Madam Chair, honestly, I will not agree with the majority of what the minister said.
I would like to point out that during the last election I campaigned supporting supply management, enforcing that our party's platform was to support supply management. Nothing has changed since that date.
The minister has raised the issue about not having the government at the table, which is something I spoke to in my remarks earlier. I would like to elaborate a little bit more on the WTO negotiations and point out some facts so those listening at home have a full understanding as to what I am speaking about here.
I would like to remind the minister again that political pressure is what caused the Liberal government to verbalize its support for supply management.
However, this verbal support has been just that. When the rubber hits the road at the WTO negotiations, the Liberal government has failed to adequately represent all agricultural producers, including those in the supply managed sectors.
One of the members earlier, I believe it was the member for Provencher, pointed out that Canadian farmers had suffered from poor ministerial representation at WTO negotiations. A recent example of the Liberals shirking their duties to Canadian farmers was the absence of the Minister of International Trade and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food at the ministerial meeting in Kenya on March 2 to 4.
At this meeting member countries discussed their commitments to the Doha round. The international trade minister and the agriculture and agri-food minister were not at the meeting because they were attending the Liberal convention. Under the rules of the mini-ministerial without a minister present, no other representatives of that country are allowed to speak officially. It is a shame that they did not have anyone there representing Canada.
The Liberals have clearly done a very poor job of showing other countries that Canada's supply managed sectors ought to be exempt from WTO negotiations. Instead they have used tariffs in the supply managed sectors as bargaining chips in the WTO negotiations.
The poor showing by these ministers at the WTO imperils the livelihood of all farmers. Canada is the third largest agriculture exporter in the world. Given that the two ministers have given mixed messages to the WTO and member countries, it is not surprising that Canada is losing credibility among the WTO countries.