Charlie Penson

[Petitions, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition has been signed by 97 Canadians from the Hay River area. They request parliament to grant the concerned aboriginal fishermen, the Deh Cho, a licence to export fish and fish products and to establish their own national and international markets.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague for Calgary—Nose Hill. I thought she gave a very thoughtful analysis of the throne speech.

I see some commentators have taken to calling this the drone speech rather than the throne speech in that it lacks a vision for our country entering a new millennium.

I thought my colleague said it pretty well, but I am really interested in her analysis of the government's 50:50 proposal for spending our so-called surplus. I would like to find out where my colleague stands on the whole issue of 50:50.

In my mind it sounds good. However, I think the Canadian public are being fooled into thinking that 50% will go toward new spending and 50% will go toward the reduction of the debt and the massive tax burden in this country. In fact, we are finding out that basically there is no surplus to split 50:50. I would like to have her analysis of that situation.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the comments by the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest. I cannot disagree with much of what he has said about the Liberal Party's campaign promises in 1993. In fact, I suggest that there were several big rivals told during that campaign which were never lived up to, the GST and free trade.

I want the member for New Brunswick Southwest to clarify the Conservative Party's latest stand on free trade as a result of having David Orchard in its party, the anti-free trader. I want to know where the party stands on free trade these days. Has it taken a left turn?

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for Lanark—Carleton.

He addressed the issue of the brain drain as being very serious. I know the member. I know he is serious about it and is concerned. I wonder how that squares with his government's record on a lot of these issues and the reasons for the fact that our society has this brain drain. The conference board two weeks ago came out with a report which said that Canadians are falling back in terms of innovation and that we are losing some of our brightest people to the United States. That is a fact of life we all know about.

When our committee on international trade asked small and medium size companies why they did not export outside of Canada, they said that too much government regulation was a serious inhibitor to doing business in Canada. Taxes, including payroll taxes, were a deterrent. There were interprovincial trade barriers. I noticed the premier of Ontario on the weekend said that it was easier to do business with several American states than it is with Canadian provinces.

The government has been in power for the last six years and we still have these serious problems. There is a 50:50 split on how it is going to decide what is going to be spent on spending and on debt and tax relief. Yet we have seen social spending increased so there is nothing left to split 50:50.

What is the government doing? It has had six years to address these issues and nothing much has changed.

[Speech From The Throne, October 15th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, Peace River country has had a double whammy. It has had a series of very wet years that have caused farmers to have a low three year margin net income.

The government put together an AIDA program that said it would base payments on a three year margin net income. Guess what? It was so low that farmers do not have the income to get a payout. That is why they are failing again to pay—

[Agriculture, October 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Alberta government recognized the worst farm crisis in Canada since the Great Depression by announcing a $100 million emergency farm program.

Canadian farmers are suffering from circumstances far beyond their control, such as foreign export subsidies, but what is the Liberal government's response? A disaster income program whose criteria are so tough that farmers cannot access the money. I suggest that is the real disaster, the government's program.

What will it take for the minister to wake up and realize that farmers are in a very serious crisis?

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, June 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party was and still is, I believe, the only party that has resisted and said that it is dead against this agreement. The reason is that the evidence has shown that this agreement, this so-called exemption, did not exist. The exemption the government pretended was available to the magazine industry simply did not exist. I believe it was very misleading for the Liberal government to pretend it did.

When the free trade agreement was signed in 1988, Canada supposedly had an exemption clause on our cultural industries, but there was a cost to that, a price to be paid. The price to be paid was that if Canada did that, the United States had the right to retaliate in equivalent effect. That is the essence of this. We have seen it come home. We have seen the cultural industries now say that they do not want any more exemptions. The government told them about how great these exemptions were but they are not serving them well at all.

Instead of saying that the magazine industry has been sacrificed, I would say it has been misled. It continues to be misled because this is the same government that suggests in a report tabled today that Canada is going to protect cultural industries in the next round of the world trade talks, that there is going to be a cultural instrument, a cultural agreement in place.

