SINT Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE, TRADE DISPUTES AND INVESTMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

SOUS-COMITÉ DU COMMERCE, DES DIFFÉRENDS COMMERCIAUX ET DES INVESTISSEMENTS INTERNATIONAUX DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, June 2, 1999

• 1531

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.)): Order.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade subcommittee on international trade, trade disputes and investment.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is conducting an examination of Canada's priority interests in the upcoming free trade area of the Americas process.

The committee has travelled east and west, along with the main committee of foreign affairs and international trade, and has heard submissions during presentations on our role and priorities in the WTO negotiations. We hope to complete our report in September and bring it forward at that time.

We're delighted to have you all here today.

We'll start with you, Ms. Williams, as national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. You also have Ms. Chan with you.

Please begin.

Ms. Megan Williams (National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts): Thank you.

I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. We addressed some members of the committee about a month ago.

I'd like to introduce my colleague, Marlene Chan, who started working with the Canadian Conference of the Arts this February on specifically our international work, which has in the past few months really accelerated.

Although we're a national arts service organization, we find we're spending more and more time on international issues and issues of international cultural policy and how they affect our membership, which is comprised of arts service organizations, cultural labour organizations, cultural industries organizations, and individuals interested in Canadian cultural policy and advocacy.

I've prepared a statement, which I see you have here. I'll go through not the whole thing but a few points.

I guess it's obvious that an organization like ours this week is feeling somewhat battered in the wake of Bill C-55. The deck of cards is still falling. We don't really know what has come out of it, but we did spend a lot of energy over the winter months advocating passage of the bill without amendments. We're really wondering what's going to happen in the next few weeks.

If culture had really been off the table in the NAFTA agreement, we feel this type of thing wouldn't have happened.

A few weeks ago we made a presentation, along with June Callwood, Jack Stoddart, and Robert Pilon, to the Senate. At that time we were saying that had the cultural exemption in NAFTA not had this ominous clause attached to it, permitting retaliation in other sectors of the economy, the whole furor about Bill C-55 wouldn't have happened.

In fact, we were saying that in terms of the retaliation the Americans were permitted, had they made that type of retaliation it would have been far less significant than the media would have had us believe. Really, they couldn't have retaliated any more than the amount of the lost advertising revenues, which was quite an insignificant amount in terms of the whole balance of trade.

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I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of rhetoric around these issues that is sometimes unsubstantiated, and it's very important to lay things out very clearly from the beginning and not have conflicting clauses on culture, like the one we see in NAFTA.

We've been very supportive of the cultural industries SAGIT report. We believe it's very important to develop a cultural covenant that would define culture not simply as a commodity but as a matter of national importance and to be able to remove it from whatever international trade agreements are developed. That would include, of course, the FTAA.

We have put in place a rather high-profile international advisory committee for the CCA. They are now concentrating on several issues. One of them is building an international network of cultural organizations. One of the things they have said very clearly is that we have to start engaging in this type of discussion and the type of discussion that will take place during the World Trade Organization's millennium round. So we're preparing ourselves for that, and the committee is interested in what's going on in other countries in a parallel process to this.

We've been working closely with the Department of Canadian Heritage. They're supporting our efforts in this regard. In fact, Marlene Chan has been seconded to us from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The international conference of cultural ministers, which Minister Copps initiated last June, will be continuing this year in September in Mexico. That's something we're actively engaged in. We organize the parallel process for non-government organizations.

I'll just digress here a little bit to say that we're working to organize a parallel conference in Mexico—parallel to the ministers—for international cultural organizations. We're having a very difficult time, because the NGOs in Mexico are almost non-existent in the cultural area. Any connection we have is tied in very closely with government, and the Mexican government is not welcoming a conference of NGOs. I think they're fearful of the implications, although certainly they have nothing to fear from this type of conference.

I'm mentioning that because I think we'll experience the same problem as we widen the circle and start working with other cultural organizations in Latin and South America. The type of development we see here in Canada, with a very complex cultural infrastructure, just doesn't exist in those countries. We have to figure out how we can engage with them.

Related to that is the issue of civic society, how it's developed in the southern hemisphere, and how we connect with them.

The Canadian government has launched a task force on the voluntary sector, which the CCA is part of. The intention of the task force is to increase the capacity of the non-profit sector and to improve its relationship with government and the regulatory framework for the non-profit sector.

We're very supportive of that initiative, because as our capacity as a non-profit organization increases, we're more able to seek out our counterparts in other countries and to work with them. This process of working through the non-profit NGO sector is very important in this type of free trade agreement because civic society has to be developed to a certain level before those organizations exist.

So I just wanted to add that testimonial to the process of the voluntary sector task force, which your government initiated as part of the red book plan.

I'm just checking my notes here to see if there's anything else I wanted to mention in particular.

I'll leave it at that. I think you can refer to my paper for your questions.

I would like to ask Marlene to briefly mention the meeting in Paris.

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Ms. Marlene Chan (International Coordinator, Canadian Conference of the Arts): We're trying to seize every opportunity we can to work together with other organizations like ours in the cultural sector.

As Mexico seems to be becoming not the ideal place we thought it might be, something else has surfaced. You probably are aware of it. Although we out there don't get information sent to us that regularly, we did find out about a Paris symposium of experts on culture, the market, and globalization. I think it's an opportunity for us. Its title is Culture: A Form of Merchandise Like No Other.

We're hoping that four members of our international advisory committee will be able to go and to network there with whoever comes.

The Chair: When is it taking place in Paris?

Ms. Marlene Chan: From June 14 to 15.

The Chair: Next week?

Ms. Marlene Chan: Yes. Some of our members haven't even received their invitations yet. I know Ken was saying he hasn't even seen what I have here.

Mr. Ken Stein (Senior Vice-President, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, Shaw Communications Inc.): And I'm a panellist.

Ms. Marlene Chan: So we're really concerned. It's organized by Canada, they say, and the French National Commission for UNESCO. It's a bit disconcerting when you consider that everyone is talking the talk about civil society, and trying to involve people in these discussions, when no one seems to be informed.

Ms. Megan Williams: There will be some officials present from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The Chair: I think the minister is going.

Ms. Megan Williams: Well, possibly. We're going to use the opportunity, with our advisory committee members who are going to be there, to continue constructing our global network of non-government cultural organizations and to discuss the implications in the parallel process in Mexico. So we have sidebar meetings going on there.

There is just one more small thing I wanted to say about this. During this whole process of cultural meetings, going on from Stockholm to here to Mexico and so on, I think what we're seeing here is that UNESCO has suddenly realized that it might not have been as active in cultural policy development as it thought it was, and is now catching up.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Stein, senior vice-president, corporate and regulatory affairs of Shaw Communications, welcome.

Mr. Ken Stein: Great. Thank you again.

I'm always impressed by Megan, because she can have speaking notes in front of her and then extemporaneously talk much more articulately than anybody else.

I've prepared some speaking points, and I think I'll pretty much stick to those in terms of the points I'd like to make. Of course, I also look forward to your questions.

