CANADA

Monday February 23, 2004

UNEDITED COPY/COPIE NON ÉDITÉE

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, CPC): Thank you.

    I sit here. You have given us an excellent presentation. Why I am extremely frustrated, because there's this real sense of urgency to finding a solution to what's going on here. We're fiddling while Rome burns.

    You have made one statement that I think I would like you to conclude with the answer to that. You have said that there needs to be somebody showing some real leadership here. To me, that's one thing that you could point out to us. Where could this leadership come from? What would that leadership be doing? What guidelines would you give to them? Where should they go from here? If you had the power to immediately implement that, if you could wave a magic wand, where and how should this all be resolved?

    I think, in listening to you, that there are probably some branches of the beef industry that would like to keep the turmoil going because they're making profits. Like you say, they're not working at a capacity. I find that unbelievable, given the fact that we would like to get as much beef moving off our farms and ranches as possible. So where's this leadership going to come from? What's it going to do?

    Please be honest and frank, for the process to work.