We know what happened in the so-called failed talks of the MAI. One of the key reasons that failed was the cultural industries exemption. They could not arrive at any agreement as a result of that. I suggest that there is not agreement and there will not be agreement at the World Trade Organization for that exemption clause or any cultural agreement.

Most Canadians would suggest that the United States is the main threat to Canadian culture. That is what is perceived. That is the reason these things are designed. We have NAFTA. We have the original free trade agreement, whether the World Trade Organization comes to an agreement or not.

The United States' biggest export, I believe, is its cultural industries. The Americans regard it as commerce. Think about it for a moment. It is their biggest export. If we think they are going to say that these things are off limits or exempt, I do not believe that position is credible.

It is wrong for the government to pretend that certain conditions exist internationally that will protect our cultural industries in that way. It is wrong and I do not think the government should be doing it, nor the parliamentary secretary or the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

The best thing that can be said about what has happened with Bill C-55 is that it is very much a face-saving gesture. Canadians lost. The Canadian government lost because now we are going to have to subsidize the magazine industries. The Liberal government lost. It got beat up very badly on this. It put the Canadian companies that were on the retaliation list through a painful period of time in our history. For one year they did not know if they were the industries that would be retaliated against.

We had all kinds of presentations from the steel, beef and lumber industries. They told us not to let this thing pass because they may be the ones that would face retaliation. Industries that had already faced tough times in dealing with the Americans possibly would be the ones that would be hit with further duties. It put them through an uncertain time which is unfortunate. It was an uncertain time.

There are legitimate fights that we need to take action on with the Americans. This is not one of them.

There are legitimate fights in the area of softwood lumber. The agreement on softwood lumber is due to expire in less than two years. It is one where Canada has to make significant progress next time around. The softwood lumber managed agreement which this Liberal government put in place is not working. The United States has taken action against rough header lumber. It has taken action against pre-drilled studs. There is going to be more action. We were promised five years of peace by the Liberal government for the forestry sector. What did we get? Anything but.

There is going to be a fight. Energy will be expended in the area of softwood lumber in the next two years. I suggest that at least we put our energies where we have some chance of winning and where we are right on the issues. That is not taking place at the moment.

The cattle industry is facing dumping charges and countervail actions by the United States. The steel industry is continually harassed in terms of facing dumping charges and it has to defend itself against unreasonable action. That is where the trade department and the Canadian government should be putting their energy. Unfortunately that is not the case right now.

With that, I suggest to the parliamentary secretary that there are many different views from Canadians as to whether it is a win or a loss here. If he were to canvass some of his colleagues on the government front benches, he would find there was division all through this debate right inside his own government.

When Canadians are asked what is important to them, what are the priorities and what we should be fighting for, they are talking about things like lower taxes. They are talking about things like less regulation in their lives. The so-called cultural protectionism this government has been providing and advancing as a priority is certainly not a priority for Canadians.

We need to be honest with Canadians. We have to give them a firm assessment of what is possible and what is not possible in future trade talks. I would submit it is not possible to get this cultural protection in any international agreements because there is not international agreement out there.

The United States is probably one of the countries that is most opposed to the idea of cultural protectionism. The Americans very much see this in a different light than Canadians do. They see this as an aspect of business, of commerce, and this Liberal government does not.

I am concerned when this government talks about cultural protectionism. What if other countries were to take the same attitude? What if other countries were to say that they were going to make their countries off limits to Canadian cultural businesses?

What about Canadian artists who want to work in Nashville? What about Canadian artists who want to work or who are currently working in Hollywood? If the Americans were to take this dog in the manger attitude that we have no access to their country, that they are going to protect it, a number of Canadian artists would not have the access to work in the United States.

It is badly designed legislation. The evidence of that is here in the amended version of Bill C-55.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, June 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, although I have had an interruption of several hours and time to reflect on the merits of the Senate amendments and the amended bill, it has not changed my mind.

