Madam Chair, my hon. colleague always has very thoughtful questions because he researches his material and he understands the issues.
It is ludicrous to expect that the European Union will enter into a fair trade agreement with Canada. We have seen the devastating effect that the euro has had on countries such as Greece, Spain and Ireland that have bought into the euro. There are even many advocating in those countries for a return to their currencies so they can devalue their currency and at least get out and have some jobs. This is going to continue, and here we are, signing an agreement and hoping that things will continue as they are. I would like to submit that it will not.
The other very frightening or disturbing aspect is that they are very protectionist. To this day, we have only 0.5% of their total pork production allowable tariff-free; and over there, they want us to do away with our tariffs for dairy. As I said earlier in my questions, and I posed this to the Canadian negotiator, European cheese could come onto the table at the very last minute, with them saying, “Okay Canada, accept the fact that we can flood your market with cheese and we will sign the agreement”.
If we do that, there goes $70,000 for each dairy farmer and there goes our supply management system.