Mr. Speaker, I thank the opposition member for giving me the opportunity to add more comments to my speech. There are a number of things I did not raise in my 20-minute speech because obviously one cannot touch on every issue.
Concerning the European export subsidies, my colleague, the minister of agriculture, has been very clear. At the end of August, we presented the government's position showing our plan and our objective of working very hard at the next round of negotiations to eliminate the European export subsidies. We find these subsidies absolutely detrimental and are working very hard toward eliminating them. The government has stated this position time and again and we will continue to work on it.
As for cattle, we recognized last week that in part of the decisions we were favoured. For instance, on the countervail subsidy side, we won that part of it.
The member will be pleased, as will the House, that on the countervail subsidies we are very pleased that the U.S. upheld its initial decision and found that Canadian exports of live cattle do not benefit from countervail subsidies, so it is a good decision.
On the question of whether Canadian cattle were being dumped, that is to say being sold at prices less than the cost of production, the department of commerce reconfirmed an earlier ruling that Canadian cattle were indeed being dumped into the U.S. market. As a result, most Canadian producers will now have to pay a 5.6% duty on their cattle exports to the U.S.
However this duty will not be made permanent until the U.S international trade commission decides whether Canadian cattle exports threaten or injure the domestic U.S. industry. We expect the decision on November 8.
We remain hopeful that they will determine that Canadian exports are not injuring the U.S. domestic industry. We will continue to work closely with the Canadian cattle industry.