Madam Speaker, I am impressed with how diligently you have applied the Standing Orders.
I am surprised to hear our colleagues from the Reform Party constantly repeat that we should have Bill C-57 adopted as soon as possible in order for the Uruguay Round Agreement to be implemented at the earliest possible time. I think nothing should stand in our moving as quickly as we can, even though obvious and significant improvements must be made to the bill tabled.
My colleague, the hon. member for Regina-Lumsden, is concerned with the expectations of the steel industry. I can assure him that today's Order Paper also contains an amendment which will likely meet these expectations.
I mentioned earlier that we intended to oppose amendments Nos. 6 and 7, mainly because we wanted to submit concurrent or similar ones which, according to us, would be simpler and easier to implement. With your permission, I will go back to these amendments.
I think our colleague, the hon. member for Laval East, did very well in introducing her amendment. I shall not elaborate further on that one.
However, I would like to add a few comments on the amendment also brilliantly introduced by my colleague from Longueuil. The hon. member for Louis-Hébert mentioned a few things with regard to these two amendments and I would like to shed new information on the subject.
I would like to remind the hon. members in this House that the purpose of the amendment was that Parliament be informed each year about the implementation of the Agreement in Canada, the fulfilment of our international obligations and the impact of the Agreement on Canadian and Quebec workers, according to priorities previously set by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
It must be understood that the Uruguay Round Agreement is anything but a simple agreement between technocrats. It is the result of eight years of very complex negotiations which meant that the various participating governments and States had to make a number of political choices.
The effects of this Agreement are numerous and they affect a great many different areas. The Americans are ready, and we see this in the bill that is now before Congress-to challenge our tariff measures and compare them with the provisions of the international treaties we have signed, and I am referring to the Uruguay Round agreement and NAFTA. They have set up a consultation process to collect information that will be used to challenge our measures, for instance. We must be prepared. We must have the information we need to prepare on defence. In this respect, I note that section 424 of the U.S. bill to implement the Uruguay Round agreement reads as follows:
"The President, not later than six months after the date of entering into force of the WTO agreement with respect to the United States, shall submit a report to the Congress on the extent to which Canada is complying with its obligation under the Uruguay round agreement with respect to dairy and poultry
products and with its related obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement".
This translates more or less as follows: "The President, not later than six months after the date of entering into force of the WTO agreement with respect to the United States, shall submit a report to the Congress on the extent to which Canada is complying with its obligation under the Uruguay Round agreement with respect to dairy and poultry products and with its related obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement".
If the United States makes provision in its legislation for verifying Canada's compliance with the Uruguay Round agreement, we can drop any reluctance we might have about including provisions in our own legislation provisions authorizing Parliament to report on how our principal trading partners, and mainly the United States, are complying with the Uruguay Round agreement.
The amendment in question also refers to the impact on workers and companies, and I would like to expand on this aspect. Paragraph (c) of the amendment proposed in motion No. 2 reads as follows: ``the impact of the Agreement on Canadian workers and companies''.
The report to be submitted by the government should indicate the impact the Agreement has on Canadian workers and companies. This is important and reflects concerns raised by our colleagues in their amendments.
I may recall that this provision in the amendment is entirely in line with a promise in the Liberal Party's red book that the government would assist individuals and firms in labour-intensive sectors of the Canadian economy, such as furniture manufacturing and textiles, to deal with restructuring. As you know, there is a significant concentration of these sectors in Quebec, and especially in Montreal.
With this amendment, the government has an opportunity to meet one of their commitments in the red book which was to consider the impact of the Uruguay Round agreement on individuals and firms, so that subsequently, it can assist individuals and firms to deal with restructuring.