Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for being here this morning.
Earlier this week I received a briefing on what was happening at the WTO. It was a very insightful briefing, and I was very pleased to hear some of the things that were mentioned.
One of the things, as you know--and hopefully everyone knows--is that our government, the Conservative government, our Minister of Agriculture, our Prime Minister.... I suppose before I say anything, I should let you know where I'm coming from.
I represent an area that has a significant population of dairy farmers, and they have some great concerns. They have a lot of money invested in quotas and what have you, so they're very concerned about the WTO negotiations. They are pleased that this government, the Minister of Agriculture, and particularly the Prime Minister, are very supportive of our supply management, to the point where it's been brought up in the throne speech.
One of the things they take great comfort in--or at least when I got my briefing, I took great comfort in it , and I want you to reinforce this or reaffirm this--is that supply management is being protected and being fought for at WTO very strongly and vigorously. Can you just expand on that and tell this committee how we're treating supply management at the WTO?