I have a thought on that.
I want to go right to supply management, because you want straight talk from us today. If we believe there are particular sectors of the agricultural economy that need income support, then find a smart way to get them income support. Economists are always worried when we're using the price mechanism as a vehicle to provide income support. I mean, supply management locks prices in well above the world price for particular goods, presumably because we want to provide income support to particular classes of farms and farm products. But there has to be a smarter way to do that. Frankly, writing a cheque--direct income support--would be far more efficient, and it might be a more effective delivery. And it would actually strengthen our ability to go to the WTO, become a leader again, and be in favour of freer trade on many fronts.
We've been effectively pushed aside by Australia, within the inner circle of the WTO where there used to be something called “the Quad”. We've been pushed out the back door because we weren't ready to actually articulate a true free trade plan--a true engagement by the federal government, by Canada, in favour of greater free trade internationally. To get back inside we're going to have to be prepared to make some sacrifices, but they don't have to be absolute sacrifices. Gilles is absolutely right. Whenever you change rules, there are winners and losers. You can design public policies that allow the losers to be compensated. Arguably that's the great challenge of globalization going forward: how we find ways to ensure we can look after the losers, to either mitigate or even offset the loss, while the rest of us capture the benefits of greater globalization and liberalization.