Mr. Speaker, I think my friend is going down that same vague, muddy road. I asked him what constitutes Canadian culture and I think he was completely unable to tell me. Then he said that we need to protect the Canadian identity. I would argue that is the same sort of nebulous term that means something completely different to everybody.
What this boils down to is deciding what is culture for ourselves or what is our Canadian identity. To some people it will be toques and back bacon and drinking beer. To other people it will be going to the NAC to see the symphony orchestra. We have to decide that ourselves. If we do not decide for ourselves it will be decided for us by bureaucrats, which is how we got programs like Bubbles Galore and all of the other boondoggles we hear about.
I say to my friend again, until we can reconcile this problem, how can he possibly say that the United States can somehow put in place these protectionist policies which are completely contrary to the whole idea of free trade? How can my colleague say that we can do that when everybody has a different view of what constitutes Canadian culture and Canadian identity?