Bill C-11 (Historical)

Copyright Modernization Act

An Act to amend the Copyright Act

This enactment amends the Copyright Act to
(a) update the rights and protections of copyright owners to better address the challenges and opportunities of the Internet, so as to be in line with international standards;
(b) clarify Internet service providers’ liability and make the enabling of online copyright infringement itself an infringement of copyright;
(c) permit businesses, educators and libraries to make greater use of copyright material in digital form;
(d) allow educators and students to make greater use of copyright material;
(e) permit certain uses of copyright material by consumers;
(f) give photographers the same rights as other creators;
(g) ensure that it remains technologically neutral; and
(h) mandate its review by Parliament every five years.

Copyright Modernization Act

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, a number of members of the NDP started their speeches on a motion to limit debate as did he. That is one of the problems we have with this debate and so many debates in the House. There is no motion to limit debate on the floor right now. We are continuing debate. There will be an opportunity to bring motions forward at committee should we get this bill to committee.

In the hon. member's home province I know the video gaming industry has actually taken off in the hon. member's home province. It is doing quite well and is very important to thousands of jobs in his province. Could he explain to the House how, in the absence of effective technical protection measures, that industry could continue to flourish in the province of Quebec? What suggestions might he have for continuing the investments in the film, TV and music industry in Quebec? He seems to be suggesting that we do not protect our creators or our artists and that those people who have worked so hard in so many industries in our country should not have their investments protected by a law that is in line with our international partners. How does he suggest we make those protections? If he can table for me the motion of closure, I would appreciate that as well.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments.

Obviously we are not against the idea of protecting people, but we are against the adverse and unintended effects of digital locks. When a digital tool has more adverse and unintended effects than the original purpose for which it was created, we could end up preventing someone who legally acquired music rights from changing the platform or format. What we are against are the adverse effects of certain tools, which are not controlled and are not seen today.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member can help me. According to the Conference Board of Canada, there is an estimated 1.1 million jobs, 6% of the Canadian labour force, in Canada's arts and culture industry, generating some $25 billion in taxes. It seems to me that people who have testified before, including the artists themselves, the creators, SOCAN, for example, representing artists and music publishers, et cetera, are all calling for some kind of a balance. Would the member not think that a government that believed in Canadian heritage and industries would actually try to achieve that in a bill, rather than going this other way?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question.

It is indeed a Conference Board of Canada report from 2008 that supports these numbers in terms of how much money this brings in for Canada and in terms of culture. In this bill, we do not see any clear willingness by the government to recognize our creators. That is what we are denouncing today.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, as far as democracy is concerned, things were certainly better in previous Parliaments. During the 41st Parliament, or at least until the holidays, there has been nothing but closure after closure and no debate. I do not know whether the cameras are rolling and whether people can watch us from home, but if they can, what they are seeing day after day is the Conservatives refusing to talk about legislation that is important for the public, people and small businesses. The Conservatives think that is just fine.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is now the fourth or fifth member of the NDP who has talked about closure on the bill. I wonder if you might clarify for the members of the NDP whether closure has been invoked on this bill?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, to provide some clarity, one could look at the definition of closure. Quite frankly, if the member is referring to the fact that the motion that has been moved prevents a person from being able to bring in another amendment, that is, in one sense, a form of closure. It is the way in which one might want to define closure.

The Conservatives might not be comfortable with it, but that is the reality of it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

While I appreciate the intervention and the assistance from the hon. member for Winnipeg North, what has happened is the previous question has been moved. The meaning of that is there are no further amendments allowed to the bill before the House.

Time allocation or closure in the usual sense has not been moved. We are not debating time allocation or closure.

However, the member for Winnipeg North is correct in a broader definition. Limiting debate may be a better phrase to use rather than closure. We are debating the previous question, which means there will be no further amendments.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but if 61% of the population is not allowed to speak and propose amendments, and if the government refuses to debate, I have to wonder where democracy is in this 41st Parliament. We are supposed to have the right to propose amendments. This means debating and sharing ideas with the governing party—the Government of Canada, I should point out.

We have heard that the Copyright Act is very important for the market and that it is indispensable to cultural policy. Through clear, predictable and fair rules, it can promote creativity and innovation. There will be no innovation here if we are not able to propose any amendments, that is for sure.

Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, introduced by the Minister of Industry and member for Mégantic—L'Érable, will create years of confusion in the court system and in appeals courts, and will also delay the existing processes for recognizing certain contested copyrights.

It seems that, in this era of new technologies, creators' and inventors' copyrights are being violated more and more every day. These people, who often spend their entire lives creating, developing, composing and fine-tuning their work, will end up seeing their vital right violated. It is often vital for them, since this is sometimes referred to as giving birth. This is a lifelong process. All of this will simply be ignored because the government refuses to listen to 61% of the population when it comes to this bill.

The question here is: what is copyright? Copyright ensures that creators have the right to receive royalties, but fundamentally, it recognizes the property of the tangible or intangible heritage of a country or region, or even of the entire planet.

Since section 6 of Bill C-42 passed in 1985, copyright continues to apply for up to 50 years after the death of the creator. Many sovereign states have since decided to extend that time limit in order to better reflect reality and to recognize the contribution that these creators made to the heritage of their country. Copyright extends as long as 70 years in some countries, when the work is not declared part of the national heritage, in which case, the copyright is simply eternal. When we think of Beethoven or Mozart, clearly, some creations are eternal.

I would like to talk more about music. I have been working in the industry for 30 years. I have known some creators. I have known many young people, and many not so young, who have spent their lives practically starving because they never got the recognition and the royalties they really should have received.

These days, new communication and technical support technologies allow pirating to happen in many ways. This is especially true of music, but also of books and photographs. I do not think that the bill address this issue well enough. If the Conservatives would listen to these artists and creators a little more, they would understand what is at stake for these Canadians, the people of my country, Canada.

The penalties for copyright infringement are so inappropriate and so ridiculously biased that they completely miss the mark in terms of this legislation's objective, which is to protect real people who spend their entire lives creating, entrepreneurs who create jobs and generate revenue.

