Mr. Speaker, I thank the member very much for his remarks. I also thank him for the support he has expressed, both in committee and here in the House, today. I invite all his colleagues and our colleagues in this Parliament to be here when it comes time to vote, at the end of the afternoon, so that we can pass this motion to protect our milk producers.
The member mentioned a fact that is often ignored when we are talking about the dangers of restoring the situation, so as not to offend or inconvenience our trading partners. What my colleague from Malpeque has just said is entirely true.
On average, in all supply managed industries, we already accept 5% imports from WTO member countries. As for the other countries, their markets are more or less open. I am talking mainly about the countries of Europe—the European Union—and the United States, whose markets are 2.5% open. And so when Pascal Lamy, Director General of the WTO, or when those countries tell us that supply management is a problem and we have to make compromises, my answer is that when the European Union and the United States open their markets to the level that ours is open—which is, on average, 5%, as I said—then we can sit down at a table and talk, and negotiate. Right now, we are not at that point.
We are only asking the other countries, the European Union countries and the United States, to reduce their subsidies, and they make a big deal about it. We know that the Doha Round has gone on for quite some time. As we speak, the Doha Round was actually supposed to have ended, but that is far from being the case. Negotiations are continuing, because the Americans, in particular, are kind of circumventing the process. Instead of reducing their subsidies, they would like to put them in different coloured boxes, so they can conceal the fact that they are subsidizing their agricultural production heavily.
As a result, when that is done, when the other countries agree to what we have already agreed to, we will be able to sit down and talk with them.