Mr. Chair, congratulations on the appointment to your post. As I said to the Deputy Speaker, I have been there, done that, and it is a wonderful position to hold. I congratulate you for having it here this evening and for this Parliament.
I thank the member not only for his comments, but also for the constructive nature of his suggestions. I know I do not have lots of time, but I would like to wrestle just briefly with the issue of milk protein concentrate. There is a call by the Dairy Farmers of Canada to use article 28 of the WTO to reclassify that product.
I am as interested as the dairy farmers to find ways to ensure there is not a flood of product coming into the country. One concern I have is if we invoke article 28, and we are considering that as an option, would it affect the milk concentrate coming from the United States and Mexico? It does not because the NAFTA arrangement supercedes the WTO arrangement. My fear is that we might stop it from Europe, but we might get a flood of product coming in across the 49th parallel.
Second, if we try to reclassify it under NAFTA, then that milk protein concentrate would give the Americans an opportunity not only to challenge the reclassification of the concentrate, but they would use it as an opportunity to challenge the entire supply managed system.
In 1996 we won that court case that said we could protect our supply managed industries. I mentioned already that I want to do all I can to support them now, here and overseas as well. However, I do not want to take measures, and this is a caution for the dairy farmers, that allow a court challenge to not only possibly intervene on the milk protein concentrate, but actually put our entire supply managed system at risk. I am not prepared to do that, and I want to have every assurance before we take steps that we do not compromise supply management.