Last night I was puzzling over the fact whether the heritage minister, in her grand design and maybe in her new capacity as playwright once she leaves the House in the capacity of heritage minister, has designed the production of a play that is either a farce or a tragedy. I have had time to reflect on that and it has to be in the category of a farce. Nothing else would really fit the badly and almost comical way the government has handled the issue of split-run magazines.

This is all about the government having picked a fight with the Americans on an issue that it absolutely lost. It picked a fight and expended a tremendous amount of energy in an area which it knew it could not win. The government thought it would have a lot of people rally behind it, even in its own cabinet, and that simply did not happen.

I suggest this was a badly flawed bill right from the very beginning. The chickens have come home to roost and now we have the amended version of Bill C-55.

There has been a loss of credibility by Canada as a result of the government's actions on the world stage. We have legitimate concerns. We have legitimate problems with the Americans in areas where we need to fight the good fight. Softwood lumber is one of those areas. The matter of whether we are dumping cattle into the United States is another one. Softwood lumber is a very big issue in British Columbia. There are many of them.

This is the same government, by the way, which assured Canadian forest companies that if they signed the softwood lumber agreement we would have five years of peace with the Americans. The government's assurances are basically a bit like a Hollywood movie set. There is a false front, the nice looking hotel, with nothing behind it. That is how the government handles it. It tries to pretend that it is protecting Canadian interests when all it gives is empty rhetoric. It goes on and on.

On the issue of culture the government told us that there was a tremendous exemption which would protect the Canadian cultural industry. The cultural industry is based on that so-called cultural protection, and what do we find? It was not there but it keeps it going.

Now the government is telling the cultural industry that it will take it to the World Trade Organization in the next round of negotiations and that it will give the industry a new cultural instrument, a new cultural agreement in the World Trade Organization. If the cultural industry accepts that premise and builds its policies based on that, it will be disappointed once again.

It is not the only industry that has been subject to the Liberal government's fancy footwork in terms of pretending that it will protect them. As I said softwood lumber is one example, but it goes beyond that.

At the World Trade Organization-GATT back in 1993 in the Uruguay round, the government told the supply management industry that it would protect it and that it would not allow other countries to do away with article 11, which essentially was border closures or no access into Canada of dairy, chicken and eggs. What did we get? We lost. We lost and we had to accept tariffs. We still have very high tariffs in those industries but they will be coming down too.

I suggest supply management cannot believe the government either. It is now telling supply management that we lost at the Uruguay round but, not to worry, at the new round of the World Trade Organization it will protect that industry. I believe that assurance is worth nothing. The government knows that cannot be done, so it is misleading the Canadian public and it is misleading those industries.

How do we regulate a cultural sector. We do not even have a good definition of culture. There is not agreement in Canada on what culture is. There certainly is not an agreement on the Liberal side. We know that there were different ideas by different ministers. How do we regulate that? I suggest it cannot be done.

This does not mean that culture does not deserve Canadians supporting that sector. A better approach, one that is more enlightened, might be to promote our culture in the international trade forum, just like we do with any other business sector. Let us promote culture at our embassies and consulates. It deserves it. We know that Canadian artists deserve that promotion as well. That is a forum that is possible. It is possible to do.

There is another way in which we might address the issue. There are problems with Canadian films getting distribution rights. I suggest that we might look at international competition law or even Canadian competition law. We could even go beyond that and into the United States where competition law might be applied and where there is too much concentration in the hands of one set of business people.

There are forums to be used, such as competition law, to break down that terrific monopoly so that it is possible for Canadians to distribute their own films in their own country. There are things we can do but we have to be realistic. Pretending we can protect them in the forums of this government and in Bill C-55 is simply not realistic.

There are problems that may make Bill C-55, as amended, not even possible to implement. What might they be? On the matter of how much advertising revenues will be permitted for American publications by Canadian advertising companies there is a formula set in place: 12%, 15% and 18% by the end of a three year period. Canadian advertising companies are set to challenge that content regulation because they are being restricted under the charter. That is a substantial issue in itself.

What about the agreement? If it is based on gross revenue, net revenue or after tax profit, who will police it? Will we have another set of culture cops travelling around trying to decide what the revenue base should be? That is exactly what will happen. I suggest there is not common understanding, even with the United States, in the letters that were exchanged.