I am the senior vice-president, as the chairperson described, of Shaw Communications. I'm also chair of the special advisory group for international trade for cultural industries, or, as it's most popularly known, the SAGIT on culture.

When I appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in March, I outlined the recommendations our committee had put forward to the Minister of International Trade regarding the need for new strategies for culture and trade. These recommendations are outlined in our report, Canadian Culture in a Global World. I hope you've all had a chance to review it.

The SAGIT committee itself represents a broad range of industries and organizations in the cultural sector. They're listed at page iv of that report.

The report reads:

Canada has reached an important crossroad in the relationship between trade agreements and cultural policies. The tools and approaches used in the past to keep cultural goods and services from being subject to the same treatment as other goods and services may no longer be enough. As it is clear from events over the past few years, the cultural exemption has its limits.

I would add that events over the past few weeks have certainly confirmed this conclusion.

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In summary, the SAGIT recommended that Canada take the lead in developing a new international instrument that would lay out the ground rules for cultural policy and trade and allow Canada and other countries to maintain policies that promote their cultural industries.

I've set out the five essential elements of this new instrument. They would do the following: recognize the importance of cultural diversity; acknowledge that cultural goods and services are significantly different from other products; acknowledge that domestic measures and policies intended to ensure access to a variety of indigenous cultural products are significantly different from other policies and measures; set out rules on the kinds of domestic regulatory and other measures that countries can and cannot use to enhance cultural and linguistic diversity; and establish how trade disciplines would apply or not apply to cultural measures that meet the agreed-upon rules.

We still believe this initiative can best proceed on two tracks. The first is to develop a process amongst governments, industries, and other organizations that would seek to find ways to enhance and protect our right to assert national cultural objectives and to promote cultural diversity. Through this process we would identify those countries that share our view that, in an increasingly global economy, the development of cultural diversity and the means to assert national identity must be given a priority. The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Mrs. Copps, and her department have worked hard to pursue this initiative, and this effort must continue.

In the development of new international trade agreements, Canada would continue to assert the need for priority attention to cultural objectives and to find the means to define measures that would be acceptable to protect national identity and cultural diversity in such agreements.

Over the past few months, we have had the opportunity to engage in a number of discussions on our report. We are quite pleased by the positive response we have received both in Canada and internationally, including in Europe and even the United States.

For example, I would note that the Federation of European Film Directors, a significant arts organization in its own right, has also called for “an international instrument providing a means of establishing the legitimacy of cultural policies”.

I should also add that the form I received from the film directors essentially indicated that they were now also questioning exemptions as a means of protecting cultural policies and measures.

On the international side, through Mrs. Copps' initiative, there will be a UNESCO conference in Paris on June 14 and 15.

I do think Megan is correct when she says that UNESCO may not be doing as much, but quite frankly, I do think Mrs. Copps is probably doing more to drive that process than anybody else, and calling them to account as to what they are or aren't doing. That conference....

I've titled that conference differently, which shows how free flowing this is. I thought it was called Culture: the Market and Globalization. I guess we'll see when we get there.

This theme essentially was chosen as a follow-up to the plan of action approved by the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for development in Sweden on April 2, 1998. The UNESCO conference in Paris will bring together experts from around the world to consider how we can work together to ensure that cultural policies are given the highest priority.

In the United States, Ambassador Chrétien and his officials have had a number of ideas as to how we can generate a positive public discussion on these issues in the United States. I appeared on a panel at a symposium in Washington just two weeks ago. It was attended by representatives of the U.S. State Department, USTR, FCC, and Canadian officials. It was an extremely useful session. It provided some further ideas on how the ongoing discussion can proceed.

In my view, the ministers and their departments have given priority attention to these matters, and we very much support their initiatives. Both departments have a clear view of what needs to be done and of the necessity to work closely together. By that I mean all of us, but in particular the departments of heritage and trade.

In addition to the work undertaken by ministers and by your committee, and by officials of the two departments, there is a need for a broader consultative effort from the government to ensure that there is a substantive dialogue in Canada about the issues and questions that must be addressed in this area.

In this regard, the Department of International Trade has initiated discussions to seek the opinion of Canadian stakeholders—I know they held a session in Toronto just last week—on how Canada can continue to achieve its trade policy and cultural objectives. This effort must be continued and intensified over the coming months.

We must ensure that we achieve the same level of discussion in Canada as we do internationally. It would be ironic indeed if we succeeded in having a positive discussion that led to concrete results on the international front without a proper discussion of these issues in Canada.

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On an overall basis, however, we have been pleased and surprised by the wide range of support the recommendations of the SAGIT have generated.

In the discussions over the past few months, one issue has been of particular concern. I would like to raise it with you. I think it may be germane to discussions, particularly with respect to the Americas.

The issue I'm referring to is the lack of attention being paid in Canada to the need to develop a strong content industry on our own terms. While we worry about international agreements, it may well be that all our efforts are irrelevant if we can't take advantage of the opportunities the new economy has to offer. It should be of concern that while we in Canada worry more about content, the U.S. is actually doing more to ensure that they have a strong content industry.

At a recent industry conference held some months ago, I heard an FCC commissioner—I couldn't actually believe my ears—state that the key objective for the U.S. information, communication, and entertainment industries is to achieve and maintain “world dominance”.

While this is a stark, and some would say obvious, statement, it demonstrates that the American government and the broadcasting and entertainment industries have created policies and industry structures to achieve that objective. They have pushed for changes in the rules governing international trade to ensure that this objective can be accomplished beyond their own borders.

For the Canadian cultural industry to compete in the content business, we have to become stronger and more integrated.

I've attached some charts, because they come from a piece of work we've done over the past two years in our own industries. They demonstrate the stark comparison between Canadian media companies and players in the U.S.

In Canada, while we worry about concentration of ownership, as the last chart demonstrates, our Canadian broadcasting and entertainment industry's total annual sales are about $2.5 billion. Disney Corporation itself is over $34 billion, and Time Warner is close to $38 billion. These indicate that we aren't actually in the same ballpark.

This works both ways. When the Americans say, well, you know, everybody can compete, the thing is, we have to take account of the fact that in Canada we don't have a structure that actually can be that competitive, and we have to pay special attention to that.

My concern is that as technology breaks down the barriers, we will not have used the window we now have to build a strong industry in Canada that will be able to compete effectively around the world.

Just to deviate a bit from our remarks, my concern is that while we have, under an exemption policy, created a particular structure in Canada, and we now realize that this exemption policy may not work, we then have to look around the world at the other structures. Our structure may not be competitive.

I think trade is a two-way street. It's about international agreements, but it is also about how our domestic capability matches in terms of being able to be competitive.

It has to be absolutely clear to everybody—and this is going to be very germane in the discussions on the Americas—that the U.S. is entirely focused on being world dominant in telecommunications, information technology, and in the entertainment industry.

It is of concern that in Canada we say content is important but at the same time do little to encourage the development of strong world players. And I don't mean just large; this also applies to supporting our smaller entrepreneurs in terms of the ways they can participate in the new economy.

