Mr. Chair, I too want to congratulate you on your appointment to your new role. I want to quickly thank the people of Leeds—Grenville for sending me back to this chamber. They are many of those people who are involved in the agricultural industry. In fact, many are involved in supply managed farms. In fact, we have the largest egg producer in Canada within Leeds—Grenville, many dairy farms, and so many people that depend on supply management.
My party and I, along with all parliamentarians in the 38th Parliament in fact, voted in favour of supporting supply management. Yet, many of our supply managed farmers are concerned. Regularly they are in my office wanting to know what the situation is. They want to know what is going on at the trade agreements. In fact, we had the round in Hong Kong only a few months ago. Throughout that there was concern among our supply managed farmers that Canada was not standing up for supply management.
The concern was not among parliamentarians, but that the trade negotiators were doing something different than what was being supported in Parliament.
I have a question for the hon. parliamentary secretary. In the ongoing discussions coming up in Geneva in the next few weeks, is the government giving clear direction to our trade negotiators that supply management is non-negotiable and that they will stand up to ensure that the supply management system in Canada is maintained?