International Trade committee  By the way you're explaining it and explained it earlier, it sounds right. It matches in my mind what the statistics are—that our supply-managed sectors account for exactly 12% of Canada's total farm cash receipts, which is different from how many tariff lines.... Basically—

International Trade committee  The 1% that the United States put on the table referred to the percentage of tariff lines; it did not refer to the percentage of farm cash receipts.

International Trade committee  As Mr. Collins-Williams said earlier, right now we have our position and what we're working to achieve. As to what will happen in the future, when it comes to issues of making concessions, those will be decisions for ministers, and that's certainly not something we can answer tod

International Trade committee  I can neither confirm nor refute the air drill example, but you've hit on a key dynamic in the negotiations, which is the desire of other countries for the United States to go further in its offer on reducing its own domestic support. The difficulty for the United States is that

International Trade committee  The sensitive products box, as we're calling it, is a new concept. There's nothing in it now because it doesn't exist. Where the 1% comes from is in October 2005 the United States tabled a proposal that talked about the size of the sensitive products category and how that would b

International Trade committee  The products we would likely see in our sensitive products category are our dairy products, our poultry products, and our egg products. Altogether, their tariff lines constitute somewhere between 7% and 8% of Canada's tariff lines.

International Trade committee  As I said, we're not there yet, as far as what the actual number will be. But obviously there are some tariff lines that would not be able to.... If I'm saying 7% to 8% of our tariff lines are those products, and then you're saying, how would that fit in 2%, there would have to b

International Trade committee  Just to be clear, in the sensitive products category, what people are talking about is the percentage of our tariff lines. It's not related to the production or income, or anything like that. As I said earlier, the way our tariff schedule currently is, our supply-managed products

International Trade committee  In the agriculture negotiations, it's not really about giving up all your tariffs. I believe what you're referring to is the issue of reductions in our over-quota tariffs for our supply-managed products. The tariff reductions issue is still under negotiation. There is a categor

International Trade committee  Your question is similar to the question that was posed earlier about the selection of sensitive products and the 12%, 1%. That's not a percentage of farm cash receipts or revenues, but it's actually a percentage of the tariff lines. So how large, if you will, would the sensiti

International Trade committee  The government has taken a very hard line in defence of the issues that are important to supply management. At this point, we have no intention of changing that position.

International Trade committee  The government and the ministers have been very clear that we're going to stay at the table in the negotiations and not walk away from the WTO. I think you've heard that from the ministers, and our minister has certainly said that also.

International Trade committee  In Canada, as in most other countries, especially those that have a large and wide-ranging agriculture sector, it's natural to have subsectors with different interests. I think that's what you're seeing playing out.

International Trade committee  Certainly the objective is to ensure that we get the market access our export-oriented sectors need and that we get the trade-distorting subsidies down in the United States and the E.U. That will help not just our exporters but our domestically oriented industries as well, becaus

International Trade committee  Since the beginning of the agriculture negotiations in 2000, Canada has been pushing for a more level playing field. We've always been pushing for the elimination of export subsidies, a substantial reduction in trade-distorting domestic support, and real and significant improveme