In terms of the specific questions raised, I would suggest that the development of a new integrated instrument on cultural diversity should proceed as a matter of priority and would provide a better means of achieving our cultural objectives as far as trade discussions are concerned, better than the exemption approach.

Since this effort has just begun, and because Canada has taken a leading role in these initiatives—and this is demonstrated in Megan's remarks with respect to the difficulties the NGOs are having in Mexico—we will have to work hard to build allies in the Americas and elsewhere.

Sheila Copps last week said to me that it was interesting; when she had the conference of cultural ministers in June, it was the first meeting of cultural ministers anywhere in the world—the first.

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So for those people who ask, “Who are your allies out there?”, well, this is a start. We are now starting on this issue, and it's going to take a lot of work.

I do think the efforts of Mrs. Copps and Mr. Marchi should bear results in this area, but it will take a lot of time, and they will need a lot of support to do it.

Overall, the government must establish as a priority the development of policies to strengthen the content and media industries in Canada. If you come back with a grand agreement on the Americas, and Canadian companies cannot take advantage of that agreement, we are not in good shape. In the absence of such policies, we will not be able to take advantage of the new instruments or arrangements. We cannot let this happen.

Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to your questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Stein.

Last, but definitely not least, we have Mr. Barry Grills, co-chair of the Writers' Union of Canada.

Welcome, Mr. Grills.

Mr. Barry Grills (Co-Chair, Writers' Union of Canada): Thank you.

You already have a document we've submitted, a brief in connection with the WTO. The notes I'm reading now are supplementary to that in view of recent developments since then. They are, hopefully, a little bit more specific to the Americas area.

I am also the voluntary chair of the Cultural Agenda Lobby Committee of the Writers' Union of Canada.

By way of introduction, the Writers' Union of Canada is a creator organization within the cultural sector composed of book authors of various genres. As such, our approach to the intersection of culture and trade is broadly based. We are committed to the fact that culture is more than just a product or commodity, that it is a creative process fostered in a specific cultural environment.

As Canadians, we are particularly sensitive to this fact. Our closest neighbour has a powerful culture that continually threatens our own, if not out of malice then at least because of its size, inherent self-interest, and persistence.

To a creator, culture is a process that begins long before the cultural product results, generated usually out of a diverse cultural environment. As my former co-chair, Merilyn Simonds, has described it, culture is “the right of a nation to hear itself think”.

We therefore recognize culture, its dissemination and proliferation, as a fundamental and sovereign human right, an essential freedom, the maintenance of which is a national government's responsibility—obligation, even, especially when they approach the bargaining table in matters of trade or investment.

The Canadian government has historically taken this view most notably when it and its provinces and territories signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is monitored by the United Nations. It is a clear statement of the intentions and rights of culture as I've briefly defined them above.

Without the essential affirmation that culture is an environment in which to create long before it results in a cultural product, that cultural environment will weaken, ultimately eliminating the creation of the uniquely Canadian cultural product as it is distinct from other cultural products.

Having outlined our view thematically and in principle, there are certain more specific issues over which we have grave concerns.

We are alarmed at the growing tendency at the WTO level and in other proposed trade or investment agreements to utilize dispute settlement mechanisms over issues we feel are outside the purview of trade. Where culture is concerned, especially as we have defined it, trade dispute settlement mechanisms are a privatizing of what is in truth a sovereign public dispute. Such disputes should be settled with more appropriate public mechanisms reflecting that although trade is always part of culture, culture exceeds trade as a broader definition of human endeavour.

Similar concerns arise out of intellectual property rights. We have grave concerns that the trend in trade agreements is to direct IP litigation towards such trade panels as dispute settlement mechanisms, thereby compromising nations and individual creators. While IP rights have a historic base in industrial matters, the tendency is to ever-increasingly apply them to culture, an issue that needs a great deal of public discussion.

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Linked to this is the need for increasing study of international copyright, especially in view of the vast electronic means of violating individual copyright, again ensuring globally that such rights are enforced with public, legal dispute settlement mechanism rather than trade tribunal dispute settlement mechanisms.

Because national democratic sovereignty is essential to the creation and proliferation of Canadian culture, we have concerns over the various chapter 11 cases that have resulted under NAFTA. Such cases, though not usually in the realm of culture per se, have shown that private corporations can force the repeal of sovereign legislation, which is essential to Canadian culture.

As you are probably aware, the sectoral advisory group on international trade is attempting to come up with a proposed international agreement on culture ensuring its diversity within the framework of liberalized trade. We too support an international agreement on culture, and are working with SAGIT on this proposal. My committee will be submitting a detailed brief to SAGIT on this subject shortly, following recent meetings with SAGIT and other cultural representatives.

Our approach, however, is to broaden the definition of culture within the framework of trade so that the cultural commodity, and not cultural sovereignty, is the item that is traded. We are also helping SAGIT to present this proposal for a separate cultural agreement to other nations through such bodies as the European Writers Congress by directing them to their own trade ministries, by sharing SAGIT's report with them, and by informing them of our view of the importance of cultural sovereignty.

Canadian authors compete very well in the world marketplace. This reflects the merit of their work but it also reflects the cultural encouragement they've received in the formative stages of their development. The increasing pressure to roll back existing Canadian government initiatives to protect and encourage its cultural diversity, however, threatens especially this formative sovereign environment in which creators learn and develop their craft. Nor does this apply strictly to Canada. Other nations in the western hemisphere, exclusive of the United States, are, we expect, in the same situation.

We stress the principles of culture we have outlined and refer you again to the international covenant, which captures the principles that we believe are fundamental to sovereign cultural rights and that we are using as a statement of principle for any international cultural agreement.

As a member of our union, author John Ralston Saul, points out, trade agreements are becoming more than trade agreements; they are a restructuring of society. Canada can lead the initiative that defends the cultural right to the creative process and the sovereign environment in which it is created, not only for Canadians but for other nations as well.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Grills.

Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

When I look at the chart on the back page of the presentation Mr. Stein made, I can see Time Warner and Disney Corporation's size. When I think that the biggest export of the United States is their entertainment industry, I'm just wondering how....

I certainly believe that maybe the groups making these representations are a little naive in thinking they can get this so-called international covenant, international agreement. It goes back 10 years, to the original free trade agreement with the United States. I believe a lot people even then knew there was not going to be a cultural protection for Canada in that exemption.

The fact that the United States had the right to retaliate in equivalent effect is a very powerful weapon, as we've just seen.

I noticed, Ms. Williams, that you talked about how retaliation would have been insignificant, but that's certainly not what I was hearing from some of the industries that were under that threat of retaliation. They were very concerned about it. I think that was reflected in the fact that Bill C-55 had to get changed.

I can't quite understand how you think you're going to arrive at this international agreement, with the United States having this massive industry planning in terms of exporting culture. We haven't been able to get it under the original free trade agreement, we haven't been able to get it under NAFTA, and we haven't been able to get under the World Trade Organization. Now somehow we think we're going to arrive at this so-called cultural agreement, which would have to be tied into the World Trade Organization somehow to change their rules affecting cultural exports.

