Mr. Speaker, politics is a funny business. If the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell were sitting in the opposition, I am sure his comments would be very similar to those of the hon. member from the Bloc who has been speaking on agricultural issues. It seems like the government has quite a different view now of what has happened with regard to the GATT negotiations it was involved in.
I tell the hon. member and the House that Reform reviewed the GATT situation two years ago. The same sources should have been available to the hon. member. It became very clear that article XI would become indefensible. We were quite frank and honest in admitting that.
At the same time hon. members on the other side had not done a reality check. They were trying to tell supply managed industries that article XI was safe and could be preserved, and that they would be the agent that would preserve article XI. Reform on the other hand said it was obvious that article XI would be gone and that tariffs would have to be put in its place.
Because of that attitude supply managed industries undertook a very expensive advertising campaign involving millions of dollars to try to speak to political parties and politicians and to encourage them to take a strong position in defence of article XI which was a hopeless cause. I would hope some members on the other side would apologize for that action because these dollars were hard earned and should not have been spent on useless advertising campaigns.