Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
This government thinks Canadian culture is what a lot of people might call high culture. Most people today make connections with their neighbours around their province and around the country through weekly newspapers and little publications like that. One of the things that works against them is the exorbitant prices they have to pay for postage today. The member is absolutely right.
The other point is that these companies are just like any other company. They struggle to make it with crippling payroll taxes. In many case they have a lot of employees. It is labour intensive.
They sit and they stuff flyers in newspapers. I have a good friend who is the publisher of the Brooks Bulletin . They have a big staff. This publisher would love to see EI premiums go down by $500 per employee. Those employees would like to see their premiums go down by $350 which is entirely within this government's ability to do if it would obey the law.
But sadly this government thinks the answer is to protect these business by putting up these high protective walls which ultimately are going to be challenged and defeated at the WTO. We are going to pay a huge price for it when we are retaliated against. Unfortunately the retaliation will not be in magazines. We will be hit where it hurts, in the big industries such as agriculture and lumber. My colleague shakes his head but I will bet him $20 that is exactly what is going to happen.