I put it to you, is it a realistic position?

The Chair: Ms. Williams, please.

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Ms. Megan Williams: I don't know if you have read the current Maclean's magazine, but there is a rather touching editorial by Peter Newman, the great Canadian nationalist. His last lines in that editorial were to the effect that maybe it is absurd to advocate for a national culture in Canada, but it's even more absurd not to try.

You know, I approach a lot of this work with a spirit of optimistic pessimism. In a way, especially when I see Ken's chart, I feel it's absurd in the face of the sheer size of the American entertainment industry to say that we have a right to our own voices and our own culture. In one sense I can see this tidal wave coming over us, but in another sense, we work for the arts in Canada. I have a very strong belief that we need to hear writers like Peter Newman. We need to hear what they have to say, and we never would have heard it if we hadn't had certain cultural policies in place that promoted our Canadian publishing industry. We wouldn't have seen his books, and we wouldn't have read the history of Canada through his eyes.

So until the tidal wave engulfs us, we're here to advocate for things like an international covenant that removes culture from being simply a commodity. I'm going to go ahead believing it will work.

When I hear support from my colleagues and other thinkers in Canada, including John Ralston Saul, I feel that the strength of the intellectual weight of this country is behind this idea. Let's try it.

The Chair: Mr. Stein.

Mr. Ken Stein: First of all, you are right in terms of the U.S. size, and obviously they have plans in terms of the Americas as well. They are quite active in broadcast entertainment in southern and central America. So I think they would look askance at any arrangements we would like to put in place with Mexico or with other countries in terms of the effect on particular companies they have, as a matter of policy, already chosen to support.

On the other hand, the thing is, as Megan says, we believe you have to make the effort in terms of trying to do that. It's struck me, in a number of discussions I've had in Washington over the past few months, that a number of Americans sympathize or even support the types of objectives we've put forward. They have their own concerns within their own market with respect to the dominance of the large players and the homogeneous products that represents.

I believe there is an opportunity to have discussions with Americans to try to come to some arrangements to ensure that you can put in place cultural measures. I think we have begun those discussions. As I indicated, the ambassador and his people have had some good ideas on how to do that. It may take some time, but I think there is a lot more willingness to talk about this and to look at this, particularly if we come at it from the point of view of cultural diversity. I think when we come at it from that point of view, we get a lot more support.

When you come at it from the point of view of protection, obviously any support you are going to get in the United States is totally eroded. But when you come at it from the point of view of saying, you know, we have to have many voices, many players in this world....

I think “biodiversity” is Mrs. Copps' favourite example. We have measures in place to protect biodiversity, and we have measures in place to protect our own individual rights, so why can't we have measures in place to ensure that we can enhance and protect the rights of our cultural institutions?

Mr. Charlie Penson: That's fair enough, but if it's not a realistic position, we could have another ten years of trying to fool ourselves that we will have this protection. Wouldn't it be better to come at it in the form of anti-competitive behaviour in the United States, where you talk about the dominance by some companies? Wouldn't that be a better solution, to try to get film distribution so that they have to break down those organizations such that they can't dominate the market to the extent they do now? I mean, Bill Gates is facing that type of action right now.

The question is, I guess, as we try to decide on policy on the FTAA, are you advising us not to sign anything until we get this new cultural instrument in place?

Mr. Ken Stein: No, that's why we advocated the two tracks. What we said was that we recognize—and I think I said this the last time in the committee—that for a whole range of reasons, Canada wants to pursue liberal trade policies. We support that. We think you have to go along that track.

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We're also saying, though, that we think there is an opportunity here to develop a new instrument that essentially would say that countries are allowed to take these particular kinds of steps to protect their cultural institutions.

We haven't done a thorough catalogue of it, but the U.S. has ownership restrictions. They have broadcasting laws and rules. They have antitrust rules that we find weird. If they find ours weird, well, we find theirs weird, too, but they have a right to have their strange laws and we should have a right to have our strange laws.

Mr. Charlie Penson: At the WTO there is going to be discussions in the next round about international competition law. So many of these industries operate in many countries. They aren't confined to just one country. Maybe yours is an example, I don't know.

It seems to me there is an opportunity to pursue what I am suggesting as a way of achieving the same type of goal you want. Otherwise, I can't see the United States signing this international covenant you're talking about when just this week that's not the direction they're showing in fighting Bill C-55.

Mr. Ken Stein: I'll make two comments.

First, when I was in Washington at a symposium, one of the comments I made that I thought got the most support was, “The WTO doesn't rule the world.” I understand that's a famous quote within the U.S. Congress as well. U.S. Congress members have said, look, we aren't going to be dictated to by the WTO.

I'm sitting here saying, well, why don't we take the same position in Canada? If the U.S. Congress can say it, we can say it.

Second, I think we've just started this discussion. We have to give it a chance. We're trying to find a means of having the discussion. It's not an easy discussion to get started, but I think we're trying to do it. I think what we're doing is just saying let's have an opportunity to get this discussion going.

I think people feel that there is a good basis to see how it goes. I realize the U.S. position on magazines. Basically, the U.S. is very reluctant, very nervous, about the Canadian initiative. As far as I can see from some of the discussion in the United States and some of the papers being produced, all of a sudden there's this huge interest in culture and trade issues, when a year ago there wasn't. Stacks of papers are now being produced in various think-tanks, etc., in the United States about the whole issue.

The problem comes in when they see cultural measures put in place as protectionist measures. That's where they have a problem. When they see it as simply being a means of protecting a commercial activity, then the support goes away. But when you can very clearly point to this as being a very important thing from a cultural point of view—and maybe we didn't make that argument very well in certain areas—then I think we will be able to get more support, even in the United States.

The Chair: Mr. Grills, do you want to add something?

Mr. Barry Grills: Just very briefly, Madam Chairman.

I think what you're saying, in a sense, is that they're going to roll over us anyway, so what's the point?

Mr. Charlie Penson: No, that's not it.

Mr. Barry Grills: That's not exactly it, but—

Mr. Charlie Penson: I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think it's realistic to think that they're going to sign that international accord you're proposing. Maybe a better method would be to look at things like anti-competitive behaviour, where you have concentrations in companies like Time Warner or any other company that is dominating the industry in such a fashion that small companies can't get started.

Mr. Barry Grills: Okay. Thank you.

First of all, we feel we do have support, especially in Europe, for this type of international agreement. Canada is in such an extraordinary position, being next door to someone that huge. In a sense, I've been viewing the whole American economic exercise for the last, oh, I don't know, 20 years, which is a little bit naive in its own right.

As one of our members, David Suzuki, explains it, this is based on a growth economy on a finite planet. In that sense, I think that's a cultural issue.

• 1615

As Mr. Stein points out, we have to get that message across better and with a much more precise but broad definition so that the Americans understand, when we're talking culture here, we're not talking something that is a good and that can be dealt with in a protectionist fashion. What we're talking about here are fundamental sovereign rights.

I know this part is difficult. Most of my experience is with the MAI, and I could see it in there. It was so perplexing as to be almost unbelievable.

