Madam Speaker, the European Parliament is a fairly new political body that some people have suggested is still searching for some reason for its existence. They are a Parliament that debates a great many issues. For instance, when I was there, one of their committees was discussing, at great length, what would be acceptable standards for the transportation of animals. For instance, how long an animal should be allowed to stand, what distance may be covered and the type of environment these animals should have when being transported, whether half a mile is an acceptable distance to be transported, et cetera. They also discussed rhinoceros horns, although we know there aren't any in Europe and haven't been for thousands of years, they spend a great time talking about these things. I am suggesting some of the issues they discuss...I have told them they have difficulty in focusing and very often make decisions that years later they find have had all types of implications, which they have tried to ignore.
What happens is they make their decisions and then it is up to the European Commission, which is a commission of very powerful civil servants who are appointed and forwarded by the member countries to carry out this work that the European Parliament passes. As I understand it, in this case, the one year extension is the prerogative of the commission to decide what is significant progress and on what basis, terms and conditions under which countries should be qualified, if at all, to be considered for a one year extension.
When I met with the main Commissioner involved, he advised me that one of his underlings, a man named Weinstaeker, who is reported by some other sources to be a very avid, fanatical animal rights activist, was the civil servant who was going to decide whether or not there was a basis to go forward with the recommendation to the Commissioner. There are some of us who are praying that there is some objectivity left with the individuals involved. The civil servants and the bureaucracy have been well infiltrated by the animal rights activists. In this case, we know that it is not an objective setting at all, but perhaps the man is very professional and will disregard his own very personal biases and forward what we think is a very legitimate cause, since it is their own regulation. Hopefully, they will accept that there is a lot of substance in arguing that Canada has made significant progress in working towards meeting the demands of the European Parliament and the regulations they set out and that they will give us the one year extension that the regulations say can be given. Thank you.