Mr. Speaker, to clarify, the hon. member for Kamloops suggested that the Reform Party would like to decimate the Department of Canadian Heritage. It is absolutely true that we want to cut substantially the waste in the kind of programs administered by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
We believe that Canadian heritage and our cultural identity can better be protected by Canadians than by bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa. We believe that free flag giveaways and handouts to interest groups seeking more cash are exactly what is wrong with this government. We think the huge subsidies to bloated crown corporations with their enormous waste and bureaucracy and middle management produce very little in terms of concrete results.
Those things are very low in the priorities of Canadians with respect to public spending. We do not apologize for a moment in saying that tax relief and health care for hard pressed Canadian families come as higher priorities to Canadians than grants and handouts to interest groups through Canadian heritage. We are proud to be in line with the public's priorities in this respect.
I stand today to speak to this latest folly by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. She was a very effective member of the opposition but she really has become something of an embarrassment to the cabinet, the government and I submit, this parliament when it comes to the kind of extremism in policy she promotes.
Bill C-55 is an effort to draw Canada back decades into the era of protectionism, an era when countries looked inward instead of outward, an era that is reflective of the kind of campaign the Minister of Canadian Heritage led against the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1988 election.
When the Liberal Party sat on the opposition benches, it told Canadians that the free trade agreement would be the end of Canada, that it would be the end of our economic sovereignty and hence the end of our cultural and political sovereignty. I remember the cries of Chicken Little from the Minister of Canadian Heritage and her colleagues at that time suggesting that to allow free trade between these two great partners, Canada and the United States, would lead to economic disaster. As we all know that has been proven to be completely specious.
The one element driving Canadian economic growth over the past decade overwhelmingly has been our bilateral trade with the United States, a country with which we conduct some 80% of our trade, about $1 billion in trade a day. Bill C-55 seeks to address one very small element of the huge $350 billion plus annual exchange between these two countries, the $400 million magazine advertising market.
I must tell members that since deciding to run and since being elected on June 2, 1997 I have spoken with literally thousands of people in my constituency as well as thousands of others outside my constituency, going door to door, meeting people at town hall meetings, listening to their concerns, speaking on open line radio shows, and I can say that of the thousands of conversations I have had with Canadians not a single one has ever suggested to me that they had the least bit of concern about the sovereignty of the Canadian magazine industry.
I cannot recall a single ordinary Canadian outside the strange and twisted political hothouse of Ottawa and the Liberal caucus who suggested that we need to move decades backwards in economic policy to enshrine protectionism, as in this bill, in order to create restrictions on freedom of speech by penalizing American publications which accept Canadian advertising. Not a single Canadian has said that to me.
I look at the priorities that we face as a country, priorities I hear about every single day from ordinary Canadians. Priorities such as the need to put health care first in our public spending. Priorities such as the need for tax relief for working families. Priorities such as the need to democratize this institution to make Canada a more vibrant and representative democracy. Those are the priorities Canadians are concerned with. When I look at the government's legislative agenda I do not see those priorities addressed anywhere. Instead I see Bill C-55 which deals with an obscure concern of a relatively small interest group of enterprises.
What I have heard from my constituents is outrage that this government is proceeding with this bill. Calgary, which I represent in part, has a large and growing plastics industry. Our American friends, through their trade representative Madam Barshefsky, have indicated that the plastics industry in Canada could be subject to countervailing measures were we to adopt and implement the measures proposed before us in this bill. What would that mean? It could mean potentially devastating tariffs for the plastics industry and for people who reside in my constituency.
I have not had a single one of my constituents call me to ask for this kind of protectionism. But many have called to say “Please do not let this crazy effort by the minister of heritage destroy our jobs and impair our industry by provoking the Americans into a bilateral trade war”.
This bill is plainly and simply irresponsible. The government claims it is necessary. It throws twisted and completely inaccurate statistics to the effect that 80% of magazines on the stand are foreign magazines, implying therefore that the Canadian magazine industry is a marginal part of what is consumed by readers, which is completely irrelevant because 75% of all magazines read in Canada are received by controlled or paid circulation and about 94% of that segment of the market is Canadian owned. That is not an issue.
But even if it were, I submit that it is a question of freedom. I suggest that we need in examining legislation to make reference to first principles. The first principle that I would propose for all government action would be to maximize freedom; namely, liberty. I know it is a dirty word. It sounds like an American word to some of my friends opposite. But I happen to think that liberty is a concept deeply rooted in our parliamentary heritage.
I think Canadians ought to have the freedom, the liberty, to choose which magazines they read, which publications and periodicals they patronize, without having the government decide for them which of those magazines is acceptable and in which format.
It is really the classic 1960s retro, back to the past, protectionistic, inward looking, parochial liberalism which is rearing its ugly head in this bill.
I support the amendments put forward by my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River which seek to delete the various clauses of this bill because I propose that this is an assault on the freedom of Canadians. Why do we not let Canadians decide for themselves what they want to read? If a Canadian wants to order the split-run version of Sports Illustrated , why do we not let them buy and read it? Where is the harm in that? What damage is done to the Canadian cultural fabric by allowing people to exercise their free choices in deciding what they will consume in terms of reading materials? I simply cannot grasp the rationale for this bill.
To try to impose government sanctions essentially on those who would consume such materials, what we are doing is not only violating their freedom of expression, we are clearly threatening a significant portion of our economy and our economic growth.
I have heard no compelling response from this government to the very serious threats of our American allies to respond through negative tariffs and countervailing measures if we proceed with this bill as the government now seems to be intent on doing.
I know that this bill is very similar in form and content to similar legislation which was passed in the last parliament but which was found by the World Trade Organization to be contrary to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. What I can say is that Canada as a trading country ought to be a champion of free trade. We ought to clearly abide by the rulings of the World Trade Organization. We ought not to be trying in bills such as this to skirt around the rulings of the WTO and other dispute resolution bodies. By doing so we are impugning our credibility as a trading nation in the community of nations. For that reason I think we are doing even greater international damage to our economic base as a trading and exporting nation.
For all of those reasons I, on behalf of my constituents, will vigorously oppose this bill. Notwithstanding the fact that the government is ramming it through this House with a closure motion today, I will oppose this bill and support the amendments of my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River.