Carole Lavallée on Economic Negotiations with the European Union

Mr. Chair, Quebec was the first state in the world to approve the UNESCO convention on the protection and promotion of culture, generally called the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Canada and the European Union were among the first to support and then ratify this UNESCO convention. Should they not set an example, therefore, and both agree to completely exempt culture from the trade agreement they are negotiating and include in the preamble to the agreement a reference to the UNESCO convention as a legal framework on which cultural exemptions could be based?