I think we have a chance to do this. That's why we're going ahead.

The Chair: Great. Thank you.

Any questions, Monsieur Tremblay?

Madam Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Merci, madame la présidente.

With regard to naïveté, I totally agree with you, Madam Williams, that nothing tried, nothing won. That's to begin with. I feel very strongly that the federal government should still assume the responsibility it assumed in the fifties, which is to help Canadian culture through help to authors, composers, and the arts in general.

I remember the fifties, when we used to have CBC Wednesday Night, for example.

I'm older than I look, I know.

Obviously, however, this is not the fifties, and we're now working with globalization, which means that our culture goes everywhere—we hope—and certainly other cultures come over to our side.

I wonder whether you have looked at the relationship between Quebec culture and France, and whether that might be of any help in the sense that France also has a very—shall I put it kindly—domineering culture in French, particularly in books and authors, and yet Quebec has managed not only to maintain its own but at the same time to even export books through all sorts of mercantile arrangements to France. Quebec literature is recognized as a separate branch of literature within the French language.

I wonder whether you've looked at that model. If so, perhaps you would say something to us about it.

Mr. Stein's point about bringing it through the elements of diversity rather than protectionism I think is extremely important. My experience with Americans is that when you talk about protection or government help or anything that goes against the grain of capitalism in its worst way, to my thinking, they just don't understand. They just don't follow us when we talk about the government's role. We saw what happened to public television, for example, and to the arts in the United States. So I think that certainly is a way that could be taken.

I will ask a question regarding Minister Copps' initiative. Last year I went to a supper where she received the ministers of culture from various European nations. Certainly there is strength in numbers. Somebody—I think it was you, Mr. Grills—mentioned that.

How can you use this particular initiative? This group was set up in order to meet this type of challenge. How can you use this particular group and this type of initiative to counter the effects of American influence? I agree with the fact that American influence is everywhere.

Those are my two questions, then, the first regarding Minister Copps' initiative and the second regarding the Quebec-France relationship in terms of literature.

Thank you.

Ms. Megan Williams: I'll answer your question maybe a bit obliquely. I have worked in the cultural community all my life, and we have looked many times to Quebec as an example of a provincial government that has been extremely enlightened in its support of culture.

For example, Quebec is the only province that has status of the artist legislation. It exists on the federal level, but in no other province of Canada. When we're speaking to arts communities across Canada, we often use the example of Quebec. I think the provincial governments especially have a lot to learn from the way Quebec has treated culture.

We've seen also that France is an extremely strong voice in the ministers of culture contact group, and very articulate on matters of cultural sovereignty and cultural diversity.

• 1620

As far as the ministers of culture meeting goes, Marlene and I participated in a meeting of the contact group that was here in February and that had representatives of all the ministries who are attending the meetings.

I'm getting at your question in a very roundabout way. We've become aware that cultural development in Canada is on such a different scale from other countries. For example, the Mexican culture department received an invitation from Canada to participate in a symposium on public lending right. In Canada, authors whose books are in public libraries receive not a licence fee but an annual fee for the public use of their books. Well, when the Mexican government department received this invitation, they had no concept of what public lending right was. They just put it aside, not realizing what it was.

The Mexicans brought this example to the table as the type of thing the non-government and ministers' conferences can accomplish. Just talking to other countries about the kinds of instruments we have in Canada for the promotion of culture and cultural diversity is a very important process. So there's a very important educational process that goes on. We, as a well-developed country, can offer help to other countries that way.

There's one other thing. This has nothing to do with anything, really, but I just have to say it. I took my kid to see Star Wars last night, and it's all based on trade disputes. The whole fight or argument centres around intergalactic trade disputes. It's so ironic.

That the Americans have come right out and said that nothing short of world dominance is acceptable in trade disputes is illustrated so magnificently by this film. I think it's required viewing for anyone who's interested in international trade disputes.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: But I think the world dominance part was portrayed by the bad guy in this film. We won.

Ms. Megan Williams: Yes, in a way, that's right; exactly. That's an interesting lesson there. We need to write more about it, I think.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Does anyone else want to comment?

Mr. Ken Stein: Yes, on the Canada-France question.

I think Mrs. Trautmann, the minister who is most responsible for this area in France, has taken a very strong personal interest in trying to develop this type of approach. I think she's been quite supportive of Mrs. Copps in terms of trying to move this forward, and very supportive of trying to get UNESCO more involved in terms of trying to, for example, get something going with the action plan, to see this happen. So I think there has been that type of discussion.

It's interesting that on our SAGIT, the members who come from Quebec have briefed the Government of Quebec. I think we generally feel this is an area where we can work together in terms of trying to achieve our objectives.

But that's not a public thing. I think we're on the same wavelength. I know from some of the discussions I've been at in Washington, a number of people—I'm not saying they're from the province of Quebec—will take more particular interest in the Quebec industry as opposed to the English-language industry in Canada.

The other point I would make is that we've always felt in Canada that while the French language is more protected than not because there's a natural barrier there, in our SAGIT group of people from across the country, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, we developed more of an understanding of the issues for the people whose first language is the French language. I think it's important in its own self to ensure that we have the ability to protect that type of situation in our own country as well.

I think that's a point we have to make as well internationally, that it's important for us to be able to have our own type of structure. We don't want to just be dictated to by the competition laws of the United States, or by the American definition of what is culture and what is not culture, or the fact that they do live in a one-language type of market. Sure, they do have other languages, but their approach to language is different from ours. Their approach to immigration and multiculturalism is different from ours, very different.

• 1625

I do think we just have to be able to assert those kinds of points, but from the French language point of view and from the Government of France point of view, I think they are people who, at least at the beginning of the discussions, will be quite supportive of this type of approach.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I don't know whether I explained it correctly, but my question had to do with the relationship between French literature in Quebec and French-language literature, and whether it could be somewhat the same as the relationship between American culture and English-Canadian culture. But it's turned out to be not quite so.

You know, there are lots of “French French books”, as we say in Quebec, in Montreal, but there's a market for French-Canadian literature as well. So we've been able to hold our own and even to move forward. I wonder whether there is a lesson to be learned there.

Mr. Ken Stein: It's interesting—and obviously Barry would know more about this—but Canadian writers do extremely well in the U.S. market, and yet when I read them, they are Canadian. They speak to things that to me are Canadian, and yet they have a tremendous appeal in the United States. So I think in certain parts of the culture....

As Megan said, you sometimes get thinking about something else. She made a reference to Star Wars.

It's interesting to me that Americans generally are very culturally focused. I mean, this is not an irrelevant debate for them. They aren't strictly free traders in that sense. A lot of the people in Congress, in fact, are very protectionist, and want to be able to protect American jobs and the American way of doing things, right?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: On the other side of the balance, it's protection of their own jobs—

Mr. Ken Stein: Exactly.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: —not necessarily ours.

Mr. Ken Stein: And their own way of doing things.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Yes.

Mr. Ken Stein: So it's not a homogeneous view of the United States as well. The one thing they do agree on, though, is that if you try to keep something from America out, they get pretty united about that.

