Mr. Speaker, the ten clauses making up Bill C-54 have been pretty thoroughly covered. I will therefore take the opportunity provided by this bill to reflect on some of the important questions facing the international community.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, a wind of liberalization and globalization of trade has swept the planet. And I imagine that, for the world's greatest economic power, the United States, it must be extremely frustrating to see that Cuba, a tiny country in Latin America, is standing in the way of this free trade movement.
Cuba is to the United States as David was to Goliath. For over 30 years, the Americans have tried by all the means at their disposal to bring down the Castro regime, but success has so far eluded them.
They undoubtedly thought that the liberalization of trade sweeping the planet would also sweep away the dictatorship in Cuba. However, I think they are reading it the wrong way. Instead of applying an even tighter embargo against Cuba, if they had taken the opposite approach a number of years ago, the Cubans themselves would probably have taken steps to throw off this dictatorship.
But the reaction of the Cuban people now that they are feeling oppressed by the United States is to stand behind their leader, and this is why the regime continues on, despite everything. It could have been completely different, of course. The whole Cuba-U.S. matter could have been different.
I remember a television program reviewing some of the main failed appointments in the history of mankind. What happened between Cuba and the U.S. was one of these failed appointments. The host of the show pointed out that, months if not weeks before President Kennedy's assassination, a French reporter had been hired to act as an intermediary between Fidel Castro and President Kennedy in organizing what would no doubt have been a historical meeting, which would probably have led to the resolution of this huge conflict between the two countries.
However, we know what happened in November 1963. President Kennedy was killed and the program host reminded us that Fidel Castro was crushed by this news, because he hoped the confrontation with the United States was coming to an end.
Of course, there is a direct link between the Helms-Burton legislation and the election, we must not delude ourselves about that. Just as we can almost be sure that there is a link between the United States' recent intervention in Iraq and the upcoming American elections, and that is unfortunate.
Obviously, this legislation is, or at least was, to strengthen the embargo around Cuba, in order to attract the votes of Spanish Americans.
Helms-Burton is an anachronistic measure since it goes against the tendency toward freer trade that has emerged over the last few years. Think about the length of the negotiations known as the Uruguay Round which led, in 1993, to the creation of the WTO. They lasted seven years. They were supposed to give us freer trade. Think about the NAFTA negotiations under the leadership of, if I am not mistaken, the United States. And here we are today faced with a piece of legislation that goes completely against this strong tendency toward freer trade.
Helms-Burton is an example of the inability of the United States to accept the fact that smaller countries also have rights and privileges. After the free trade agreement was finalized, we had the case of Norsk Hydro, a Quebec company, when the United States tried in every way it could to counter the effects of free trade and was finally successful.
We are all familiar with the softwood lumber story. The agreement was signed to promote free trade between Mexico, Canada and the United States and subsequently, the United States tried in every possible way, either directly or indirectly, to revise the content of the agreement. Finally, Canada was obliged to sign a schedule that would limit exports of softwood lumber to the United States for five years.
I will finish with a fable by La Fontaine. If we look at the U.S. attitude to trade, it is just like the fable of the wolf and the lamb. A little lamb was drinking water in a river, and the wolf was drinking up river. The wolf accused the little lamb of making the water murky, and the lamb answered: How could I, since I am down river? The wolf answered: If you did not do it today, you did six months ago. The lamb answered: I had not been not born six months ago. The wolf added: If you did not do it six months ago, it must have been your parents. The fable ends with the wolf eating the lamb. I think this is a little like the attitude of the Americans to measures they themselves created. They are just sabotaging the agreements they signed of their own free will.