The copyright bill also does not define what is meant by “fair”. This is a question of fact that must be decided based on the circumstances of the case. Lord Denning explained this in Hubbard v. Vosper in 1972 in an appeal court decision:

It is impossible to define what is ‘fair dealing'. It must be a question of degree. You must consider first the number and extent of the quotations and extracts [whether they are music or print]. Are they altogether too many and too long to be fair? Then you must consider the use made of them. If they are used as a basis for comment, criticism or review, that may be a fair dealing. If they are used to convey the same information as the author, for a rival purpose, that may be unfair. Next, you must consider the proportions. To take long extracts and attach short comments may be unfair. But, short extracts and long comments may be fair. [It is always subjective]. Other considerations may come to mind also. But, after all is said and done, it must be a matter of impression. As with fair comment in the law of libel, so with fair dealing in the law of copyright. The tribunal of fact must decide.

Justice Linden of the Supreme Court of Canada, in CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, set out factors to assess fair dealing as follows:

(i) The Purpose of the Dealing

In Canada, the purpose of the dealing will be fair if it is for one of the allowable purposes under the Copyright Act, namely research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting: see ss. 29, 29.1 and 29.2 of the Copyright Act [which will be affected by the reform]. As discussed, these allowable purposes should not be given a restrictive interpretation or this could result in the undue restriction of users’ rights. This said, courts should attempt to make an objective assessment of the user/defendant’s real purpose or motive in using the copyrighted work...Moreover, as the Court of Appeal explained, some dealings, even if for an allowable purpose, may be more or less fair than others; research done for commercial purposes may not be as fair as research done for charitable purposes.

We all agree on that. Let us continue with the ruling.

(ii) The Character of the Dealing

In assessing the character of a dealing, courts must examine how the works were dealt with...

(iii) The Amount of the Dealing

Both the amount of the dealing and importance of the work allegedly infringed should be considered...

(iv) Alternatives to the Dealing

...

(v) The Nature of the Work...

And I will finish with the following:

(vi) Effect of the Dealing on the Work

Finally, the effect of the dealing on the work is another factor [one of the most important and vital] warranting consideration when courts are determining whether a dealing is fair. If the reproduced work is likely to compete with the market of the original work, this may suggest that the dealing is not fair.

In this regard, I would like to point out that different types of “marketplaces” have been established in our society where counterfeit goods are commonplace and difficult to control. Even if the effect of the dealing on the market is an important factor, it is not the only nor the most important consideration when the time comes to complete the analysis of fair dealing.

The amendment proposed in clause 29 would extend copyright to education, parody and satyr. I hope that we will not bear witness to parody or satyr here today.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to questions and comments, I understand there are some difficulties with the lights that go along with the microphones. I have been told that the microphones are functioning, even though the lights may not be on. I can tell you that the light on my microphone is not on right now either.

If you are recognized by the chair, proceed as though your microphone is on and we will stop you if it is not.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, and I was very interested that he laid out the six steps that were identified in the Supreme Court decision in the Upper Canada College court case that defined the principle of fair dealing.

One of the most contentious issues we have seen on the copyright bill involves, on the one hand, the desire of students and educators to be able to access works and, on the other, the concerns from the artistic community that fair dealing could open up a Pandora's box that would undermine the rights of artists.

The Supreme Court decision set out the six steps that clearly identified how fair dealing would be utilized so that it would not be open season. The decision made it clear that we could not just take a textbook and photocopy it as much as we wanted and that there had to be criteria to ensure that the rights of the students were balanced off against the legitimate rights of creators.

I am concerned that the necessary level of balance is not seen in the bill. The bill does not go anywhere in defining fair dealing in terms of the rights under education that were defined by the Supreme Court.

It has been the position of the New Democratic Party that if we are to continue to maintain the sense of fair dealing and are going to put it in legislation, then we have to have it within the context defined by the Supreme Court so that people know the rules.

Would my hon. colleague tell us why he thinks the Conservative Party has failed to have this fundamental basic test of fairness put into this legislation?

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for that question.

I think it is a question of values. The Conservatives' values are not the same as the public's values. Creators have concerns that are different from the concerns of the big corporations, the concerns of all the people who control the publishing and reproduction industry.

I think creators' essential rights must be protected. They can make a real contribution to education and to sharing their works, because, to my mind, that is part of their property rights that must be recognized. It is all a question of values and judgment.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned that artists find it difficult to survive. It may surprise the members of the House to hear, but the average income of an artist in Canada is $12,900 per year. Obviously, it is difficult to survive on that. The bill wants to take millions of dollars in revenue away from artists.

I think we risk losing a lot of artists because they will be unable to survive. I would like to ask my colleague how he thinks this may affect Canadian content in the arts.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we will see in the free trade talks whether that is part of a secret deal or agenda with the Pacific or Europe.

Canadian content is already not given enough protection in all our institutions, in radio and television broadcasting, and in the publishing and marketing of our products. If there is one right that is essential to Canadian artists and creators, it is that their products must be marketed properly so that they can be shared by as many people as possible, and so that creators can receive the royalties they are due. Perhaps then their average income would not be below the poverty line in Canada. I was in the music industry for 30 years and I have seen creators. There are hundreds of thousands of creators who deserve to be in the spotlight and to express themselves in front of an audience.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the laws governing intellectual property and copyright in Canada need to be modernized. Technology has changed over the past 50 years. Change is necessary, but the question is what kind of change. Change is all the more important in a world where trade is becoming increasingly globalized. Change is also important if Canada wants to protect itself and its creators from unfair competition with countries that have already modernized their laws. The reason why the government is so motivated and eager to pass this bill is that it is currently in negotiations with Europe for a free trade agreement, and Europe has tougher laws that better protect its creators.

The principle of having a bill on intellectual property and copyright is, therefore, good. The NDP believes it is high time that copyright rules were modernized. The way this government is going about it, however, causes too many major problems. In some cases, the government is even creating problems where none existed before. We are attempting to amend the bill so that it is more in line with the best interests of Canadians, however the government does not even wish to consider any amendments.

What is important is protecting the creators and not the distributors of the works. That is what counts.

Let us spend a little time considering the principle of copyright. Copyright is a set of exclusive prerogatives that an author has over his or her original works. It is a legal, historical and social construct that has greatly changed since the invention of the printing press, and it is periodically called into question. It can basically be divided into two branches: moral rights, which recognize the author's authorship of the work and which also aim to ensure that the integrity of the work is respected, and proprietary rights, which confer a monopoly on economic use of the work for a specified period after which the work enters the public domain. As a branch of the law, copyright is one of the key elements of intellectual property and literary and artistic property.