Mr. Barry Grills: I would like to add to that. This has always been a fascinating subject for me.

To be blunt, in Quebec's situation I think they've been virtually surrounded as the underdog, the way we perceive ourselves with the Americans. They have learned to actually fight the fight.

With regard to France, what's ironic about it, I guess, is that Quebec, the Writers' Union feels, is an ally. We're communicating all the time on these issues. France is also an ally.

Further to what Ken said about the Americans, if you ask the average American what culture is, it means he went to the opera instead of a Michael Jackson concert. It's not the idea of a mosaic, which I think was what we used to call what we were trying to do in Canada. They used to call it a melting pot. It is that not only dominance of economics and markets but also that latter-day Roman approach of actually having the dominant world culture where you are absorbed into something they feel is quite glorious. I think the difficulty we have, where Quebec....

Let's put it this way: I wish the Americans spoke something else. It would help us a lot.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Actually, they do. They speak American.

Mr. Barry Grills: They do, but it does get confusing in a crowded room.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.)): The fact is, they don't, and we have to deal with that.

Mr. Penson.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I think Ms. Chan wanted to add something.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Marlene.

Ms. Marlene Chan: You made a few comments about the ministers of culture meeting, and Sheila Copps, and you were asking how we could build on that experience. I think what you mentioned about Quebec is illustrated through the NGO meeting that took place parallel to the meeting of ministers, because there were Americans at that table, where there were not at the ministers of culture meeting.

In Quebec there is now the Coalition pour la diversité culturelle, which is very much organized to try to work with France, and with us from an NGO point of view, in terms of trying to relate to the issues of culture and trade. We're always benefiting from each other, I think. Because we're in Ottawa, we have different kinds of circles, information networks, that they can work through with us, and the same for us through them.

• 1630

I'm not saying it's an ideal thing, but it's one of the ways. I think they were the first organization, really, to ask why we didn't approach this through a cultural diversity point of view. They'd done a lot of the thinking ahead of time before they came to that meeting in June.

I think people have picked up on it from there. I didn't hear it so much before as I did after that meeting. So I think we are learning from that experience.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Okay.

Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson: I'll just comment that quite often I hear, when I come to these kinds of meetings, how Canadians are threatened by the American culture. I would suggest to you that probably millions of Canadians don't feel threatened at all but feel very happy or pleased with the culture that exists, and that we are getting, and enjoy it quite a bit.

Be that as it may, I do have a question for you, Ms. Williams. It has to do with a comment in your presentation where you suggest that the ministerial in Seattle will be an opportunity to discuss at the WTO, in the next round, I presume, this new cultural instrument.

I guess I'm having some trouble trying to get my head around how that's going to work in negotiations, and what you're proposing exactly. My understanding is that the last round, the Uruguay Round, was conducted as a single undertaking. That is, there could be no agreement on any of the things being negotiated there until there was agreement on all issues. That took seven years.

I know they're not anticipating seven years this time, but they're thinking it's going to be a fairly long process, probably at least three, because there are some controversial issues. Agriculture, as an example, is one that hasn't been brought under trade rules to any great extent, and they're hoping to make some major gains this time. It's going to be very controversial. There are a number of other issues.

So we throw this cultural instrument into the mix, and if it's conducted as a single undertaking, nothing can be agreed to until it's all agreed to.

Is that what you would like to see happen, to have this as part of the WTO negotiations?

Ms. Megan Williams: The answer I can give you is, yes, we intend for it to be part of the WTO negotiations, but in terms of the details of how we're going to develop it and get it there, it's going to be a collaborative process. Certainly most of the cultural organizations share the intention of accomplishing this.

I'm too inexperienced in the process to comment on how we're going to actually do it. I'm just grateful that we have the advice of our international advisory committee and individuals like my colleagues here to work on it. We're going to be busy in the next few weeks.

Maybe you have more of an answer, Ken.

Mr. Ken Stein: There is some discussion of whether one would look at a working group spinoff out of that to deal with how that issue would be managed in the discussions. Quite frankly, within SAGIT there are a couple of different views about whether that's useful or not. Should we totally ignore the Seattle discussions and say to heck with them, we'll go on our own front, or should we try to look at a working group here?

We feel quite confident that Mr. Marchi is very sensitive to these issues, and that the officials are as well. The officials have put probably more effort into this cultural issue over the past number of years, so I think they know a range of the issues that are involved. How they deal with it in the Seattle group is probably going to depend upon some of the trade ministers.

It would seem to me that the problem is, trade ministers aren't necessarily plugged into the cultural area. If they come from Australia or New Zealand or wherever they come from in that type of discussion, they may have a totally different set of agenda items driven by what happened there in the last year.

Mr. Charlie Penson: They'll have a wide range of agenda items, for certain.

Mr. Ken Stein: Exactly.

Mr. Charlie Penson: This is going to be one of many issues that would be discussed, then.

Mr. Ken Stein: Yes. I have no sense of what that list of agenda items includes. As Megan says, there's going to have to be a lot of work done over the next few months just to see whether this is something that could even get into a working group.

Mr. Charlie Penson: I raised it because there are lots of ways to try to achieve it. There other international organizations, such as the United Nations organizations, and the International Labour Organisation, which is not part of the WTO but has 160 member countries or whatever.

• 1635

It just seems to me that it's going to make it that much more difficult. I mean, the more things we add to it, and the more controversial things we add....

We've just seen that Canada and the United States have a major dispute on culture. I just came from Japan with the trade minister, where the QUAD countries were discussing what could be on the agenda for the next round of trade talks, the QUAD being Japan, the United States, Canada, and the European Union, who basically are responsible for 65% of the world's GDP and trade. So that's a pretty good starting group.

There's going to be lots of difficulty just in the ones that are already there. If we have two of those same countries having a dispute on culture, what are the chances of it getting resolved at the WTO?

I guess Ms. Williams would argue that we should get it started and see what happens. That's fine. I just wondered what your position was, actually.

Mr. Ken Stein: The only other point I'd like to make is that I don't think Megan should feel inexperienced in this, because most of our trade rules and background history comes out of discussions around goods. What we've learned through these trade discussions and through the SAGIT process over the past few years is that the services area is totally different, and that a lot of the kinds of relationships and linkages you look at are different in terms of how you go at services.

My fundamental view is that if we don't find means to deal with some of these issues, maybe in Canada it's culture, but in another country it's going to be investment, or another country it's going to be something else. Unless the World Trade Organization or those organizations are able to deal with what they may feel are extraneous issues, if they don't find some process to deal with that, then it's going to put into some difficulty their ability to get those kinds of agreements.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Is the CD a good or a service?

Mr. Ken Stein: Well, when you hear it, it's a service.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Mr. Charlie Penson: But it's another controversial area.

Mr. Ken Stein: Yes, but we got caught up in all this, you see, because a magazine was defined as a good. I guess our point at the SAGIT is that it doesn't matter whether it's a good or a service; what matters is that you define it as being a cultural product, an entity.

