Mr. Chair, I appreciate that response.
Hopefully when it comes to those changes at the CFIA they are not moving at the same speed that Mr. Kyte mentioned last night when referring to the regulations. He suggested that they move like glaciers. Hopefully the training will move a lot faster than a glacier.
The minister did raise the XL plant, so let me go to that. As we know, in less than 40 days the Competition Bureau actually approved the sale of the Tyson beef packing plant to XL. Now that XL has closed, the only major beef packing plant between Toronto and central Alberta reminds me of the cannery in St. Davids that closed, the last one east of the Rockies. It just seems to be going the other way, westward.
The CCA says that the closure may be permanent. “We're not certain”, the CCA's research arm, CanFax, is quoted as saying “The closure will lower prices for both fed and non-fed cattle”. That was in the April 30 issue of The Western Producer. CCA's CanFax also said of the closure, “We're reducing capacity and the plants don't have to go out there and be quite as aggressive on their bids to procure cattle”.
The question really is, did we know this? Did we know that the Tyson-XL sale would lead to less aggressive bidding and lower cattle prices? Is that not what the Competition Bureau really should have been looking at in the first place to ensure that it did not happen?