Coming back to my point: the purpose of this right is to protect the creators and not the distributors of works. That is the mistake this government is making, and that is the problem with this bill.

Who is the creator of the work of art? Whether we are talking about a new computer game or a new novel, that is the question we need to be asking when we draft a bill like this one. We have to protect the production and the creation of the creators, the artists, the musicians and others. If we take the time to ask an artist—I wonder if the government did that—what one of their greatest challenges is, it is often having to deal with the major corporations to which they are obliged to sell their creations.

I oppose this bill because it protects the large corporations and does not set out to protect the authors or creators themselves. The vast majority of artists are local. They are poor and need help getting better compensation. The reality is that, once a work is created, sometimes the contract that is signed with the distributors does not allow the artists to earn a living.

A good example of this is the music of Bob Marley. Bob Marley had a terrible struggle with music companies, even to get enough food to feed his family. He had to invent writers for his songs to avoid his songs being published by companies which exploited his name and reputation for their own gain. Even today these companies continue to publish his catalogue without any recognition or compensation to the rightful owners of the corpus of his work, his very own family.

We also need time to consider all the amendments that might be made to the bill in order to create a system of fair royalties for artists. As it stands at present, the bill eliminates several million dollars worth of income for artists. What is more, this bill grants a number of new privileges in terms of access to content, but does not provide any alternative method of remuneration for the artists. That will have a significant impact on our artists' ability to survive.

However, the government pretends that it is protecting creators, but it has yet to show how artists and other workers in creative industries would have a better living because of this bill. Bragging about the strong measures, including digital locks, does not miraculously make this a good piece of legislation.

Artists know that this is a bad bill. That is why over 80 arts and culture organizations across Quebec and nationwide argue that the bill would be toxic to Canada's digital economy. They warn that failure to amend the copyright modernization act to ensure fair compensation for Canadian content owners, not distributors, could only lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and its dissemination domestically and abroad.

If that is not enough, let us consider the opinion of the Writers Guild of Canada on digital locks. According to the guild, the only option the bill offers to creators when it comes to digital locks is the freezing of current revenue streams for creators. It creates an illogical loophole in the copyright bill by taking away the very rights the bill grants to consumers in its other sections.

If that is not enough, let us consider the opinion of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, SOCAN. SOCAN believes that copyright law amendments should facilitate access to creative content on new media and ensure that creators are fairly compensated for the use of their creative content on new media.

Access must go hand in hand with compensation. Without this balance, the creation of creative content would eventually decrease as Canadian creators would be unable to make a living and compete with other countries worldwide.

The government has said it is giving rights holders the tools they need in order to develop products, market them and get paid for them, that this bill is about protecting creators from piracy, but artists themselves disagree. The government's sloppy legislation forgets that copyright covers a very wide range of artistic media using cutting-edge technology to create art.

Digital locks may work for software, but they are a restrictive and unpopular option when it comes to entertainment and artistic content, and are likely to be selected against in the open market as they were with music. Digital locks are neither forward looking nor in consumers' or creators' best interests.

I would also note that this is the first time I have spoken to this piece of legislation. There are artists in my riding. If I had not had a chance to speak to this bill, it would have been very unfortunate for them, for my chair is not my chair, but the chair of the people who elected me.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, how lucky we are that this gentleman had an opportunity to talk about this bill in the House. A number of members of the NDP and the Liberal Party have also had an opportunity to speak to it. It has been before the House for many years. There have been hundreds of hours of debate on it. We have heard from a lot of witnesses. I was very pleased to hear in the member's speech that the NDP is starting to come on side, because earlier they were saying that there would be no more amendments, that the debate was finished. The hon. member has clearly stated that, in his words, they will attempt to amend the bill, so they will be bringing amendments forward. We anxiously anticipate that.

In 2009 in Quebec, I think there were some 107 films worth hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity. He referenced the video gaming industry as well. I keep asking every single member of the NDP the same question without getting an answer. How would the members of the NDP protect the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Quebec video gaming industry and in the movie and television industries in that province if they refuse to absolutely protect the creators of these works? This represents hundreds of thousands of jobs. That is what this bill would do. That is what the creators are asking us to do. If we want to continue investments in these valuable industries, we need to protect them.

I am wondering if the member will work with us to get this bill to committee and let us see the amendments that the hon. gentleman has talked about.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of points in that question and I will try to address them separately.

First, it does not matter to me how many members spoke to this bill before. What matters to me is whether I was able to speak to this bill for the people of my riding. That is what is essential.

With respect to the second point, I was speaking in the past. We would have liked to amend this bill.

Third, it is hard to follow the member's rambling question, but I think he talked about protecting workers. It is an ironic question because on this side of the House we have no problems speaking up for workers, as opposed to members on that side of the House who spend their time trying to destroy collective bargaining rights.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for my colleague, which follows from what we heard about protecting jobs.

If I am following the debate, it seems to me that Bill C-11 is kind of like an inverted pyramid, in which the rights of everyone would be recognized, but everyone else's rights are placed above creators' rights, which are at the bottom of the inverted pyramid. If we want to maintain and even emancipate all the jobs in the industry, the bill must primarily protect creators' rights. Without creation, there is nothing.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my hon. colleague and I thank him for his question. First, creators in Canada are saying that they are against this bill. There are measures in this bill that supposedly and ideologically target creators and artists, but all they do is strengthen rights for big corporations in this country.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member have any specific recommendations as to how we would protect the over 107 films that were created in Quebec in 2009 at close to $200 million of economic activity? Does he have any specific suggestions how we would protect the 14,000 jobs in the video gaming industry as a result of the NDP's position to absolutely forget about protection for creators? How would the NDP actually do that? We have not heard that yet.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, asking a question that has nothing to do with what I spoke about is not a question. I will ask the member again what the government is doing here to protect the large majority of artists in our country who are not earning a living.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary constantly asks questions in regard to the amount of debate time this issue has had before the chamber. Therefore, I want to start off by making a statement that the bill before us has been introduced on two separate occasions. Most recent, there has been some limited debate, but not as many hours as the parliamentary secretary tries to give the impression of.

The parliamentary secretary needs to understand why the opposition is somewhat skeptical. The government tries to give the impression that it is open to listening to what the public and members of the opposition have to say.

