Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Ritz, for attending.
It is a pleasure to see you and I am sure that all my colleagues are also pleased to welcome you. You should come more often. We often talk about serious matters and it would be interesting to have discussions with you more frequently.
Mr. Minister, today's Globe and Mail mentioned that your colleague Ed Fast is in New York to represent Canada in the negotiations for the trans-Pacific partnership. But it seems that he is ready to sacrifice the supply management system, which shapes agriculture in Quebec and in the entire east of the country. Any good agriculture minister would protect the supply management system, which requires no government support, and he would not let the Minister of International Trade dictate his politics.
If I understood your remarks correctly earlier, you are committed to protecting the supply management system unconditionally. Mr. Minister, could you tell us more about that?