Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Joliette on his very timely motion in the House today calling for debate and a vote before any agreement on the free trade area of the Americas is ratified. The riding of Québec will be hosting the summit of the Americas.
I would like to remind members that politicians in Quebec, sovereignist and federalist alike, have always supported free trade, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada, which earlier opposed it.
The 148.6% increase in Quebec's exports to the United States between 1991 and 1998 are testimony to the wisdom of opening up trade. But we must look beyond the apparent success of these figures, and take the time to analyse the real impact these agreements will have on workers, and particularly on their quality of life.
These gains must be kept in perspective. Some workers continue to lose ground. More and more people are earning the minimum wage, without benefits. There is also an increase in the number of jobs without security and atypical jobs.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois is calling for some form of social protection, and is concerned about what is being negotiated behind the scenes. It wants the gulf between rich and poor to stop growing, and it wants to see the growth in exports accompanied by a decrease in poverty and benefits for all classes of society.
We are particularly concerned when we know that the minister who will be at the negotiating table, the current Minister for International Trade, once said that social rights have nothing to do with trade. That is why the Bloc Quebecois is worried. It cannot do the work of all the ministers. We have reason to be worried.
Although the Bloc Quebecois is keenly interested in globalization and is in fact favourable to a liberalization of trade, it also shares the worries and the hopes of the public. The Bloc Quebecois considers that this liberalization must not come at the expense of cultural diversity or social rights, whether through the WTO or the free trade area of the Americas.
My colleagues have talked and will talk abundantly about the importance of addressing social rights and other concerns with respect to the FTAA negotiations. Those are legitimate concerns that are very important to me, but in the few minutes I have I will stick to one aspect, which relates specifically to my responsibilities as heritage critic, and that is how culture ought to be treated.
No one can talk about international trade agreements without thinking about cultural issues. The recent defeat of Canada on the magazine issue is a harsh reminder in that regard. We have great confidence in the ability of our cultural artisans to carve for themselves a place in Quebec as well as in the whole world.
We hope that the conclusion of a trade agreement for the Americas will result in even more extensive cultural exchanges between Quebec and Latin American countries.
So, why worry, some would say. Because Quebec culture did not develop all on its own. The Government of Quebec used its response authority to support its development and growth. That approach was taken by every Quebec government regardless of its political stripe.
It must be recalled that Quebec interventions have been conceived and implemented in order to offset deficiencies in the market environment and to allow for the development of a domestic culture.
That is why we are recommending that any trade agreement preserve any present or future response capability of the Quebec government. The right of governments to adopt policies of support for creators, creation and also distribution must be recognized.
Even more important, cultural diversity is an international asset that should be recognized and protected by an international charter.
Our culture is not totally isolated. The summary report on multi-stakeholder consultations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services, released last week by the Minister for International Trade, provides, under the heading “Autonomy for Self-Governing Bodies”:
Participants feared that policies favouring local hiring, or encouraging cultural sensitivity in the delivery of services, might be compromised.
This fear is all the more justified since, despite the fact that the federal government is stating loud and clear that it supports cultural protection, Cabinet cannot agree on the stand to take.
The Prime Minister of Canada is saying that the question of cultural diversity is a matter for the WTO, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage would prefer that the matter be debated at UNESCO.
In an article in the National Post on November 20 entitled “The Conversion of Sergio Marchi”, journalist Murray Dobbie passes on the disturbing words of Canada's representative to the WTO. According to this journalist, the former minister said that education and teaching could be covered by the next agreements.
However, another summary report on multi-stakeholder consultations with respect to the General Agreement on Trade in Services provides that:
The Government of Canada will not make any commitment that restricts our ability to achieve our cultural policy objectives until a new international instrument can be established designed specifically to safeguard the right of countries to promote and preserve their cultural diversity.
And so, what is this government's true position on culture? Is it that of the Prime Minister or that of the Minister of Canadian Heritage? What is the real intent of the government? The words reported by Mr. Marchi or the summary report released last week by the Minister for International Trade? Could someone in government set the record straight?
Culture means words. It involves the choices we make to express who we are, what we experience, how we feel and what we want to become. These words are conveyed by language, painting, song, film, radio, television, clay modelling and marble polishing. They are conveyed by pictures, etchings, theatre, in a word, by the passion and genius of our artisans, who sketch in broad strokes our daily lives, as witnesses to and tireless participants in our history.
This is why it is so important for us to jealously protect and parsimoniously share the culture of a people.
As Gilles Vigneault put it in his song:
With our words, our games, our work and our dance, our joys and our sorrows too, four hundred years of faith, love and hope with those who lived here, our mirrors and our differences, we have become this people and this country.
It is because of all these emotions and this wealth of day to day experience that we do not want culture reduced to a consumer good like the others. We must not forget that it gives life to a people as they are and that we are here to speak in our own way, in the manner of each people.