Bill C-10 was the bill that would increase the number of jails, build bigger jails and so forth. The member for Mount Royal had very good amendments that he brought forward in committee on behalf of the Liberal Party and the government voted all of them down. However, after doing that, when we came back to report stage, the government recognized that there were some serious flaws with its legislation.

The government attempted to bring in those amendments, but found it could not because the opportunity was lost. All the government had to do was just listen to the member for Mount Royal and we would not have had the issue that evolved. However, the government was determined to push through its legislation completely unamended.

I will fast forward to what we have today. We have yet another piece of legislation in which a great deal of concern has been expressed. The government's only response is that the opposition has had so much time to debate this issue, that the public has already made presentations in the last session and expressed concerns.

However, the government turned a deaf ear to everything that was being said. It is not as if the government listened and took action on those issues that were brought forward. Now the government says that it is in a bit of a hurry to pass the bill.

The minister is not as powerful as other ministers who have been able to get time allocation on their bills. This minister had to settle for moving a motion that would prevent any other amendment being brought forward. This is the time to bring amendments to make this a better bill. Imagine if that would have been allowed on Bill C-10, the government could have averted that mess.

The point is we have a bill that we are trying to debate. The minister was not able to get time allocation argued with his House leader, but he settled for a motion to have no more amendments brought forward on the bill. However, there is one outstanding issue that has been raised by a number of different speakers. One would think the government would have come up with some sort of creative way to try to appease or deal with the concerns that members of this chamber have, and it is not just members of the chamber who are concerned. I would suggest the viewing audience and other Canadians should be concerned about the bill and the digital locks.

We can all relate to going to a store to buy either an eight track, cassette or even a record in our younger years. I will reflect a little on my past. I would buy a couple of records, take the songs that I liked and put them onto a blank cassette. I believed that since I had purchased the records, I had the right to copy the song onto a cassette for my personal use.

I do not believe I was alone. I believe there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians who recognized that they should be able to do that since they legitimately purchased a record. They may not enjoy every song on a record, maybe two or three, and they would copy those songs onto a blank cassette so they could pop it into their CD players in their vehicles or whatever else to listen to the music. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think most people would see that as the thing to do and there should be no consequence for doing it.

Let us look at today when we have CDs. CDs are not cheap, per se. I will provide some comment on artists, but we value their contributions in making those masterpieces, in this case music. Consumers should be able to copy songs from a CD onto a shuffle or some other form of MP3 player. If I go to the store later today and buy a CD for my daughter for Christmas, she should be able to copy her favourite songs onto the numerous gadgets she has so she can listen to them.

I do not believe there is anything within Bill C-11 that would ensure she could do that because of the way in which the government seems to be locked in on the need for digital locks and the impact they will have on the average consumer. The example I gave is a very real, tangible example that Canadians will do every day. I am not talking a few people; I am talking thousands. That is one of the issues that has been talked about a lot, yet we do not see it.

We recognize local artists. The Liberal Party of Canada has recognized the contributions that local artists make. They create jobs, generate economic activity, build on our heritage and culture and identify who we are in good part. I participate, as I am sure others do, in all sorts of local festivities, things like Folklorama in Winnipeg. If members have never been, I would encourage them to participate in it.

There are many different cultures that local artists and they will often have their own CDs. Artists attend fundraising events to promote themselves and encourage others. After giving concerts of sorts, they will sign their CDs because they are trying to promote themselves. The average artist does not make that much money. We recognize how important it is to support artists and we will continue to advocate for them. We would look to the government to recognize that.

The government would do well if it was not in such a hurry. I know the parliamentary secretary takes exception when I say it is in a hurry because he feels there has been plenty of time on the issue. I beg to differ. If the government is not prepared to listen and start understanding why we are appealing to the government to do the right thing, it is doing a disservice. I understand there is no time allocation motion on this, but I recognize it as a form of closure because we can no longer move amendments.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's comments and to all the comments today with great interest because this is an important issue for me personally as well as for many artists in our country.

With respect to the bill, it strikes me that the government has listened to many people from large multinational media corporations and perhaps has not listened enough to the voices of artists. The government consistently likes to talk, for example, to those in the tar sands without talking to environmentalists, or talk to big media conglomerates without talking to artists. I see a trend emerging and I wonder if my colleague sees the same trend.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of concern on the part of the people who view the proceedings here and witness first-hand what is going on, not only on this bill but with other pieces of legislation that comes before us.

The government does seem to have a big company mentality where it forgets about the little guy. In this case, I am not convinced that the government is protecting the best interests of the consumer, the average person, who purchases a CD and wants to store it on a shuffle or some other mechanism. I am not convinced it is listening to what the local artists have to say. Smaller, local artists, the ones who perform at many different festivals and so forth throughout the country, are the ones we should be most concerned about. I am afraid they are not a concern of the government.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, like our friends in the NDP, that member is also starting to change his position a bit. Now he is talking about continuing debate and hearing from people.

The member spoke about who we actually talked to and from whom we received information. My office received hundreds of emails. We have met with a lot of people. The largest entertainment labour union in the world, representing 110,000 in the stage, motion picture and television production industry, supports the bill. Over 14,000 people in the video gaming industry support the bill. Across Canada, 25 university student associations support the bill. Approximately 300 of Canada's business associations and boards of trade support the bill.

The movie industry is important to Manitoba's economy. It did suffer a dip, but it is starting to recover.

What solutions does the hon. member have for that? Could he identify one music CD that has a lock on it that he is unable to transfer to his iPod?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the support he had received for the legislation. In part, the legislation does have some merits, but a vast majority of Canadians have shared some overriding concerns with me and other members of the opposition and these need to be addressed.

I made reference to the digital locks, and the member challenged me to list a CD. I suspect that if I contacted my daughter, she might be able to help me out on that issue.

The point is it would have taken a little more courage by the minister to have stood in his place and provided assurances that the legislation would not impact consumers. That is the problem with the legislation. The minister cannot stand in this place and tell 30 million plus consumers that they have nothing to fear in terms of digital locks. The parliamentary secretary is not confident enough in the government's position to provide that guarantee to the Canadian consumer.

