Mr. Speaker, as somebody on my side of the House said, that is quite a stretch but it would be unfair to say that about its entirety. I think that the leader of the official opposition as well as the Prime Minister of Canada and the numbers of ministers who have talked to President Bush have had some impact on this issue. I do not think there is any question about that. I expect that the leader of the official opposition, as well as the Prime Minister, put forward the issue of BSE and the need for the integrated marketplace that we have and the need to move ahead with a good relationship.
We are always going to have these trade issue problems of some kind. We have a huge trading relationship at around $2 billion a day, so we do expect some bumps in the road.
We have clearly shown we want to be and we want to remain a sovereign nation in some of the decisions that we have made, so there will also be some differences of opinion there.
I think that at the senior levels of government it would be wrong to believe that a policy decision the other sovereign nation does not agree with would have any substantive impact on the trade relationship. That would be wrong and we both know it, because in order for both economies to remain strong and grow we have to work together and have that international trade relationship work in a very positive way.
That is what we want to do on this one. In fact, President Bush and Secretary Johanns are on our side, as are quite a number of senators, as I have quoted, and they are trying to make that relationship move forward and open up that border.