I'm going to answer a little more broadly.
First, thank you for your comments, Mr. Guimond.
I'm going to continue a little with what Michael was talking about earlier. The current problem is that the countries have chosen two different approaches. Europe, which had regulated prices, decided to convert its prices, to deregulate them by converting subsidies.
The WTO ultimately reflects APAC. The definitions it contains, the decoupled subsidies, these are European inventions that have been recognized as green subsidies. So the Europeans have lowered their prices enormously, and other countries are doing the same. They are going to eliminate regulated prices.
However, the European community's agricultural expenditures have not declined. The colour of the programs has changed. We're no longer talking about export subsidies. They have eliminated the blue box, which was also a European invention, from subsidies. Now they are decoupled payments.
Here's the point I want to emphasize. International studies have been conducted comparing the production costs of more than 80 countries. Most of the European countries that export have production costs that are similar to or higher than ours, not at all competitive in the global market context. These are farm production costs.
Their prices are obviously much lower. So they can be more competitive and enter markets, but that's simply because we don't have equivalent compensation. We're not requesting it. We think that one of the serious mistakes currently being made in trade negotiations is not to compare production costs, but simply to compare prices in determining competitiveness.
The management system is a single model that costs taxpayers nothing. But it has unfortunately become very difficult—and I'm very aware of that—for governments to defend the model, but as the other models have not proven themselves and ours has proven itself over the years, I believe it's worth the trouble for us to continue supporting and defending it.
Thank you for your support.