Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. He is completely correct. It is true that with respect to exports out of Quebec or imports into Quebec, it is quite normal, because we are in a time when we talk about the free movement of goods.
I was giving the example of the European countries. Even where countries share a border, even with problems such as we are encountering at present, that does not mean there is no more trade. We can see it with the United States. We are trading with the United States even though the border is currently closed in this sector.
What I wanted to demonstrate earlier involves the immensity of this land. Because this problem could not be regionalized and minimized, that means that the Mauricie, for example, which is some 6,000 kilometres from the region where the problem exists, is also affected. The problem has arrived in Mauricie even though as a region it has less than 1%—really none—of the responsibility for this crisis.
Since 1993, Quebec has taken the necessary steps. If a cow from Quebec is sold to another province, we can trace it. We trace the origins of the animal, and it is the same thing when we get them from elsewhere. We started taking this precaution in 1993 because of the value of our farms and our dairy herds.
Now we are paying because this has not been done elsewhere.That is the situation I wanted to explain. Of course an independent Quebec would be an importing and exporting country just like all others.