Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Bloc for choosing this topic for today's opposition day. I think it is very fitting that in these twilight days of the 38th Parliament we are seized with the issue of trying to protect our Canadian farmers and producers.
I want to register one point of fact that I think we should be aware of and concerned with. Last year, 11,000 farmers on the three prairie provinces abandoned their farms and gave up farming. That is partly because of the lack of support that our producers get from the federal government in its international relations with the WTO and in the deals it signs.
I want my colleague to comment on one point that he raised. One of our chief negotiators confided in members of Parliament at a briefing that the sensitive products basket really needs a duty protection of about 11%. The Americans want that reduced to 1%. He advised our colleagues that the negotiators would probably settle somewhere in the middle. In other words, even before they have gone to the negotiating table, he has already conceded that he is going to cut the level of support by about 50%. What kind of negotiator is that?
If I were in a trade union bargaining relationship and had to tell the membership of my union that the employer wanted a $2 wage cut and we probably would be able to reduce it to only half of that and thus take a $1 cut in pay, the membership would hang me from the highest tree. I would be dragged into the streets and shot.
Who is representing us if our negotiators have given up before they have even started?