Agriculture committee  No, I have never at any stage been left out of any negotiating room that related to sensitive products. In fact, I think we've been a key player in all of those rooms. I think the direction from the government has been very clear, though, that I am to maintain a very hard line on no tariff reductions and no tariff quota expansion for supply-managed products.

Agriculture committee  We are very active across the board on all issues, as you say. In fact, we are the most active country in the negotiations, I would say, above all others. We do more analysis; we get more involved in developing creative ideas to try to bridge gaps, to try to achieve our objectives than any other country does.

Agriculture committee  Yes, clearly, when it comes to the issues of greatest importance to supply management, tariff reductions, tariff quota expansion, and getting enough of our supply-managed products into the sensitive products category, we have shown no flexibility. The chair will in this draft as he has in previous drafts offer some flexibility to some other countries on the condition that they are prepared to pay more through providing greater access.

Agriculture committee  Okay, sure.

Agriculture committee  It's not the kind of the question that leads to a quick response, but, basically, we will be continuing to take a very hard line in the small-room negotiations next week. It will require a continued political commitment that this is of a high importance, and we're going to push hard.

Agriculture committee  I fully expect that the text we'll probably see tomorrow will continue to call for tariff reductions on supply-managed products. It will continue to call for tariff quote expansion on supply-managed products. I would be very surprised if it said that there was an exemption for Canada from those tariff cuts and tariff quote expansions.

Agriculture committee  Sure. The government has made it very clear that supply management and protecting supply management's interests are essential at the WTO negotiations, and a key part of the instructions to me, as quota negotiator, is to carry that forward in Geneva. So we have been taking a very hard and consistent line, making it very clear at every opportunity what our position is and why we want to defend supply management the way we are.

Agriculture committee  With respect to the issues of importance of supply management, we don't really have any partners, because others are all prepared to take a certain degree of tariff cuts, a minimum of 22% to 25% tariff cuts. Others are prepared to accept tariff quota expansion of 4% to 6% of domestic consumption.

Agriculture committee  It's a fairly complicated dynamic around the negotiating table, what with 152 members all negotiating. Over the last several months, we've seen a significant shift on the part of the European Union and on the part of the U.S. They've made important concessions, and I doubt whether they would make such moves if they didn't think that the end game was coming up soon.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I would agree with that. I think we will at least take a pause while the new U.S. administration gets up to speed. It usually takes a good six months or so before they get their staff in place and start to formulate their positions. Even if we don't achieve an agreement in the April-Easter timeframe, we're going to have a platform that will show how far we got—something we could pick up again in a year or two.

Agriculture committee  As the text comes together and we have a pretty good idea of what we'll see, probably tomorrow, it is shaping up to be a pretty good package for most areas of Canadian agriculture. We're getting a lot of what we want to achieve in export competition and in domestic support or domestic subsidies.

Agriculture committee  It's not having a lot of direct impact. On the wheat board issue our position has been consistent for many years. We've said that these are issues that should be settled domestically, not internationally by the WTO, and we've been working very closely with Australia, New Zealand, and some others on that position with respect to monopoly powers for state trading enterprises.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. My name is Steve Verheul, and I am Canada's chief agriculture negotiator. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today to talk about the status of the World Trade Organization negotiations. I'm going to begin my remarks today by reviewing some of the recent developments in the WTO negotiations and what they mean for Canada.

Agriculture committee  That is correct.

Agriculture committee  On the consequences, I think there are a number of possible consequences of applying an article 28 against the U.S. First of all, if we could apply an article 28 against the U.S., then it stands to reason that they could apply article 28s against us. We certainly export a lot of agricultural commodities to the U.S., so we could see potential actions against wheat, pork, and some of our key exports.