Do foreign publishers investing in Canada in the other section need to publish magazines with a substantial Canadian content or a majority content? In the letters exchanged just last week we can see where the problem is already starting to percolate.

These letters say that the United States accepts the terms of the agreement which state that a net benefit review by Canada of new investments in the magazine industry will include undertakings from foreign investors which result in a substantial level of original editorial content. The United States is saying a substantial level.

What is Canada saying? Canada is saying that we will use guidelines which call for a majority of original editorial content.

I thought we had an agreement. What kind of an agreement do we have when we cannot even get right if investment in Canada by American companies will have substantial content or majority content? They are entirely different.

We are sowing the seeds for the failure of this agreement. I suggest the Liberal government knew that all along. It is just another Hollywood movie front, the false front it is hiding behind, pretending that it is protecting the cultural industries. That is one aspect of a future problem.

Another aspect is that the Liberal government, in its lack of wisdom, will go into a policy that subsidizes Canadian cultural magazine publications upfront. The Americans are asking, if that is the case, whether they should qualify for it.

We have signed international treaties. We signed the NAFTA agreement. We signed the World Trade Organization-GATT agreement which says that we need national treatment. It is in there. Does the government not realize what kinds of international agreements it has signed? If the government subsidizes Canadian publications it will have to subsidize American publications as well. How absurd.

The whole concept of subsidies is wrong. It is ironic that we will now subsidize American publications. Is this not the height of irony?

In addition, how long will these subsidies last? Canada is going to the World Trade Organization millennium round, kicking off in Seattle this year, to argue against subsidies. It will argue to phase out subsidies internationally. The trade department is doing that and I agree 100%. The Reform Party has suggested that subsidies distort the marketplace. There is no place for them and in fact they are damaging sectors like agriculture very badly.

While the Liberals are speaking from one side of their mouth at the World Trade Organization, they are designing policies to put the very opposite into effect in Canada. How long will those subsidies stand up? This agreement was not designed to stand up very long at all. It is to get them through a critical period. This is a full retreat. It is window dressing. It is trying to save some face in the face of a very badly designed agreement.

The heritage minister picked a fight with the Americans and she lost. The bill should never see the light of day. That is the position of the Reform Party. We will not be supporting it.

[Petitions, June 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise to present a petition signed by 50 people from Fairview in my riding of Peace River as well as others from Stony Plain.

They request parliament to enact legislation that will define in statute that marriage can be only entered into between a single male and a single female.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, June 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motions from the Senate to amend Bill C-55. I realize that my time will be fairly short. I hope to be able to continue my speech tomorrow or else extend the time this evening in order for me to be able to complete my speech.

As the trade critic for the official opposition I think that Bill C-55 has been a total disaster at every turn over the last year.

It seems to me that this all started with the World Trade Organization ruling which told Canada that it could not follow the policies which the government implemented in terms of taxes on split-run magazines. It was very interesting to hear the Minister of Canadian Heritage today say that the government had to respond because Canada lost that ruling.

I would agree, but that is a very different interpretation than we heard a couple of months ago in the House when the heritage minister and the trade minister said that Canada did not lose that ruling. It seems to me that we lost and we have to abide by the rules which we, in turn, put in place.

Canada has been one of the main proponents of trade rules to protect our interests around the world. Why is that? That is because Canada has a relatively small population. We have a very big country with a lot of exports that need to be exported around the world. In fact exports account for 40% of the GDP of the country. They are very, very high. We need to be able to export and, in turn, we need the protection of trade rules.

Canada in the last 50 years has probably been the biggest influence in establishing trade rules at the GATT and subsequently at the World Trade Organization. The rules work for us, and yet when we lose these rulings we have a Liberal government that does not want to accept the rulings and tries to do a dance to work a way around those which are against Canada. We saw it again in the case of the aerospace industry and export subsidies.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage has, as I said, managed this issue very badly, but I have to give her credit. As the minister of culture she has been an amazing playwright. She has written a play called Bill C-55. I am not sure whether I would call it a farce or a tragedy, but it is one of those. I do not think the final act has been written or played out.

