Mr. Speaker, under the present legislation, there is an opportunity to do what eventually happened on September 27, close the plant. As draconian as that is, that ability always existed. The issue was how to time it when we saw the plant not doing the things we wanted it to do as far as the details, data, the timeliness, all those sorts of things. It is like a sledgehammer but it is there to be used. That could have happened.
The other part is that it does not matter how good this legislation becomes if it is not transparent and open and there are no spokespersons on the government side to tell folks what is happening. By the time the CFIA posted the timeline on its website, a lot of questions were being asked. Then there was the confusion of who told who first? Did the Americans tell the government? Did they find out at the same time? In fairness, it looks like it was at the time. The problem is that when it is not open and transparent, we do not know.
We not only need good legislation but a plan that shows how we intend to implement the legislation and what it means for Canadians in the longer term. We need to talk to them in an open and transparent way about that as well.