Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech, and I commend her for her passion. She spoke about the issue of red tape for small businesses.
There are two dairy farmers and cheese producers in my riding. When the government announced the Canada-EU agreement on various products, including dairy products, a problem emerged for dairy farmers. Most of the cases involve small family businesses, since the property values sometimes get so out of hand that it is very difficult to transfer small businesses unless it is from one generation to another.
One aspect of the dairy industry, in my riding in particular, and in many regions in Quebec, is that dairy farmers are required to keep producing higher quality milk. When I visited farms in my riding, I was overwhelmed to see how much time farmers spent filling out forms because a cow seemed to be faltering, instead of milking the cows and taking care of the animals' health. They have to make a report every time the dairy animals seem to have a health problem.
On the one hand, the government is requiring better quality dairy products in order to compete with products from the outside, but on the other hand, it is claiming that it will cut the red tape.
I would like my colleague to talk about this persistent contradiction, namely that the government is claiming to cut red tape but then requires more paperwork to ensure we are more or as competitive as the new markets opening up outside Canada.