Mr. Speaker, with regard to the specific example of lamb producers the hon. member is referring to, I am not familiar with that. I would be interested if he would explain and chat with me about that. My guess is there is more to what is being said. I am not accusing the member of not giving the whole story.
I can give the example of what we in Agriculture Canada did for our industries when we found the-and I cannot get my tongue around the big full name-the mad cow disease. When one cow died in Alberta last year because of that we sought out and destroyed all of the animals from coast to coast in this country that we thought ever had a chance of coming in contact with it. We did that in order to protect the beef industry, and I am sure we will take similar actions as far as the lamb industry is concerned. I would be interested to follow that up.
As far as the protectionism in article XI, I just do not buy that. There are concerns. I ask the member to consider this: If the dairy industry and dairy producers are so concerned about their future, I would ask him why they are paying more as far as purchasing quota to have the opportunity for the right to produce. I simply cannot understand if somebody is convinced in their mind, as they are, that the industry is going some place in a hand cart why so many people want to be in the cart.
It is very interesting. When we talk to producers, the dairy farmers of Canada, we find it did not go exactly the way everybody wanted it to go. We look at the level of protection, the very slow rate.
What we have in the supply managed sector for the next six or seven years is the opportunity to prepare to meet the challenges of the market, the challenges of that very, very slow rate of reduction. I remind members opposite that even in the year 2001 the tariff rate protection for all of those will still be very close to, if not over, 200 per cent.