Thank you for those questions.
The draft regulations on barley, as you know, have been published now, and I expect to get some public comment over the next month on those. It is our intention to move ahead, of course, as the regulations have spelled it out. Obviously we're monitoring the situation overall. Again, as you know, we've been on different sides about where we want to end up. We want to have more marketing choice for barley. That's what the plebiscite told us that farmers want.
I've urged the Canadian Wheat Board to consider ways they can be part of this in a marketing choice environment. Other marketing boards seem to thrive in a marketing choice environment. I believe there are lots of farmers who want to use the Wheat Board. They have first-class sales people and a network of producers and buyers around the world that I think sets them in a very good place to take advantage of those assets, human resources and others.
I talk frequently with the board chairman, their executive group, or the whole board when I can. Obviously we work closely with the industry and I get input from them on an ongoing basis, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.
On the WTO negotiations, I don't think I did say anywhere along the line that there's a deal at all costs. What the Minister of International Trade has said, and I would echo, is that it's inconceivable that we would not be in the WTO. It's hard to imagine that Canada, out of all the countries in the world, would say that we are going alone, that the rest of the world is all together but we're out of step. It's simply inconceivable to me that we would be out of this. We're an exporting nation, not only in agriculture but in many, many ways, and being outside of the WTO is inconceivable, I must say. But the deal-making that goes on is a little bit like making sausages: it is a messy business, and it goes on and on and on.
Clearly, what we see, even in the paper that was released yesterday, is that Canadians continue to have influence in generating ideas at the WTO with our negotiators. You folks have had Steve Verheul in here before, and I'm sure you'll have him in again. Steve and his team are among the best in the world, so their ideas keep cropping up in every one of these statements on how issues can be handled, complex issues that are very difficult for both emerging and developed nations to handle. Canada's hand is in that often. You can see it in some of the language and some of the ideas.
However, it is true that we have, as we all know, both offensive and defensive interests at the WTO. We very much want more market access, and we're very aggressive on reduction in domestic support and elimination of export subsidies. We want to beat down non-tariff barriers to trade. We want all this and we want a very aggressive package. However, like all countries, we also have defensive interests. In our case, our sensitive product interests tend to be in supply management—not exclusively, but mostly—and we make no bones about it. All countries have both offensive and defensive interests.
It makes it a complex negotiation, but all countries are in this in some way. Some might say “I don't want to reduce my domestic support but I'd like more access”. Those countries have to be in the negotiations, as are we.
What we're not prepared to do—and I don't see any national organization encouraging us to do this—is to throw one sector overboard for the sake of another. I simply don't see that. That was clear even at the Cairns Group meeting when the CFA, for example, had to disagree with the other farm organizations from the other countries involved in the Cairns Group and have a dissenting report, if you will. Well, we ended up in the same way at the ministers' level. The other ministers came out with a report saying we like what this is saying, but we have to take note that we don't agree with statements that say we should eliminate sensitive product protection.
This is a balancing act, and it goes on all the time. It's a very difficult thing, but all countries are faced with these sorts of debates and we simply have to make sure we are there doing our part to advance the entire sector.