I appreciate this.
Yes, Doha is grinding down and there are two schools of thought. One is that they're going to declare victory and walk away from whatever little they get. The other is there is going to be a greater impetus to try to cobble something together. But regardless, GATS goes on. GATS is a separate round. And it is an important issue. I don't think it is the issue of airing our dirty laundry, because having been on the agriculture file, the agriculture sector continually asks the questions: where are we going at Doha and where is our position? And we got very clear responses from the present government in terms of supply management. We will defend supply management. We will defend these rights internationally. Those commitments came because questions were asked and it gave people confidence.
I'm open to the suggestion that we begin with officials at the level of Heritage and Industry, because traditionally there has been a divide between Heritage and Industry on a lot of these issues, and we know that. Will the Heritage officials come forward and say, do not worry, we know where we stand in terms of cultural product? That could end the discussion right then and there.
My concern is that we know that Canada is a requester nation at the GATS right now on the telecom, and telecom has been an Industry file, but because of convergence and because of the implications for broadcast, what steps has the ministry taken? What steps are they looking to take to ensure that our broadcast policies are still intact if GATS goes ahead? As well, we are on the receiving end of the GATS request on audiovisual, and those raise all the fundamental issues. Whether it's the Lincoln report, the film industry--anything we've talked about around this table is being discussed at Geneva.
I think it would be incumbent upon us to hear from those officials. I don't believe we need to hear from those officials in camera. I think if there is something that is raised that they want to give us a further briefing on, or a separate briefing, and we would go in camera, I'm fine about it. But I think an initial briefing is to get a sense of where we're going. I would defer on the issue of the negotiators at this point if we can hear from ministry officials.