I will jump up and defend the Canadian consumer over the selected few individuals or groups that the parliamentary secretary has referenced. I wait for the parliamentary secretary to provide that assurance.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-11. In many ways, this bill and its predecessors are part of the reason I am here today. In 2006, I came to Ottawa as an artist to discuss copyright with the then heritage minister and the then industry minister. I came with a couple of other artists, Brendan Canning from the Broken Social Scene and Steven Page from the Barenaked Ladies. We came to talk to the government about what it was like to be a working musician and why we did not think suing fans was such a good idea.

One of the interesting things that came out of those meetings was that people were surprised that we did not want to sue everybody. That was the kind of thing the government had been hearing time and time again from those who had its ear, and those who had its ear were then, in 2006, and today, in 2011, the multinational media companies.

It is important to underline the fact that those companies, which employ many people and many of the people they employ are friends of mine and I, therefore, want to see a healthy and vibrant music business, but those companies do not speak for artists. They speak for the shareholders of multinational corporations. Their sole interest is in their bottom line, which is not necessarily the same as the bottom line of artists. It is also not necessarily the same bottom line that consumers have.

For example, we have many people in the arts and culture sector who look at the multinational corporations that, let us be honest, own most of the content that we are talking about here, and they have had historical struggles with these large entities.

One of the things about Bill C-11 and copyright generally is that there is an opportunity here to right some of the historical imbalances that we all know only too well. The musicians who barely eke by while the owners of their content makes millions upon millions. We hear those stories all the time. It has been noted that the music industry, like many of the creative fields, is a great place to get rich if one is lucky but a lousy place to make a living.

The copyright reform that we are talking about today is an opportunity to right some of that but this bill misses that opportunity by a mile. In fact, like the government on so many other occasions in this House, it likes to play politics. It likes to divide, rule, separate, hive off different groups and try to get them to bicker with other groups in its own effort to ram through legislation.

It is heartening to hear that the government is changing its tune about listening to the opposition around amendments. As we know, over the last several months in this House the government has not been interested in hearing anything form the opposition. In fact, when we have good ideas, it just rejects them. Occasionally, at the 11th hour it realizes there are some good ideas and that it had better rush them into bills only to discover that it cannot because it is too late. It is nice to hear that around Bill C-11 there is a willingness to listen.

One of the big issues for us on this side of the House is that artists get paid. I think Canadian society would agree that it is in our interest as a society to see a healthy, vibrant arts and culture sector.

However, when we have artists making below poverty wages to create the content that makes this country the rich and joyous place that it can sometimes be, it is incumbent on us in this place to look at ways in which we can foster a vibrant arts and culture sector so that more of the wealth that is created in this sector ends up trickling into the pockets of artists.

Forty-six billion dollars of Canada's GDP were created in the arts and culture sector in 2007. Twenty-five billion dollars in taxes for all levels of government in 2007 on an investment of $7.9 billion is pretty good. There are 600,000 workers in the sector, 4% of the Canadian workforce. This is perhaps my most favourite stat of all: Canadians spent twice as much on live performing arts in 2008 than they did on sports events. That is one stat that I particularly enjoy saying as often as possible.

The reason I am mentioning these statistics is that the arts and culture sector is a major driver of the Canadian economy, which is partially why this bill is so important and also why we need to take a serious look at the bill because for artists this bill falls short. It falls short for consumers on a number of levels, too, and for businesses as well. There are many ways in which the bill needs to be looked at.

However, I will just step back for a second. When I first came to Ottawa in 2006 as an artist to talk about this bill, I was shocked by what I heard. I heard that the government had no ideas, other than to lock down content and sue consumers. The government asked if we had any better ideas. Since 2006, I think there have been a lot of good ideas but very few of them are reflected in the bill that we see before us.

I come from the music sector. I am a songwriter, composer and producer. Copyright is something that I rely on. It is something that has helped me make a living in this country as an artist, which is something I am very proud of.

We have an opportunity to make this bill a fairer, more balanced playing field for artists. One of the particular pieces of the bill that makes absolutely no sense to us is the broadcast mechanical. Why would the government take $20 million from broadcasters who are making a $2.5 billion a year business here in Canada? Why would it just pluck that out and let it go?

We in our party are against that and we will be tabling amendments at committee that will seek to change that part of the bill because we do not want to see artists not get paid. In fact, the bill takes us a step backward in terms of compensation for artists, instead of looking at the myriad of possibilities that the digital era presents for us in the arts and culture sector.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member on our side, who is a talented musician and an eloquent member of Parliament, is specific and broad at the same time. It is about digital locks.

It seems to me, from listening to him and others, that digital locks are bad for consumers because they prevent Canadians from having full access to digital content that they purchased. It seems that they are bad for artistic creativity and bad for innovation. It seems that they are bad for education because they may make criminals out of instructors who access content for educational purposes. Do I have it about right and, if I am wrong, could he correct me?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that the bill does not really address and one of the opportunities it misses is the idea of blanket licences. I come from a sector where we licence songs through a collective and those songs, whenever and wherever they are played, a portion of a revenue stream comes back to the creators of that content. The problem with digital locks is that they lock up the potential for further revenue streams for artists. Digital locks also do not provide the protection for content creators and owners because, as we have seen happen in the music industry, those locks can be circumvented. This is why the digital lock provision is troubling for us in our party.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I note that this is the second time the member has had the opportunity to speak to the bill. Far from limiting debate, this is offering more opportunity for him to do that. He has also mentioned that he is prepared to bring forward some amendments.

We also heard the member from Thunder Bay talk about criminalizing Canadians. I wonder if the hon. member might point out the section of the bill that would actually criminalize Canadians.

He also talked about the minister not having the opportunity to speak to artists. I was in the parliamentary dining room today when the hon. member came by my table where I was with the minister and Jim Cuddy who is doing a great concert for us tonight. The minister was there. I am not sure if Mr. Cuddy merits being a Canadian artist.

The member also talked about having had the opportunity to be here before he was elected to this place to talk about copyright. We have been at this a long time. As a member from Toronto, how could he possibly promote anything that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs in the movie sector in that great city?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again we have the laundry list of questions from the parliamentary secretary. Absolutely, Jim Cuddy is one of our great Canadian artists.

The problem we have here is that the balance with the government is never right. We have a parade of the captains of global industry who do not even need to knock on the door of the government. They get the red carpet every time they drive up to Ottawa.

