Canadian Heritage committee  Indeed.

Canadian Heritage committee  You are asking me to answer for the Europeans.

Canadian Heritage committee  Oh, oh! It is not a simple issue. These negotiations are being led by trade officers and not by culture or UNESCO international relations officials. When the mindset is trade-oriented and the goal is to expand trade as much as possible, you do not close doors and you try to se

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, I believe so.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, we first have to secure the exemption itself, as it stands, before we are moving forward on any new proposals or any reconfiguration of the clause itself. Let's win the day on that first, and let's secure the grounds that we have secured thus far. In terms of the audiovis

Canadian Heritage committee  If there is a revision of sorts, that's where I would see it coming from, rather than saying that telco has to be brought into the fold and defined as culture-creating content.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, clearly.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, what I've understood is that the minister made it clear that foreign ownership or investment from Europe would not...you know, the policy remains, so that's one area. But when I was alluding to whether we should revise the exemption clause to consider new forms and new ways

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, we've touched the surface of how far we should go into this, but obviously these are industries. It's like book publishing and sound recording. It's sort of a long list of industries. In fact, what you want to secure is a capacity to create content and to have policies and

Canadian Heritage committee  Indeed, that would be one way of looking at it. In actual fact, it states that cultural goods and services are also economic commodities, and as such, embody culture, identity, meaning and values. They occupy an entirely different space from commodities such as carpets, trains

Canadian Heritage committee  You have it. That could be included in the preamble for example.

Canadian Heritage committee  That is right. It could even be more detailed than that. Past treaties, for example, have included definitions, lists and inventories as well as an explanation of exempt culture.

Canadian Heritage committee  Publishing is a clear-cut case. However, I do not see what you are referring to when you mention audiovisual since the Europeans have made no representations in this area. At least, I am not aware of any. It was really Quebec that floated the idea of the protocol, not the Europ

Canadian Heritage committee  The scope of the exemption is more—

Canadian Heritage committee  Indeed it was. In this case, it applies more specifically to audiovisual rather than to culture industries as a whole.