Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from the Bloc. I would first like to inform him that there are supply managed producers not only in western Canada, but a number of them are in my constituency. A number of them support the Reform position with regard to what will happen to supply managed industries.
During the election campaign Reform was the only party that was calling a spade a spade. We said there were going to have to be changes to the supply management industry if we were going to be able to comply with the GATT negotiations that were under way at that time and which were not completed until after the election.
In fact what we predicted almost happened to be 100 per cent accurate. The import quotas were replaced by tariffs. We suggested those tariffs would have to be high enough to protect those industries during a transition period to a global market economy. The GATT agreement has actually been very generous to the supply managed industries in that there are extremely high tariffs in place, 300 per cent tariffs for many commodities, which basically excludes any importation of those products.
As a result of this World Trade Organization agreement and regulation it seems that the supply managed industries have preferential treatment over many other sectors of agriculture which are phased down more quickly and have to take much greater reductions in subsidies.
I would respond to the hon. member in saying that the supply managed industries have probably fared better than the majority of producers in my part of the country who are going to see substantially higher reductions in the subsidies they receive.
I would also take this opportunity to remind the hon. member that if he does get his way and Quebec does separate from the rest of the country, these favourable conditions certainly would be very difficult to sustain. I am sure that Canadians would not continue to give the province of Quebec as high as a 50 per cent market share of industrial milk into Canada for instance.
It would be wise if he would explain the situation to his constituents. In fact they would be hurt much more by opting out of Canada than by remaining in Canada, even though we agree that supply management has to be reformed and that some of the basic rules under which it functions have to change.