Yes, I'm aware of the report. I'm aware of the discussions in the House and the comments and the concerns about everything being on the table. That's a pretty standard approach to negotiations at the outset—that everything's on the table. Then you talk about exclusions.
I met with the European Community's delegation at the ambassador's residence when they were in town a few months ago, and I asked them about the comprehensiveness of the negotiations from their perspective. They said they had to start that way, though they knew there would be problems with the comprehensive approach. From the European side, I would be surprised to see my clients in the pork and beef industry benefit much more than they might in the WTO—and that's not going to be very much.
With respect to supply management, they understand our concerns about it. This comprehensive approach is something that people do when they start negotiations. I can understand from the perspective of the supply managed sectors why they would be concerned about this. In every other bilateral negotiation we've had, there has been from the outset an indication that the supply managed sectors would not be on the table. They certainly would not be on the table bilaterally before there was anything resolved in the context of the WTO.
I was involved with supply management back when I was in the Department of Finance, when they were extending it to the feather industries. I was sent over to Geneva by Mr. Whelan to defend the egg quotas, with the instruction that if we didn't win I shouldn't come back. As an economist in the Department of Finance, I had concerns about supply management. Having come back from Geneva as the Canadian liaison officer with the GATT, I had some problems with the levels of imports. Later, though, I was converted, because the policy was designed to insulate farmers from fluctuations in supply. Demand is pretty stable. It's supply that's the problem, and that's what it was for.
I have a place in Florida because it's too damn cold up here for me in the wintertime now. I'm getting too old, so I go down to Florida in the winter, and there's Canadian cheese down there—the stuff from Quebec, the artisanal cheeses. They're there. They're priced better in the United States than cheeses coming in from Europe. They're priced about the same as they are here. I don't see that much difference in milk prices between the United States and Canada, and I have six kids and seven grandkids, so I know what milk prices are.
I have a bit of a problem with the OECD numbers, because they're based on various measures of world prices. The fact is that the distribution systems don't move those prices to the basic customer, and the difference in price between Canada and the United States depends very much on exchange rates.