Agriculture committee  If we fail to make any real progress over the summer, I don't think the negotiations would be dropped entirely. I think there would be an effort to try to keep them going at some very minimal level until we could re-engage, most likely with a new U.S. administration. If they're elected in 2008, it would probably take them half a year to get all the right people in place.

Agriculture committee  That's certainly the kind of position that I think we would have some room to try to advance in the negotiations. It's not a position that we could take because of the position, which is consistent with the motion. If we took a position that countries should require real access, up to 5% of domestic consumption, we don't meet that now.

Agriculture committee  Yes, certainly a number of elements in the negotiations are becoming clearer, at least among a number of members. On export subsidies, we've agreed to eliminate all export subsidies, as have all other members. That will have some impact on our dairy sector, but it's generally viewed as something that can be managed.

Agriculture committee  When it comes to the number of sensitive products, the Brazilians, the Indians, the Chinese, those major countries, have been saying that sensitive products should not be more than 1% of tariff lines--so a much lower number. My own personal view is that they could agree to 4% or 5%.

Agriculture committee  In the case of dairy, we provide more access to dairy, or at least we did in recent years, than the U.S. provides to its dairy market.

Agriculture committee  There certainly was some discussion of those issues when the agenda for the negotiations was first agreed to in Doha in 2001. At that time, at the end of the day, it was decided that neither labour nor environmental standards issues would be included as part of the negotiations, so that has remained the same to this point.

Agriculture committee  There are still discussions ongoing that don't directly relate to the motion in some ways. There are discussions about how you administer tariff quotas--whether you make it open to all--and certain practices that countries have adopted that minimize imports under specific quotas.

Agriculture committee  I hope it doesn't go on too long. It's been going on for a long time already, and the prospect of it going on for years and years to come doesn't really enthuse me. I think there's going to be a strong effort to try to break through it this spring and to see if we can put together a fairly ambitious agreement.

Agriculture committee  I think that certainly the position we've been carrying in the negotiations has been quite consistent over the years. Other countries have changed. I think the biggest factor, though, probably even bigger than shifting country positions, is the notion of the groups that are now negotiating at the WTO.

Agriculture committee  What we've been trying to do is really work informally with a lot of different countries and different groups to try to advance our objectives. We've had particular success in doing that with the so-called G-20. That's the group led by Brazil and China and India. That group has probably really become the most powerful group in the negotiations outside of the U.S. and Europe.

Agriculture committee  I think the most commonly held view is that it would be better to get the WTO negotiations done first, or at least get the shape of an agreement made pretty clear before the farm bill is finished. The U.S. administration has told us they can always go back and make changes to the farm bill afterwards, but in our estimation it would be very politically difficult to go back and change a farm bill, and in all likelihood make it less generous, after they've already designed it.

Agriculture committee  I think Canada is one of the leading exporting countries when it comes to agriculture, and we're certainly well known for that. We're generally either the third or fourth largest exporter of all the WTO members. So we have a strong role to play there, and we are a part of the Cairns Group, which is a group of exporting countries.

Agriculture committee  I don't think we're in a much different position from most of the countries around the world. We see the emerging markets in developing countries as being where the real growth is going to take place. Certainly China is going to be important; India is important, as is Brazil. The emerging economies in the developing world are where most of the new markets are going to be developed, and that's where we're focusing, as well as on other countries in Asia.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think we certainly have heard from industry and various others that we should be having a more ambitious bilateral negotiating agenda, and we have been pursuing that. We've been advancing bilateral negotiations with Korea, as you know. We've also been negotiating with a group of Central American countries and with Singapore, as well as with the European free trade area, which includes a number of northern European countries.

Agriculture committee  Yes, as you imply, the focus now is really on the U.S., and what happens in the U.S. will determine whether or not we move forward. The trade promotion authority, or fast-track, is going to be essential, and if the U.S. doesn't obtain fast-track approval, then there's really no basis to negotiate.