Mr. Speaker, I tried in my address today and a few days ago to answer the hon. member's question. I know she is serious about the cultural industry. I know that she took on the Reform Party some hours ago on it.
I said two things. First, Canada takes the position that the culture issue should not be on the MAI table. But because it operates by consensus, if one country insists on having it on the table we have said, which is our right, that we will take a country specific exemption. For the purposes of Canadian culture either of the two options is the same. The bottom line for us is that cultural is not negotiable.
Second, where culture does have an exemption is in the investment chapter under NAFTA. It will do so at bare minimum under the MAI.
If I can be up front with the hon. member, I do not think for culture the concern is either NAFTA or the MAI. The concern I have for culture and trade is at the WTO. When the application came against our Canadian magazine industry and the movie industry, it came through the WTO.
I have advocated publicly that we need to square the circle at the WTO. If we can do labour and trade, if we can do trade and the environment, if we can have the very sensitive and emotional debate on agriculture in the next round, surely we can also despite the difficulty try to square the circle with trade and culture. Culture at the end of the day comes down to self pride and identify. Every country, big or small, rich or poor, has one.
Increasingly with technology where you can download culture, countries which think that a different language or a different history can protect them in terms of culture identity are wrong. We are finding that more allies, more countries are seeing it the way Canada does. I would like to mobilize some kind of international opinion that at some point, maybe in the next round, we can have rules on trade and culture that protect and distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate practices.