Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member speak about the need for the duty remissions. I am one of those on the Standing Committee on Finance who made the recommendation to the minister to have these remissions put back in place for the garment industry.
I find it passing strange that the market is not allowed to work here. What the member is asking for and what all of us on the committee were asking for was essentially that the government not collect tax against this industry in the form of tariffs or duties.
It raises an obvious question considering how serious the problem is for the garment industry. I think the member made the point very strongly that there are a lot of jobs at stake. It raises the question of why we would we charge these duties to begin with.
I think it is a very strong case for letting the market work in the fashion that only the market can work. We know that that there are very low tariffs or duties on most industrial goods now worldwide, especially after the end of the second world war and with the introduction of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and what has evolved into the World Trade Organization. I think tariffs are now in the range of 2% or 3% worldwide.
Agriculture is one big exception to that. A number of people want to have those tariffs reduced as well, to allow the market to function properly in that sector. The textile industry is another. The point made by the member today really illustrates that something gets really out of whack when a member has to stand up and say that our industry needs to be pardoned so we need to make this exemption for it.
Common sense needs to prevail. We should not charge the duties to begin with. We should remove the tariffs. That would be a common sense approach and it has been recognized worldwide by 160 member countries, I think, that are working to try to reduce tariffs worldwide. Does the member not think it would be better in this particular case to just remove those tariffs altogether?