Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to come back to the issue of supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board. It hasn't been at all clear to me exactly where we're going, particularly with supply management. As you know it's critically important to the maintenance of family farms across the country.
Last year we met with the chief negotiator, who said essentially that Canada was looking at about 12% of our agricultural receipts coming from the supply-managed sector, that the U.S. was pushing to reduce the level to 1%, and that the agreement would be somewhere between the two—which, if you extrapolate, would mean half the sector could be given up on the table.
Today in the House of Commons in question period, the Minister of Agriculture in response to Mr. Bellavance, when he asked if the minister could confirm that Canada will not give up one inch, said, “I think I've just said that.”
We have here a contradiction between what the chief negotiator has said and what the MInister of Agriculture has said. I would like to have, for my own mind, a very clear sense of where we're going.
Do you have explicit instructions not to sign any deal that would impact on the supply-managed sector in any way?