Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to do that.
Regardless of what kind of program is put into effect, there are difficulties with it. It has been subject to the same problems like the old GRIP, which essentially meant that if a farmer grew wheat year after year, he could make more money farming the program than he could farming other commodities that were not covered under other programs. It does not matter. No matter how well intentioned these programs may be, they are of a supplementary nature by their very description and necessity.
It seems to me that the minister is right. We have to get more money out of the marketplace. That is clear. That used to be the case. We used to export products to Britain. Canada was the biggest supplier of wheat to Britain for a long period of time. We have lost that market because other trade blocs have moved inward. The European Union for example basically does not allow any imports of products. Worse than that, it is using export subsidies to get rid of its overages every year.
There was some hope for a while that the European Union was going to move for trade liberalization and stop export subsidies, but as we see again this year it intends to use massive export subsidies to buy market shares, and that is really going to hurt us.
For example, if Canada were to tell Algeria that it had good quality wheat for sale for $120 a tonne, and the European Union with its export subsidies told Algeria it would sell it for $60 a tonne, there is no magic in knowing who would get the sale. While it is not an exact displacement in volume, it is enough to distort the market and it has been for a long time.
That is what I am talking about when I say we cannot compete with the treasury of the European Union with 500 million people to support it. We have to have some sanity in the market.
In other trade areas we have been able to get tariffs and subsidies down worldwide. Right after the second world war people decided that they had to do something that would stop the causes of the Great Depression and the war. They introduced international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the general agreement on tariffs and trade which evolved into the World Trade Organization. Those institutions gave a great deal of assistance. Agriculture has largely stayed outside that system, but we are trying to get changes.
Canada has taken a very strange position. We are asking for trade liberalizations or access into other countries' markets, and we are telling those countries that they cannot have access into our markets in some other products. It is pretty dyslexic and it hurts our position. Basically it takes our position off the table and other countries say we have nothing to contribute.
That is what I offer by way of answer to the minister.