Madam Speaker, following on the vein of that question and the answer from the member for Cumberland—Colchester, has he given serious thought to the way in which the WTO is presently working? Has he seen the way in which the Americans are operating with respect to the banana case and the way in which they are treating the Europeans in picking off one industry after another as a way of advancing their trade interests in a way that does not make the international trade system work very well?
Does he not think that in these circumstances we as Canadians have to stand up and say this is an important cultural issue for us, this is an important dimension of what we are trying to do and tell our American friends, “You would not put up with dumping things in your jurisdiction”. This is a form of dumping magazines into Canada. We are saying to them, “What we are asking for here, putting it in trade terms, is nothing more than a decent level playing field. You talk that way all the time. You ask for a level playing field. Give us a level playing field”. That is what we are saying, yet they do not seem to want to do it in these trade negotiations. They always want to have the upper hand.
I remember that George Will, one of those big correspondents in the United States, said that free trade is something that ranks somewhere between Christianity and jogging, as something much talked about and very little practised. That is the way the Americans approach this. They do not believe in free trade when it is coming into their markets; they believe in free trade when it is coming into our markets or other markets.
This is a very important issue for Canada. I know the member understands that. I would urge him to consider that we should not be put off by the Americans in this respect. I think we will have allies in Europe now because of the banana war. We will have other allies who recognize that this type of hardball tactic that is presently being resorted to will not make the WTO work and in fact will help destroy it.
Would the hon. member give some consideration to that?