Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of the quotation the member has used.
Let me just respond to his preamble to start with, which is his assertion that the Prime Minister is raising these issues now. It is a little too late to raise them now. The farm bill has been signed into law. The full-fledged international subsidy war between the European Community and the United States is on and we are left out in the cold.
It does not do anything to make a flippant comment to the president of the United States at an international conference that involves other issues. To influence the United States requires a thorough and constant working of the American system of government. It is not like here. We just cannot whisper in the president's ear and expect to get a favour from a friend.
We have to understand the congressional system, we have to work that system and, as former ambassador Gotlieb indicated, we must cultivate good relationships with the president, who is, bottom line, even in that system of divided powers, by far the most important person in that political system and the one most likely, as history has shown us, to be interested in open trading relationships, especially bilateral trading relationships. That the Prime Minister should have known, because he has been around here as long as most figures of history. He should have known that is true whether there is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, so he should not care so much which party is winning a U.S. presidential election.
Our motion is designed to suggest that the government concentrate its efforts on the areas where the subsidies are in effect, not just in the grains and oilseeds and now the pulse crops, but now where some of our livestock industry is threatened. That is where we want to focus attention.
I believe it is probably inevitable that as we try to push our trading relationship forward the United States and others will want to look at all issues that are raised by agriculture. We have to be prepared to look at options in those areas. I would concede that to the member.
This is not the time for the member to be preoccupied with things that need protecting. We have to be preoccupied with breaking into those markets and retaining the market share we have in the United States.