Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the difficulty the government has in dealing with the World Trade Organization. I know talks have been going on for quite some time and I know about the unsuccessful talks that we had in Cancun and Seattle. This has been a very contentious issue for a long period of time but our agriculture producers right across the country, whether they are in grains, oilseeds, red meats or in the supply managed commodities like milk, eggs and poultry, want Canada to take a very strong position in the WTO talks.
One of the problems we have, and I think a lot of it is in the way producers see it out in the field, is that we have these mini ministerials that are happening on an ongoing basis across the globe. Some have been done in China and Korea and numerous ones in London and Geneva. I had the privilege of accompanying the minister on a trip to Geneva not that long ago, along with my colleague, the agriculture critic from the Bloc, and we saw those discussions first-hand. We appreciate the difficulty in the negotiations, especially with the hard line that has been taken by the European Union.
However the one thing producers here want and have been advocating for is that we have an official Canadian position, that we go in and take a leadership role. I know the minister, the Government of Canada and our very skilful trade negotiators have been doing a great job in talking to all the players at the table. This is a poker game to some degree and it is time for us to lay our cards on the table and say what we stand for on the aspect of sensitive commodities. The European offer of 8% does not go far enough to have full protection of our supply managed commodities. It needs to be over 10% and, as has been suggested by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, as high as 14% of our farm cash receipts need to be protected as supply managed and be fitted into that sensitive commodity definition and how they work that out.
We still need to have a very aggressive role in reducing subsidies, trade distorting programs for red meats, grains and oilseeds. When will the minister finally table that position to show the leadership that we are the third largest agriculture trader in the world and we want to take that leadership role in these discussions?