Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that some Liberals choose to say that the Reform Party is not out to protect Canadian culture. It is quite the contrary. The Reform Party recognizes that Canadian culture is a very valuable commodity to this country but cannot be protected with a broad instrument such as they are talking about.
A quote in the Ottawa Citizen on February 17 from Paris reads “Scores of French writers, film-makers and composers joined forces yesterday in Paris to defend their government cultural subsidies against the threat posed by a new global investment pact. They fear it will undermine its cultural identity”.
Protection goes both ways. French-speaking people who want to export Canadian culture will be stopped at the border of France if the MAI is under a broad cultural exemption. If that is what we want and what France has asked for, we will have a wonderful little fortress with our Canadian culture with a great big wall around it because we cannot get it out in spite of the fact that Canadians and Canadian artists are world class people. We want to give them the opportunity to be able to export.