The problem is that we do not hear enough voices from those who actually make their living on the ground in the arts and culture sector being able to speak to the government. Our job on this side of the House is to ensure we have an engaged debate on Bill C-11. It is also important that we bring some new ideas into this bill and, hopefully, the government will listen.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talked about bringing forward amendments. The Conservatives' record on supporting amendments is about the same as the Indianapolis Colts' record this year in the NFL, which is zero.

The opposition parties understand that there needs to be a change in the legislation, that there needs to be a change in the rules and that we need to adapt to the technology. The rules have not kept up with the technology.

What we and my NDP colleague are trying to say is that this restricts the creative community. It restricts those who make the product, the Shania Twains, the Bryan Adams, the Tragically Hips, or pick a Canadian artist. It is those people who create the product who will be handcuffed by this particular legislation.

I would like the hon. member's comments on that.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the issue here is that if digital locks worked and if the downloading of music were the sole issue that was troubling the music industry, then maybe we would have a conversation here. However, they do not work and there are many issues troubling the industry.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise in this great House once again to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. It is a great privilege to come on stage right after the hon. member for Davenport. It seems I have been doing that ever since we were 16, having to go on stage with him at Larry's Hideaway and The Edge and all the other places that we played across Canada, and learning very early on that the money artists rely on, the money that comes back in payment, is so little.

Artists live on pennies. It is the accumulation of pennies. That is the fundamental principle of copyright. If we take those pennies away, the ability of artists to maintain careers evaporates.

When the government strikes $20 million that goes directly to artists out of the bill and thinks it is no big deal because the Conservatives' buddies in the big broadcast centres want a better break, the government is not providing any industrial advantage, but it is making it impossible for some artists to continue. Year after year, many artists have to sit down. My colleague and I worked with many great Canadian artists who, after a while, simply could not make it. They count on those pennies coming in to offset the incredible investment they must make as artists; when those revenue streams are not there in sufficient number, or if they are ripped off and are unable to see a balance, then Canadian content is affected.

The debate on copyright has been excellent for Canada and for Parliament. I was here in 2004, when the understanding of copyright was to pass the bill really fast and get it done. There have probably been some advantages, because we now have a House where we can discuss the implications of technological protection measures, and it is important to discuss these kinds of things.

When we pass elements in this House, for example, on technological protection measures, they will have implications. In some areas those implications will be positive. In other areas there will be implications that will be extremely negative. That is the fundamental balance of copyright. To simply say it is one or the other, that it is a black or white world, does not work in the realm of copyright. It never has.

If we go back to the copyright debates that happened in France, England, the United States in the 1700s and the 1800s, the issue was that necessity to find balance between the public good and the private right.

The private right is defined by two basic players. One is the author and the other is the publisher. They are not necessarily the same creator. Who has the right to make a copy? That is the fundamental principle of copyright. Who has the ability to access that artistic work, and how long should the control over it last in order to maintain a public good?

The work is not a piece of property. This fact has been defined in Parliament and has been defined in law. An artistic work is an idea that is put into the public realm. It exists for a period of time during which someone is able to receive exclusive compensation for that work and has that exclusive right, but after a certain time that idea belongs to the larger community, which will base future artistic works on it. That is the balancing act.

In reforming copyright, it is essential for Canada to upgrade its copyright regimentation in 2011. We have a national obligation, because one of our greatest exports--maybe our greatest export, above our oil, gas and gold--is our international artistic reputation. We have produced great artists internationally, so we have a national priority in maintaining that reputation.

There is an industrial component, of course, because we do not simply want to see goods being knocked off, ripped off and traded off. If we put an intellectual investment into a product, we have a right to a response.

There is also the creative community. We have been speaking about it a great deal in the New Democratic caucus, because we believe the fundamental principle of copyright is that our artists should get paid. When we look at artistic copyright legislation that takes away rights that previously existed, we have a problem with it.

It does not mean that the New Democratic Party will say it is against copyright. No. New Democrats support copyright, and we want to make sure that the artist has a right to get paid. However, the other essential element of copyright is the public good, and this is where we will sometimes butt heads with the industrial component.

We have created an incredible digital commons. In terms of the ability of people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas and create on a base of older works, there has been nothing like it in the history of civilization. It has certainly created havoc with older business models.

The other day I was in a record store. I was talking to the owner of the record store about all these young kids who are coming in and asking about Sun Ra and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Gene Vincent, artists we would never have heard of when we were younger. We did not know these artists even existed, but because of YouTube and the Internet, there is so much more potential. That digital commons must be protected.

Within that digital commons there are obviously some major issues in terms of people trading off works. We have Pirate Bays, where entire works are available and people are not paid for them, but the issue is to not simply lock down content overall. We do not simply let industry decide what rights artists have; we bring it to Parliament. Within Parliament, we decide what rights a citizen should be able to have.

For example, a citizen should be able to have the right to extract, under a digital lock, work for study or for commentary. Anybody in the documentary film industry will tell us they need to be able to extract excerpts from films because they are making commentary on it. That right is defined by Parliament. We have all agreed to that right.

However, a digital lock would simply override that right. The right given in Parliament might not be the right given by the industry. That is not insurmountable, but it is certainly problematic.

We need to define, as most of our European counterparts have done on the digital lock provisions, that it is the right of an industrial organization to put a digital lock in place to protect their product from being ripped off.

This is what we would say. The gaming industry has made enormous investments, and digital locks are essential for that business model. However, if a student breaks a digital lock because he or she cannot see or is partly blind and has to break the digital lock to access the work on a Kindle, that student is not the same as someone who breaks a digital lock to rip off video games.

That was defined in the WIPO convention. It was very clearly articulated that in our international obligations we have to protect the intellectual property but that we can also define legal exemptions within Parliament or within a federal government.

That is the issue on the digital locks; the issue is not to say that digital locks are good or digital locks are bad, but that we need to define the exemptions, just as we have to find out why certain areas of important revenue streams that artists have relied on are being erased. We do not support erasing artists' rights that they have exerted.

In terms of education, there is so much potential in the digital realm. We have an ability to transform a nation as spread out as ours in doing education or library loans. We had never even been able to contemplate these capabilities before.

