Madam Speaker, the member made a considerable amount of sense in some of his remarks except where he tried to draw the link between ballistic missile defence and the decision that has been made in this case. The fact is that the president and the administration are with us and with us very strongly on this issue.
On the member's point that he would offer producers the chance to meet with the minister to talk about some of the problems with CAIS, the minister has already been doing that. He met with a group of Manitoba producers today who had some positive suggestions. The minister has always said that we are willing to make improvements in CAIS.
The member opposite spoke a fair bit about the senate hearing. Let me give him a quote from the senate hearing that refutes some of the arguments made by the member. The senator from Colorado said, “Frankly, the Canadian border is already open. The boxed beef is coming across the border from Canada in record numbers, numbers higher than they were before BSE was discovered in Canada creating a public policy windfall for those companies with processing facilities in Canada while punishing those in the United States. U.S. beef imports from Canada set a record in 2004 approaching 1.2 billion pounds, a 12 point increase over 2002 levels”.
The senator goes on to say, “During 2005 beef imports from Canada are expected to total 1.2 to 1.3 billion pounds”.
Surely the member would recognize that some of the efforts we have made have been successful. Yes, we want to do more. We want to increase slaughter capacity but surely the opposition would stand up and recognize that we are making progress. The minister and the government as a whole have been working extremely hard on this issue in the interest of Canadian producers.
The member from Fort St. John may laugh but $4.8 billion to producers from the government is nothing to sneeze at.