Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-21, an act to amend the customs tariff.
The minister of state articulated the need to extend this program, which has been in existence for some time and will come to an end on June 30, 2004. He gave his Liberal spin on it, indicating that it would help everybody in the Third World developing countries. He said that we should continue with it.
We in the Conservative Party agree with the minister and will support the bill because of another aspect. If we do not support the bill, then there could be the possibility of no tariffs and this would result in our markets being flooded by uncontrolled goods coming into the country, which would impact Canadian jobs.
We need a regime of controlled access, giving preferential treatment to developing countries and the least developed countries as well as ensuring that our markets open up slowly to foreign goods, while at the same time taking advantage of it.
We are more in line with having what we call free trade agreements. In light of the fact that the WTO talks in Cancun collapsed, it becomes more important for the world trading regime to consider what to do about tariffs. That is critically important because, in globalization, all studies have indicated that a reduction of tariffs in foreign trade is beneficial to everybody, including Canada.
I will be splitting my time, Madam Speaker, with my colleague from Edmonton--Strathcona.
It is important to understand that a country like Canada, which is based on exports and has a GDP of 48%, now close to 45%, has a regime that regulates international trade. We would like to see this being done under the guise of free trade agreements or special agreements with other countries that would benefit our exporters, benefit other consumers and benefit other countries as well as, with lower tariffs thereby giving an advantage to everyone.
As things stand right now, due to the collapse of the WTO talks in Cancun, we do not know where the world trading regime will go. For that reason, we will support this bill because we need a regime that will control the flow of goods until we know the outcome of the WTO talks, should they carry on and what agreements will come into play.
We are talking about two tariffs, the GPT, or the general preferential tariff, and the least developed country tariff.
I think I have articulated the reasons why we will support the bill. In short, until the outcome of the WTO talks and other tariff regimes on controlling the flow of goods come into play, will support the bill.