Last year, I had the opportunity to go to a region of Senegal in order to give some rice producers some training on collective marketing. They told us that people from the World Bank, who are favourable to the market, studied rice production in that region and told them that they were very competitive, that their production methods were very effective and worked well. Unfortunately, they had competition in the form of poor quality rice from Thailand for which the transportation was subsidized. This rice arrived on the Senegalese market at the same time as the local harvest, and the Senegalese, who do not have great purchasing power, were buying this poor-quality rice from Thailand which was probably subsidized. As a result, the Senegalese rice producers could not sell their rice.
In my opinion, globalization implies competition, of course, but as the gentleman was saying, the environment has to be regulated. I feel that it is an utopian ideal to think that we can regulate trade around the world and that Thailand, Mexico and Canada can compete on an equal footing. I have difficulty believing that. I tend rather to think that we should aim for independence first of all, and then, negotiate long-term agreements with countries that need wheat, barley or canola. I'm not certain that opening everything up is the answer.