The problem is that within this bill there are provisions that have to be fixed. Again, it is not that this bill is going to be black or white, but things have to be fixed. For example, a student in Fort Albany who is taking long distance courses and getting course notes over the Internet would be told that after 30 days, that piece of paper would have to be burned up or disappear. However, a student going to Collège Boréal or Northern College in Timmins would be given the paper notes and would get to keep those notes. There cannot be two sets of rights, one in the analog paper world and a lesser set in the digital realm.

We need to clarify that. We have asked many times whether the government would work with us to amend the act, because we are committed to reforming Canada's copyright legislation. At least since I have been here, the position of the New Democratic Party has been that we want copyright to move forward; however, we must amend this bill, because if we do not amend it, there will be many perhaps unintended consequences, and we have seen where those consequences will be.

We are telling the government that if it expects support to get this legislation through, it should show willingness to sit down and go through the problems. There are problems with this bill. There will be problems with any copyright bill.

It is about restoring that sense of balance. We have not seen that yet. That is the fundamental principle of copyright. We will remain committed to the principle of a balanced legislative framework.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, different groups of artists have different needs. The needs of consumers and creators are also different, and heaven knows that this bill is far from perfect. I would like my colleague to speak a bit more about the amendments that are required and that should be made to this bill, even though we know that they will probably be rejected.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, wherever the bill has erased the rights of artists to be paid, we want those artists' rights to be restored. That is fundamental. We want clarification on the digital locks language. The issue of distance learning has to be amended so it is reasonable.

As we spoke about earlier, the other element is the issue of the fair dealing provisions, particularly in relation to education. The Supreme Court has given a very clear six-step test to clarify what fair dealing is and what it is not. Anybody who has ever dealt with education will know that the fair dealing provisions are perhaps the most explosive. We would like to clarify fair dealing in education and how it conforms, under this legislation, to the Supreme Court test. Many of the artists' groups and many of the education groups may feel a little better, but unless the government is willing to make some of those changes in language, there are going to be problems.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. gentleman because this is, I believe, the third time he has had the opportunity to speak to this bill. That is over an hour of time in this House for him alone on this bill, and I am still waiting for some suggestions with respect to how he and the NDP members opposite would help to preserve and protect the thousands of jobs in the video gaming, movie, TV and video industries, not only in Toronto but across this country. We know it is worth billions of dollars in economic activity. We know we have to protect those jobs. If we expect people to continue to invest in this country, we know we have to update our laws so that they reflect the same laws as our international partners.

Because I have not heard it in the over 60 minutes of discussion we have had so far, I wonder if the member could outline some of the changes that he anticipates would help preserve and protect the hundreds of thousands of jobs and the billions of dollars of investment that are relying on an update to our copyright legislation.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will send the hon. member the Hansard, because I think I just spoke to that point. However, if he wants to know what the changes would be, what we would do is bring ourselves in line with our WIPO-compliant partners in terms of article 10 of the WIPO treaty. That is where the New Democratic Party stands on the issue of digital locks.

Earlier the member said he had never heard of an example of a musical CD that had a digital lock. Maybe he is not aware of it, but he could look up the Sony rootkit. Sony put out CDs that had spyware in them so that it could spy on consumers to find out what they were doing with the music. That spyware actually destroyed entire computer systems. Kids bought a CD to listen to some music, and the corporate digital lock destroyed their computer systems. Sony later said, “Sorry; we didn't mean it”, but that is not good enough. We think that when consumers buy a product, they should be able to play the music and back it up without having to worry that the computer is going to be destroyed because of a digital lock that was placed on their musical device.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the head of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois, Francis Farley-Chevrier, believes that the new bill socially devalues the work of authors. He said the following:

The Copyright Act encourages those who have chosen this profession by providing them with an income. If we discard this system, we take away recognition. It is not just a question of money. It is a question of placing a value on the work we do.

What does my colleague think of that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as an example, back in the music days of my colleague from Davenport, cable television never paid royalties to musicians because they said that if musicians had a video on cable TV, it was promoting them and they should have their video on there for free. Musicians were expected to pay $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 for a video, and they never received payment for it. It was not just that they were being ripped off for the money; when they turned on the television and saw their video, they realized they were making money for somebody else and not seeing a dime for it. That was not right, so at that time SOCAN, the artists' rights organization, fought the broadcast industry for years to get a settlement.

It is a fundamental principle that if people create a work and that work is exploited, they should be paid. That is a fundamental principle. If they create a work and nobody buys it, then they can sing it to their family and the family might like the song; however, if it has a commercial value, the creator has a right to be compensated. That is the principle of justice to the creative community.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill once more because there are some very important points that we must discuss. I am very pleased that we have more time for this discussion. It is very difficult to follow a colleague such as the member for Timmins—James Bay, who is so well versed in this matter. He spoke eloquently abut a number of points, but I will nevertheless continue to talk about education.

Before saying anything about all this, I want to repeat what has been said many times by my colleagues. It is extremely important to remember that, contrary to what some members opposite have said, this bill is not necessarily black and white. What we are saying is simple but copyright, especially in the digital age and with all the technological changes that have taken place in recent years, is a complex issue.

It is understandable that some questions are more difficult to address, particularly if, like the NDP, you advocate a fair balance between protection of users and the rights of creators. This is the first very important point to stress, and it has been stressed many times already, but it merits repetition. As my colleague said so well, when we talk about the products we export, in Canada and Quebec, culture is a very significant product. It is one of our resources, one of our assets. According to Statistics Canada, in a research report from Laval University, in Quebec alone, cultural production amounted to $9.8 billion, an enormous figure. It is 4.1% of Quebec's GDP. That was in April 2010, and the figures may have changed a little, but clearly this is a very important resource. We strongly agree that it is a resource that must be protected and developed in a way that is fair to everyone, and creators must be remunerated.

On the question of fairness, I want to address the education issue. The last time I had an opportunity to speak to this bill, the hon. parliamentary secretary told me we were scaring students by telling them they were going to have to burn their notes. And yet the first time I heard the words "book burning policy" they did not come from an NDP member or someone trying to scare anyone. They actually came from members of the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université. Those people who work in education came to see myself and other colleagues of mine to convey their concerns to us and tell us that this aspect of the bill was problematic. It is very important to point this out. We are not trying to create a false context around the bill; rather, we are trying to convey the concerns expressed by people in the field. I think it is very important to point that out.