Mr. Barry Grills: Perhaps I could take it a little further than that. I think our point is that, the trouble is, when you even talk trade, everything becomes a good, a service, a commodity, an investment. What we strongly feel is that culture is above that terminology in certain fundamental aspects. Whatever we do, at whatever level we do it, that's the point of view we have to take. Someone has lost the concept of what culture is as a fundamental human right.

When it becomes defined strictly as a traded good or a service, we lose sight of what makes it unique. It isn't a CD; someone wrote a song first, and he wrote a song because he was from Canada, or he was from Quebec, or he or she—

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Actually, Quebec is still Canada.

Mr. Barry Grills: That's what I mean; New Brunswick or wherever.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Okay. I'm sorry.

Mr. Barry Grills: What Canada has traditionally put in place has reflected that fact, but it's a rather recent phenomenon to see everything move into the arena of trade, as if somehow we have it backwards here.

Perhaps I could use a brief analogy to explain my point. To me, we have a house, and in that house is all these people with fundamental occupations, motivations, ambitions, and so on. In that house you have writers, political scientists, and all manner of people. You also have people who do trade.

What has happened in recent years is that the people who do trade are saying, “I am the most important person in the house.” That's fine, except you can't then suddenly ignore that all those other people live in the house.

Mr. Charlie Penson: But is there not a business component to all of this as well?

Mr. Barry Grills: Yes, there is, but—

Mr. Charlie Penson: Is there not a commercial interest?

Mr. Barry Grills: Yes, I sell books, but it's about fifth down my list of human motivations.

Mr. Charlie Penson: That's true, but what about when we talk about this issue in terms of whether we're able to achieve this cultural agreement, and one of the key focuses is the sovereignty of each country in terms of being able to protect our culture? What about Canadian artists working in other countries?

• 1640

You know, we have this massive market beside us that most Canadian artists want to have access to. If the United States took the view that if you're going to protect your sovereignty by not allowing us to do business there, if you like, what about all the Canadian artists who rely heavily on the American market? It takes two to tango, in other words. Can't they play a little hardball here?

Mr. Barry Grills: I think our success in selling books in the United States hasn't been anything to do with trade as much as just the fact that the book is....

There is something unusual that happens when you publish a book in the United States. If you've set it in Ontario, it becomes New York state. If an American book comes up here, and it's set in New York state, we don't demand that it be in Ontario.

What we're dealing with here is a large country that doesn't acknowledge culture, and we're trying to build an agreement with a number of other countries in the world that probably do, to make them finally understand that there is something called culture.

When you're in the driver's seat to the extent where, as the chart pointed out, you don't even have to acknowledge culture....

We intend to make them understand that there is such a thing, that when I write a book set in Ontario, if someone reads it in Alabama, it's still set in Ontario. Ontario is a real place.

Mr. Charlie Penson: To get more concisely to my question, what about Céline Dion? Most of her revenue comes from working in the United States. The same goes for k.d. lang and other Canadian artists. What about the people who work in the movie industry in Hollywood?

I gather that the reason we're talking about cultural sovereignty is to protect our market here for our Canadian productions, and for Canadian artists who want to work here and develop. They also need the American market. Is there no fear that there could be a problem there?

Mr. Barry Grills: I don't feel we're trying to protect the Canadian market. What we're trying to do is protect the cultural environment that created the cultural work. It's not protecting the market but the cultural environment we're talking about. I think that's the difference.

Ken, you had an example before this meeting about Canadians in the movie business in the United States. What were you telling me? I don't want to steal your thunder on this, but it was very interesting.

Mr. Ken Stein: I'm not sure I remember that particular example, but the thing is, I don't think anybody is trying to set up barriers and so on. The example we used much more was that we've developed means in other trade discussions of identifying areas where the trade people, the people in the house, defer to other export areas as, okay, that's dependent on agreements reached in that area.

For example, there is an ILO. Now, the ILO may not be as important or as high on the radar screen as it used to be, but certainly in goods regimes ILO was particularly important. We have environmental accords that are negotiated on their own and that most trade agreements also defer to—well, sometimes. Maybe culture and environment have more in common in that respect. But certainly in terms of telecommunications, any accords are subject to spectrum management of the ITU.

We were essentially saying that there is a basis for having these kinds of discussions and for having these types of accords. This is how we would like to proceed.

In terms of the access question, I think the thing here is, to us, to what extent do Canadians get a chance for exposure if they don't have access to Canadian vehicles for that? It's a hard thing, but how successful would a k.d. lang or a Céline Dion or a Shania Twain be if they didn't have an ability within Canada to be able to have access to radio stations, having these played, just to get started? That access question is hugely important for artists.

• 1645

My company owns Country Music Television in Canada. When the CRTC removed CMT, the U.S. version, from the list, I didn't have any problem defending that on radio hotline shows across the country. I said, look, how many Canadians did you ever see on Country Music Television when it was a U.S. cable service? There weren't too many. But now we do have Canadians on there. One of the most popular parts of what we do is to support and develop Canadian country artists. It's an important part of what we do.

Now, obviously they don't sell a lot of CDs, but it's just important in terms of what we do. What we do in small communities, etc., just makes up part of the whole. That's what's important to be able to protect. We're not trying to ask for special favours for Shania Twain or to protect the Canadian music industry. That's a whole different thing. That is very commercial. But we still want to be able to have in Canada the ability to have our own kinds of things to be able to do these things.

The other part of this that relates to your question is the point I was trying to make but didn't spend a lot of time on. As Canadians, we also have to do more of a job ourselves. I think we've gone along creating our own little structure, and it's interesting that in certain areas we are very strong.

The example I used with Barry was newspapers. A lot of people around the world think of newspapers as being cultural. In Canada, we don't. We tend to think of our newspaper people as being whatever they are—very strong and very economically astute, and able to compete around the world. It's great to see that.

In my view, newspapers are cultural. We've been able to find a means to be able to have our own ability to do that.

Another really interesting one is radio. Now, most radio is off-air. When you're driving along the 401 or through St. Catharines or southern Ontario or whatever, you can get all those great U.S. radio stations, including most Buffalo stations. It doesn't affect our stations. Our stations do extremely well in that marketplace. We don't need any protection from the U.S. I mean, they're there. When you're driving along in your car, they're there, but they're just not relevant. Our radio stations are tremendously successful because we've been able to make them relevant.

So, yes, there are things that Canada should be doing, that the Canadian industry should be doing ourselves to make ourselves stronger. There are things that I feel we aren't paying attention to.

As we go forward in these trade discussions, Mrs. Copps and Mr. Manley and Mr. Marchi and Mr. Martin should be looking at how we strengthen Canadian industry. As culture becomes more international, we are going to have to have a strong ability to support our artists, and that's one of the things we have to look at.

Within these trade discussions there have been mechanisms in the past where people have been able to say, you know, we'll put this off to this working group and let them come forward with ideas that we can look at over the next six months.

In terms of the Seattle discussions, to go back to your point, I think that's all we're asking for in terms of that type of a discussion.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Okay.

Ken, just along that line, before we go to Madam Folco, I have a question here as well.

