Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The minister just said it, but one of the fears that farmers have is that in our negotiations in the past, when you consider the European Union and the Americans, we entered the 1990s with no clothes in terms of how we were able to respond to the subsidies in the United States and the European Union. So I think farmers have a lot of concern, especially in these five commodities where supply management is so important. The value of those so-called quotas within the agricultural community is tremendous. I think most farmers would look for some offsets if we were to negotiate that supply management concept away.
I'm concerned that I heard at least twice today the words “best results for Canada”. We are an agriculture committee, and it appears that what we're hearing is that maybe supply management might not be part of that best result for Canada.
If we were to assume that we were to trade off.... I know Mr. Emerson talks about agriculture itself, but what are the other examples of what our overall negotiator might give up or gain in terms of what concessions we would offer to the nearly 150 other countries that are dealing with the WTO?
What would be an example that we could visualize, that Canadian farmers could see, that we'd give up or gain in terms of what we might change within the supply management system?