Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments. I agree that the minister of heritage has a real commitment to preserving culture. I believe she was carrying the flame in that respect with regard to the MAI negotiations.
However, I asked the Minister for International Trade twice in this House to be very specific about the wording around “Would you guarantee a complete cultural carve-out?” One day the answer was yes and then two days later, when I read the script of a dinner speech made by the minister, the wording was quite different. It had sort of backed down on cultural exemption.
I think that the devil is in the wording. That is what has been confounding this whole issue all along. Whether we are talking carve-out or exemption, at the 11th hour at these tables what exactly is given away? I do not believe for a minute that the spirit of the MAI is dead, but I am still not convinced that if the MAI had continued on in the present realm of negotiations that we would have had what we wanted at the end of the day in terms of real cultural protection.