Mr. Chair, I listened with great interest to my colleague from Quebec and also the member for Acadie--Bathurst. While I do not agree with everything that they said, I can relate much more to what they said than I can to my colleagues in the alliance.
It seems to me that this talk of western alienation does not serve the Canadian public or the industry well. This is a serious national tragedy. It is a tragedy which affects the entire ruminant industry and which is spreading out to affect the entire farming community. As my colleagues here were trying to say, it is already going beyond the farming community into our economy in general. To talk of it as a western problem and something to be dealt with in the west, that it is mainly a beef packing problem, does not serve the Canadian public or the farm community well.
I was interested in what my colleague had to say. To use one example, it is not just beef cattle we are talking about; we are talking about sheep, goats and the dairy industry. For the people out there, and there are many farmers watching, the dairy industry of Quebec is famous. I would like my colleague to explain in further detail the impact this BSE problem is having on our dairy industry, the famous milk industry of Quebec. I would be grateful if he would explain that as distinct from the tragic effects it is having on beef cattle and the other animals that I mentioned.