I believe that there are a lot more things to come on this issue of culture and the dispute with the United States because the bill is very, very badly designed and will invite further challenges from the United States. It is not only going to invite further challenges from the United States, it will invite further challenges at the World Trade Organization, the very organization where Canada goes to argue to have rules designed concerning subsidies and how they should not be applied against our exports.

We cannot have it both ways. What is really going on is simply a matter of damage control. Canada got beat up very badly, and it deserved to on this issue. The Liberal government managed this issue very badly.

Over the past year we have intimidated a lot of industries in Canada, such as the steel and lumber sectors, which are already facing challenges from the United States. We have intimidated those industries into thinking that they will have to face another round of retaliation. Does the government not recognize, does it not realize, what it is signing in these international agreements? Most people knew that the so-called exemption clause for culture would not hold water.

I believe that the government is basically misleading the Canadian public. It is certainly misleading the cultural industries. It has misled them for the past six years into thinking that they were protected by the exemption clause. Look what it led to, a total collapse in the position of the Canadian government and it had to accept a very bad deal. It is not just bad for the government; it is bad for Canada.

I want to talk about Liberal assurances, this Hollywood movie set that they hide behind. It is not just in the cultural area, but I want to talk about that for a moment. We have the so-called cultural exemption. The cultural industries which built an industry on it thought they had protection. What did they find out? That they had been betrayed.

World Trade Organization negotiations are set to start in Seattle probably next year. What is the Liberal government's position? It is going to protect the cultural industries. It will have a cultural agreement, a cultural instrument inside the WTO agreement. What nonsense. It knows that cannot be accomplished.

We see it over an over again. We saw it in the softwood lumber agreement with the United States. The government accepted the managed trade agreement. There would be five years of peace. No problem. It signed the agreement thinking there would be no disputes for five years. What have we got? Dispute after dispute after dispute because Canada did not know what it was doing at those negotiations.

What about the supply management sector? Again the government is telling the sector not to worry, that it will be protected. It said that in the GATT negotiations in Geneva. It said it would protect article 11, border closures. There would not be product coming into Canada and the sector would not have to convert to tariffs. What happened? The government could not defend that position. Then it came back and said it was sorry. It had tried to protect the sector and it had lost. The government knew full well that it could not protect that sector.

It gets worse. Upcoming trade talks will be held at the World Trade Organization. The government is not only selling the same old story to the cultural sector, it is also selling it to the supply management sector. It is saying not to worry, it will protect them. There will be no movement this time. There are 350% tariffs, but it will protect those sectors. They will not have to worry about it. There will be a 350% tariff after it is finished. What nonsense. Anybody who believes the government on these issues is very naive.

The government is doing the Canadian public a grave disservice. I suggest that the agreement which was reached with the Americans will have ongoing problems which will not be resolved very easily.

We have the business of subsidies. Now we are going to give the Canadian magazine industry subsidies of $100 million a year. That is the figure that is floated out there. It is ironic that the subsidies are not only going to go to the Canadian magazine industry. American magazines which are subject to this agreement will also get subsidies. The Canadian public will subsidize the American magazine industry under this agreement. What nonsense.

The Americans have said that there are current challenges which might happen under this agreement. Here is the caption on the so-called letters that were exchanged a week ago: “The United States accepts the terms of the agreement which states that a net benefit review by Canada on new investments in the magazine industry will include undertakings from foreign investors that result in a substantial level of original editorial comment”. Notice that I said substantial. That is what the United States said. Canada will use guidelines that call for a majority of original editorial content. Which way is it? It is not even clear. Is it substantial or is it a majority?

I suggest that we have all kinds of problems coming and we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. This agreement is nothing more than a short term agreement that is never going to see the light of day in any substantial terms. The government is deceiving the magazine industry yet again.

I could go on and I will at a future date, but I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are telling me that I have to conclude my remarks for this evening.