Without repeating what I said earlier, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has clearly been arguing for a long time as to the need for a global framework trade agreement that is fair to all agricultural producers throughout the world, one which does not exist right now.
Unfortunately, I have been following all of the WTO meetings for the past 15 years, and I have observed that we are unable to draft a text that meets this objective of creating a fair world trade framework for agricultural producers. Nobody can say whether or not the WTO will manage to conclude an agreement within three or six months' time, and it is even more difficult to say how attractive this agreement will be. We simply have no idea, things are progressing so slowly and there are so many vested interests.
If we are unable to establish a more equitable international trade agreement for producers, I think that, in the meantime, it would be a good strategy to give some thought to reaching bipartite or tripartite agreements. We have to at least ensure that we have trade agreements with countries throughout the world. At a minimum, I think that over the next period we should achieve this, while waiting for some real will to reach an international agreement that is more equitable, and, for producers, more humane as well.
The major proponents of world trade discussions, during the current negotiations, are talking only about business, and business for business' sake. So there is no discussion about business to achieve a better life for citizens or business designed to enhance the welfare of states. It is as though we had delegated our powers to somebody who is dealing with the trade issues of the entire world from Geneva. These trade issues have to have a little dose of humanity.