moved:
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-103, in Clause 1, be amended by deleting lines 43 and 44, on page 5 and lines 1 to 6, on page 6.
While I have the chance, I want to pass on my congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker, and also the congratulations of many members of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters for the wonderful job he did in this Chamber last Saturday night of explaining the history of this place and also reminding broadcasters and through them, all Canadians of the value of this great country. I just want you to know how deeply people appreciated that.
Mr. Speaker, I am here to address Bill C-103. Specifically in Motion No. 3, we are asking that the imposition of the 80 per cent excise tax in Bill C-103 be deleted.
I want to speak to this bill in a larger way. I want to address some of the things which came from the hon. member for Don Valley West and the member for Rosedale. They were talking about how Canadians could not compete in the face of the overwhelming economic advantage the Americans have when it comes to certain sectors of the economy.
I guess we have to remind those hon. members that we have heard over and over again the debate on how Canadians cannot compete against the Americans. I am going to have to point out that for 128 years as a country we have faced competition from a much larger and much more powerful country to the south of us, but inevitably when the trade barriers are knocked down and we compete head to head, Canadians do extremely well.
I remind hon. members and I remind the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance that it was not very long ago during the free trade debate when wine producers and grape growers were extremely concerned about the effect of free trade on their industry. It was going to be the end of the production of wine in Canada. An American juggernaut was going to roll across this country's wine producing regions, southern Ontario, the Okanagan and other areas.
For crying out loud, it was just a few weeks ago that the Calgary Herald ran a big edition about how successful the wineries are in the Okanagan region. A member across the way from the Niagara region has done extremely well with his winery despite the fact that we have free trade and despite the fact the Americans had all the advantages of the economy of scale which this government says it is so concerned about.
The government is using that economy of scale as an argument for preventing Sports Illustrated and other magazines from using split run technology, getting into Canada and going after advertisers in this country. Frankly, those arguments do not hold water. The economy of scale has always been there. Instead of complaining about it, let us use it to our advantage.
When we were talking about this legislation in the finance committee a gentleman came forward representing the interests of Quebec magazine publishers. He talked about the big bad Americans and how France was going to come in and roll over magazine publishers. He did not just talk about them, he talked about the big bad Swedes, the big bad people from Belgium and the Swiss. If my memory serves me correctly, I think we are at least as big as those countries. We are at least as economically powerful as those countries but he was worried about the effect those magazines would have on French publications in Quebec.
Instead of whining about this, instead of pretending or suggesting we are victims, why do we not simply turn the tables on them? Why do we not go after their markets? I would argue that the people of Quebec and the people of Canada can produce magazines and editorial content that can compete with the best in the world. There is no reason in the world we cannot be selling that product to the French speaking population in Switzerland. There is no reason we cannot go into Belgium. There is no reason we cannot go into French speaking and English speaking countries around the world. What are we afraid of?
I pointed out earlier today that I was at the broadcasters convention this weekend. The broadcasting entity CanWest Global is doing extremely well in New Zealand and Australia. Just the other day Power Corp. out of Quebec as a conglomerate won a bid for the fifth channel in the U.K. I am told that Power Corp. is the largest broadcaster in Europe. It is a Canadian company.
What are we afraid of? What is the parliamentary secretary and the government afraid of? Our magazine industry can compete. We do it in every other sector. Why in the world should this sector be any different? Let us forget about these phoney arguments which are old and have been proven to be false in every other sector. Why in the world can we not push ahead and compete freely? Certainly the Americans compete freely in the magazine publishing industry.
I heard these straw men being thrown up by the member for Rosedale about how the Americans are protectionist. I agree they are in many sectors but they are not in this one. Let us go head to head. Two wrongs have never made a right. No one agrees with protectionism in this House or at least members on our side do not.
Let us forget about those straw men arguments. Let us push ahead with real free trade. Let us approve this amendment and get on with the business of making sure Canadians can profit from their expertise in this industry.