International Trade committee  The e-commerce chapters that we're beginning to see in international trade agreements don't differentiate between the nature of the product or the service that's being transmitted and sold electronically, and that's a problem. Cultural goods and services, while they do have an economic value, also have a profoundly important cultural side.

International Trade committee  We have very strong cultural industries in Canada. The film and television industry is very robust. Last year, there was about $8.6 billion of production activity in Canada, and about $4.6 billion was Canadian content production. All of that production is underpinned by very strong public policy measures: everything from Canadian content quotas through Canadian programming expenditure requirements, broadcasting regulations, rules that govern cable television.

International Trade committee  Historically, we have adequately protected our cultural policy-making space, but in the last five or six years, we have not. We have begun to move in a direction away from a general cultural exemption, and this, in my observation, is going to cause us serious concerns. The backslide began with the comprehensive and economic trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, where, instead of a general cultural exemption, we sought to exempt culture on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

International Trade committee  Thanks, Elliott. I'm delighted to be here today. Thank you very much. Canada and Canadians were leaders in the global campaign that led to the adoption in 2005 of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. While the convention did not achieve the hoped-for goal of carving culture out of trade agreements, it does provide a basis for parties to take a new and collaborative approach to cultural relations.