducts being fed to other animals for human consumption and if he believes that consumers here and around the world are asking for the same thing, then why has the government not stepped forward and said that this is something that perhaps it should consider?
It seems that the government is very reactive but not very proactive. We have seen cases like SARS where there was no plan. The BSE issue has no plan. What happens if the border does not open?
Would the member recommend to the minister of agriculture that we stop all animal byproducts from being fed to other animals that are going to enter the human food chain?