Mr. Speaker, we are being asked in Motion No. 10 to consider factors such as dumping, foreign subsidies and putting extra regulations into Bill C-57, an act to implement the World Trade Organization.
I am afraid I am going to disappoint the member for Verchères who has asked us to support the motion. It is not that I am unsympathetic to the discussions he outlined about the steel industry or any other industry undergoing trade actions.
The bill calls for minimum compliance to try to move these disputes forward quickly to the World Trade Organization. It has better mechanisms to resolve these disputes than is currently available in the Canada-U.S. trade agreement for steel, for example. A lot of regulations have been built up over the last several years and we still had several dozen trade actions on steel alone last year. Surely that is not the best approach.
The best approach is moving disputes to a forum such as the World Trade Organization where all factors will be taken into account by a panel that hears disputes. The panel will not just take into account things like unused production capacity, increases in exports and inventories. It will consider all relevant factors as it should.
We should not try to build up a big regulation wall. The steel industry said at committee that it wants us to build a big regulation wall like the United States is doing with the ultimate goal of tearing it down at the World Trade Organization. We should not take the same kind of action that the United States is taking. The World Trade Organization panel will consider the type of regulations that are being built up in the United States in its implementing regulations. The panel will take that into account when it hears these disputes.
There is a process. It is a better process. We have to put our faith in it. It is going to work. Placing undue emphasis on the factors that were outlined just a few moments ago by the hon. member for Verchères might put undue emphasis on factors that would benefit things like supply management. It would also cause injury in some other sectors of our industries.
That does not say we do not have some problems. I outlined them during discussion of Bill C-57 at second reading. Those problems are internal trade barriers, high debt and deficit, our inability to trade. The Western Grain Transportation Act needs revision. There are problems with the tariff rate quotas. I do not believe we should have them. There is the problem with the sale and allotment of quotas but that is for a different day. Those problems have to be worked out in the next few months.
What is important is getting through the minimum compliance and have the World Trade Organization come into effect. Let us start hearing some of the disputes such as the wheat dispute that has been bubbling for the last year and the other disputes that have been talked about such as steel. Let us put the World Trade Organization to the test and it will come out with flying colours.