Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the thoughtful question from the parliamentary secretary. I tried to approach the issue in two ways when we dealt with it at committee. The hon. member was present and we had a huge debate.
What the member is asking for specifically also was addressed by the industry. Can it remain competitive with this particular regime? Also, should we be phasing out the tariffs over time or should we do it over a certain time? How long should the duty remission exist?
Basically the feedback we received from the industry was that it could remain competitive if this were not in place, but obviously not overnight. This is the argument we are making. That remission order needs to be extended.
I cannot answer on how long it should be extended for, because clearly there are certain things we can do in order to deal with allowing for the industry to become more competitive. That is, where we do have trading partners, we can deal specifically with these tariffs that are charged on these types of products and start negotiating through the WTO and others, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, with the countries that are not dealing with reducing the overall tariffs.
The government can actually lead on that and try to lead the argument to reduce the overall tariffs. If that could happen more quickly, then we would not need this remission order in place for very long. Clearly our industries can compete once we address those issues of tariffs. Ideally, I would like to see them phased out quickly as long as we can do something on the flip side and deal with the overall tariff regime.
I know that initially we are calling for the extension of the remission order, so that will deal with the initial $30 million that the parliamentary secretary mentioned. We are willing to deal with that right away.
As for eliminating the rest of the tariffs, I am willing to open up that debate and look at ways to be able to phase it in. I know that it would be difficult to do it overnight, just as it would be difficult to eliminate the remission orders overnight. I would be willing to debate that and see how we could possibly phase it in, as I said, for the best interests of the industry.