If we get this culture agreement put together—and we're working on that right now—I want to know where we're going to use it. Are we going to use it within the confines of the WTO, where we have 134 countries that are going to have to agree to this—in other words, we're going to use it on a multilateral basis—or are we going to use it outside of the WTO, where, at that point in time, we're going to be using that on a bilateral basis, as we're doing right now with the United States on Bill C-55? Where are we going to use this?

Mr. Ken Stein: That's a very good question, because there are a lot of different ways this can play out. I think everybody has different preferences on this.

My view would be that it goes beyond the WTO. The best forum we have found so far is a UNESCO type of approach that would support an accord with as many countries as we can get on side, including the United States, that would essentially say that as we go into the 21st century, there are certain things we do on a cultural side that we're allowed to do.

It's not just trade things; it's a whole range of other measures we are allowed to put in place to protect our cultures in our countries. That would be, I think, the first choice.

• 1650

As a SAGIT, though, we looked at it from a trade point of view. Therefore, what we did was look at it in terms of the WTO and the GATS and the discussion on the Americas and that type of thing. We felt that in the trade discussions they should acknowledge the existence of this type of instrument, and acknowledge the fact that certain things could be done that would affect the trade regime as a result of that type of instrument.

That's as far as we were able to take it.

I have my own particular ideas. I would like to see a committee of experts. We have a number of them in Canada, including Peter Grant and Professor Bernier. There are others around the world who have some expertise in dealing with trade and these kinds of issues. I would try to get them to sit down to try to come up with some draft terminology about exactly how such a thing would work and how it would fit with the WTO. I think that's what has to happen.

I think the view of the departments of heritage and trade is that more work needs to be done at the intergovernmental level before that can happen. So that's probably how it would proceed.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Any other comments?

Megan.

Ms. Megan Williams: I just wanted to say that this is basically the same opinion we have at the CCA. In our last presentation before the DFAIT committee, we urged the Canadian government to take a proactive approach to this and convene such an international meeting where the covenant could be developed.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): One of the things we've heard at this committee is that there seems to be a general consensus that if we're going to establish rules we should take and establish rules on an international basis, and that the other trading agreements should operate within the confines of the WTO, and definitely work within those parameters.

It would seem to me that with culture, if you went with a bilateral approach, once we get this put together you're going to have hundreds of different agreements that are maybe almost the same but not quite. It would make much easier housekeeping if they were all the same—if that's achievable.

Barry.

Mr. Barry Grills: I guess it's unanimous at this table that it be virtually a global document. I mentioned in my presentation the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which already exists. Canada has already signed it. It requires subnational government adherence, so all the provinces have signed it as well.

I'm doing all this from memory. I don't have a copy with me. I gave my last one to someone here regarding the MAI.

It took 70 countries for it to ascend into an international accord, and 10 years. It does philosophically define culture in the sense that we mean it, and does entrench it as an international right. It does separate commodities by referring to commodities in the document as just that—commodities. As a world document, then—and I don't want to sound like its number one fan and promoter here—it does capture that sense from which we can derive an international agreement.

I have one word of caution. My research was of course at the OECD level on this document, and of the 29 countries in the OECD, 27 have signed this document and 2 have not. Turkey has not, and of course the United States has not. That's something I should mention.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Okay.

Madam Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I have to leave, but I would like to make one last comment.

When you're talking about culture and trade, I think what you're talking about is what the French would call the règles du jeu—that is to say, the terms of reference.

• 1655

It seems to me that the terms of reference most of you here are working on are very different from the terms of reference the Americans at the WTO are working on. One is talking about trade, about goods, and you're talking about culture. You're almost not talking the same language. Although you understand their language, I'm not too sure they understand yours.

Mr. Ken Stein: They understand it too well.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I don't know, I really don't know.

When we talk about Céline Dion, for example, it's not just the fact that there is a music industry in Montreal that was able to support Céline Dion when she began to sing, which was when she was very, very young. There's also the fact—and I'm taking Quebec as an example because that's where I'm from, obviously, but I could have taken the example from anywhere else in Canada—that there is a culture.

If you talk about writers or composers rather than just people who sing or who are interpreters, then you're talking about something that exists in a territory, whether country or province, that is somehow indefinable, and yet somebody can write something that is part of that indefinable whole.

So if you're writing your Canadian book, it's not quite the same thing as if you were writing a book that is American. To us, at least, there's a difference. Perhaps there isn't to somebody in Europe, but to us there is a difference. Somehow that person who has written that book was able to get her roots into what is there, that palpable thing that we call culture, which is almost indefinable.

I think that is the problem. Because the terms of reference are so different, if you're talking about how to sell the book, you have to first talk about the person who sat down and wrote that book. Where did she get the subject matter? How did she manage to transform the subject matter, this abstract idea that she had in her brain, into something that is recognizable as Canadian literature, not just in content but style as well?

It's very interesting that we haven't talked about that today, and yet it seems to me that when we talk about culture, that's essentially what we're talking about. We're talking about the preservation of that indefinable thing that we call Canadian culture, or cultures. I think there are many.

I somehow feel that Americans, and possibly people from across the way here, are not willing to go that way and to talk about it in those terms, and yet these are the terms we cherish. That's the whole basis on which everything else is derived, as far as I can see. Otherwise, why bother talking about it? Otherwise, we don't have a problem with the Americans.

That's just a comment. It's not really a question, but I can see heads nodding.

The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Barry.

Mr. Barry Grills: That's exactly the point I was trying to make, that there is this soil that is cultural from which the created commodity is derived. Céline Dion is an excellent example. I think I used the word “formative” in my brief. There is a formative stage in any cultural endeavour in which the artist needs encouragement. Canada has a tradition of recognizing that and answering that call.

In Céline Dion's case, when she was a child and singing on the tables at her parent's restaurant, there was something cultural in that environment where, when she said to them, “I want to be a famous singer”, her parents said, “Well, then, go ahead.” I'm not sure that would have happened in Ontario, culturally speaking, or in Saskatchewan or anywhere else. It shows the Quebec soil that was at play there. But then the formative period enters. She didn't just automatically become a superstar. All these processes were in place, especially in Quebec but also in Canada, where she was able to do this.

It is very hard to define, especially to an American, and it's almost impossible to define when we keep thinking of things in trade terminology. As I said, trade is part of culture. It's one thing we do as a culture. I want to applaud the recognition of that.

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The Acting Chair (Mr. Murray Calder): Are there any more comments?

From what we have heard so far, on any one of the issues dealing with the FTAA—to take the Star Wars approach, Megan—I think we're going to have to have the wisdom of Yoda to get through this. We sure hope the force is with us when we go to the WTO negotiations, and the FTAA.

We're putting together extensive documentation. One of the things I have seen is that we are definitely a lot further ahead now than we were when we came to power in 1993. On a number of fronts, mine being the farming front, we're starting to feel more and more comfortable with the trade and negotiating positions we have.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you very much for your presentations and for the information you've given us. They will help us in establishing our position.

The meeting is adjourned.