Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on his first speech in this session of the Commons.
During his speech he was discussing GATT and the marvellous solution that we have signed in that accord. He mentioned the new rules and that "rules will apply equally to all countries". Yet in the GATT we appear to have signed away our rights under article XI which protected our supply managed industries. The Americans appear to have maintained their waiver under article XXII which retains their ability to keep out dairy products, peanuts, cotton, sugar, et cetera. In spite of the rules allegedly applying equally to all countries, we still have a
situation which has not changed whereby the constitution of the United States still permits the Congress to overrule, at virtually any moment, any international agreement that its president and administration has signed.
Given that the constitution has not changed and their waivers continue, how can he say that we have in fact received an improvement? If we did, why are we now negotiating rather than insisting upon our rights for barley and wheat sales into the United States, one of the highest priced markets for those products, largely because the U.S. insists on sucking its own market dry with its export enhancement program which has created a marvellous opportunity for our product to rush in at a good price?