Certainly the details of a negotiator's mandate are difficult to make public, because if you put the bottom line of your mandate in the public realm, then the negotiator's no longer negotiating; all he has is his bottom line. It's very difficult to discuss tactics or strategy for the negotiator day by day, because there's going to be a lot of give and take in these negotiations and a good negotiator is going to have to do his best--and I believe we have a very good negotiator--to get the best deal for Canadian agriculture.
That being said, what has been clear over the last month or so, for example, is that Canada stood firm when a proposal came forward to expand tariff rates, TRQs, for example, which would affect our supply-managed system. And I'm going to be blunt about this, and I think we have to be honest about this. The problem for us is that the vote in that situation, where we refused to accept any changes to the TRQs, was 148 countries to 1. We completely stand alone on that. All other countries, including Japan and the European Union and others, say they feel there had to be some changes to the TRQs and other tariffs.
The question we have to ask ourselves and the question that supply management has to ask themselves is this. What's the best strategy now, given that we're completely isolated, 148 countries against 1? What's the best strategy now to get the deal possible for Canada? If we continue along a voting pattern of being completely isolated against all other countries of the world, then we're not going to be at the table to defend the interests of supply management. We'll be on the outside, wondering what's going on inside the room. The question then is, who's going to defend supply management if not us?
So the difficulty in negotiations becomes this. What strategies and tactics do you use to make sure that supply management and the rest of the agricultural community don't end up with a deal at the WTO that other countries have crafted, that haven't included our input? So that's the difficulty, and I'm just being honest about it.
The other thing that's clear is that in the end we will be in the WTO. The associations that say if we don't get the perfect deal or if it's not just what we want, we should walk away from the WTO are not dealing in reality. We simply are going to be in the WTO when this is over, and to think otherwise is to play a very dangerous game. We will be in the WTO. That's why it's important that we be a deal maker and not just a deal taker...that other countries might want to craft on our behalf.