Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's observation is to some extent legitimate in the sense that we are struggling now to get away from the world of subsidization and special treatment for certain industries or certain products.
However I do not think it is fair for him to suggest to the House or to members of the public that there is an exact parallel between an industry which manufactures a product which then goes out into the marketplace and a cultural industry.
The member asked me my background. I taught international trade law at university and I am involved in a small business and I have some business interests in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Europe. I have had the opportunity of working through a lot of business problems.
I do not think the member would be wise if he said all businesses were the same and we treat them all the same.
Why is it important to preserve or give special treatment to a threatened industry such as the magazine industry where for example we might not choose to do that in the textiles industry, in the shoe industry or some other industry?
The answer is that when we are talking about trade and when we are talking about competition it is one thing to speak of competition in normal products and goods but another when we are talking about competition in ideas, through which the hon. member's children will determine their view of the world, we have talked a lot about violence in the House. We have talked a lot about the need to preserve our society from violence. Members of the Reform Party continually day after day speak in the House about the need for better criminal legislation to deal with the issue of violence but the member now wants magazines which come across the border espousing and pushing violence on the same footing as everything else.
The reason we need special treatment for this industry is we need a Canadian view of life. We need a way of being able to express ourselves. That is why it is different. It is ideas. It is the future of our generations that we are talking about here. We are not talking about a pair of shoes. We are not talking about a shirt or a tie. That is why we are desperately determined to preserve something that is the way in which we will be able to express ourselves. That is why when we look at radio, television, magazine publishing or newspaper publishing we always consider it with a special provision.
The United States is no different. It pushes its industries in that area extraordinarily hard. Everywhere we go in the world, if we talk to French politicians, to Australian politicians, if we talk to anyone, we are all concerned about the preservation of our cultural values and identity. Why? Because we do not wish to have them submerged in somebody else's concept about what we are about and what we are trying to do.
That is what this bill is directed toward. That is why it is really worth an exception from the general principle.
I subscribe entirely to the member's point that we must get away from a system where government is involved in subsidizing average industries. I strongly urge him to consider that there must be a difference always between industries making ordinary products and those products of the mind which represent our ability to be stable, to be civil, to be tolerant and exist in a world which is becoming more complex, more violent and more difficult to survive in.