Mr. Speaker, I welcome that question and comment from my colleague from Manitoba. Certainly, there have been years of debate. As I said, there have been over two decades of debate and discussion on this particular issue. It is time to put it in place.
Canada is one of the very few, if not the one major agriculture-based country in the world that has not embraced UPOV '91. There are things in UPOV '91 that would give farmers more rights and more privileges than they enjoy now under UPOV '78. What we are striving to do is bring this up to that level.
Certainly there were some concerns from one farm group. Over 50 witnesses came to the committee and had full access to talk about the issues in it. To us, as a government, that is far more important than listening to the opposition, which raised the same points. We would rather hear it directly from the horse's mouth, those farmers and investors who will welcome this in Canada so that we can move forward with some new and exciting varieties for farmers to grow.