Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to light something that I read this morning. I thought it was quite interesting. It is an article by Gren Winslow in the Canadian Cattlemen magazine.
He starts out by saying that cattle producers have a reason to be thankful that the Minister of Agriculture, the hon. member from the Conservative government, is at the helm. He goes on to say:
It traces right back to January 9 when [the Minister of Agriculture] accepted the Beef Value Chain Roundtable recommendation to create a market access secretariat within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that will direct the efforts of industry, government and producers to open up new markets for agriculture commodities.
He then goes on to say that the minister jumped on a plane to test out the concept and was the head of a trade mission to India and Hong Kong, which of course is in China. Equally important is the fact that Hong Kong is the gateway to mainland China. The author of the article continues on and basically says what a positive step it is to get that first step in the door when we get into these emerging markets.
He goes on to actually say that we are actually doing so well that the U.S. Meat Export Federation President and CEO Philip Seng noted that the U.S. has some catching up to do in terms of market access in Hong Kong. He goes on to praise, obviously, the work that we have done in Jordan, basically, creating an opportunity there, where it has now spread and we have some agreements where we have some under 30-month beef going into Saudi Arabia.
Could the hon. member provide some more examples of what good policy can do when we actually create these free trade agreements? It creates a network of countries working together to improve the lives and benefits of all of their citizens.