The other aspect I would like to address is the famous term “fair dealing”, which is called “fair use” in the United States. This is a point well worth raising, because the members opposite often say that we want to treat ordinary people like criminals, and so on. And yet that is exactly what they seem to be advocating here. This aspect is missing from Bill C-11, but it exists in the example of our neighbours to the south, in the United States Copyright Act.

There really are specific provisions that limit, for instance, the legal recourse that can be taken against people in certain situations. I am referring to librarians or people who use library services, which are offered to the public, services that, ideally, are funded either partially for fully by governments. Libraries enrich our society considerably. I am convinced that no creator would oppose that and, to my knowledge, none has ever opposed it. This also refers to students and educational uses, to teachers, instructors and so on.

I think those kinds of provisions need to be examined. We heard earlier about the kinds of concrete measures we would be willing to propose. This is just such a measure. We have talked about clauses that would allow for compromise. Once again, without rambling on too much and repeating the excellent points my colleague made, if we compare this to video games, which are at the very heart of this technological revolution in terms of creation in the 21st century, such measures already exist in that field. Some computer games already have provisions in place to prevent pirating: they have digital locks. What is different here is that we fully support these measures—except that what we propose is that the bill provide some degree of protection to someone who is going to use the creation honestly for educational purposes and not punish an honest citizen who uses these creations. This use is not only honest, but it enriches everyone. This use contributes, quite often, to our society and our culture. I think that is exactly the same principle as the American legislation. We are proposing a very practical measure.

I would also like to come back to the issue of fair dealing. It is easy to say that there is a fair dealing clause on education in the bill, but the problem is that there are other clauses and other aspects of the bill that cancel out the fair dealing. Think of the course notes that have to be destroyed, the documents from libraries and inter-library loan materials that have to be destroyed. This is extremely problematic. I mentioned this earlier. I studied in Montreal where there are several universities. There is a great wealth of material in the community. There are anglophone universities and francophone universities. Often, a great way of creating ties between the universities and between the students who attend the different universities is the ability, as a student enrolled in one university, to take advantage of loans from the other universities, digital loans or physical loans. I think that is the type of right that should be protected. It is such a great tool and it is extremely useful. We know very well that not every university has the same specialties and the same expertise. I think it is extremely important to benefit from that.

I will close simply by saying, once again, that we are proposing very concrete measures. We want measures in place to protect honest users, but at the same time, we absolutely are in favour of protecting the creators. We simply want to find a fair balance. It is not black and white. It is truly a very complex issue. We are aware of that. That is why we are calling on the government members to work with us on finding a fair solution that will satisfy everyone and contribute to the wealth of our society.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the excellent dissertation my colleague gave because of his expertise in knowing what it is like at the university level in a digital realm.

The questions about the digital lock provisions for university interlibrary loans are essential. As the member said, various places across the country have various expertise in learning. Some are very large institutions, but some are very small. However, the bill would obligate these institutions to have digital locks in place.

Does my hon. colleague think that the bill would impede learning and put unnecessary restrictions on the ability of an education institution to maintain that? Also, with the digital lock provisions, would universities and education institutions that are very risk adverse back off on a number of areas of development altogether?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill would certainly impede learning. I can even give a concrete example in support of what my colleague and I mentioned earlier. I studied at McGill University, which has students from outside Quebec and even outside Canada in some cases. These students often take a Quebec politics course. Some excellent work has been done at francophone universities like Université de Montréal or Université du Québec à Montréal. Preventing these students from participating not only impedes their education, but it also prevents them from participating in the culture and society that they came to immerse themselves in as students at these universities. So that is a huge problem.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on his second speech on the copyright legislation. He is, of course, availing himself of the extraordinary opportunities we have in the House to debate in the spirit of openness that this government has brought not only to this bill but various pieces of legislation in the House.

I have a quick question. I know we are unlikely to get an answer on anything to do with jobs and the economy, but I wonder if he has contemplated what impact this will have on jobs and the economy in his province if we do not update our copyright legislation. Does he join with me in being frightened that we might lose hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in investments if we follow the approach of the opposition; that is, delay and frustrate this legislation and not do anything to protect the creators of digital content?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is the complete opposite. We are very aware that there are a lot of jobs in this industry. Most artists are not rolling in cash. There are also the people who support them, such as producers, camera operators or other industry workers. That is exactly what we are saying. We want to protect these jobs, but we also want to protect the economy when we are talking about education. We are asking for a compromise to protect compensation for artists and others working in the industry, but we also want to protect people who want to study and take full advantage of their education to contribute to the economy and find jobs. I completely agree, and that is why we are looking for a better compromise than what is being offered right now.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay asked the same question that I wanted to ask, but I would nevertheless like to ask my hon. colleague from Chambly—Borduas if he kept his course notes. He was a student until very recently and he is very familiar with the university environment. How would he have been personally affected by this bill as it currently stands?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question. What is ironic is that I studied political science and I was often told that people study in that field in order to become a politician. In fact, that is not at all the case. I have never met more cynical people than the professors I had. I did keep my course notes. When it comes time to think about a bill, to make comments or to know how I plan to address an issue, my course notes help me a great deal. Since the bill has not yet passed, I can say that without any risk.

Such notes are a very useful tool for our own growth. Furthermore, we can share them with others. I often had friends who were taking political science courses, although that was not their main area of study. I loaned them my course notes to give them a better understanding of the subject. The notes they received in an introductory course, for instance, might be different than those given to a political science student at the university level. It would in fact be a big loss.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second opportunity I have had to rise in this House and speak about Bill C-11. The Minister of Industry has reintroduced former Bill C-32 on copyright modernization, the purpose of which is to make long overdue changes. These changes will adapt the Canadian rules to technological advances, and harmonize them with the current standards.

I have noticed since the start of the session that it is often the ministers and parliamentary secretaries who answer questions. We will not stop reiterating the need to amend this legislation before seeing it pass.

This bill creates new and very powerful anti-circumvention rights for owners of content. These new provisions are backed by fines of over $1 million and sentences of up to 5 years behind bars. They would also create a situation where digital locks would practically trump all other rights. The exceptions do not adequately recognize the rights of creators.

The political issue is actually more of a trend towards meeting the demands of the big owners of foreign content, particularly American content. When will Canadians finally have legislation that meets their needs?

Our party believes that Canadian copyright laws can strike a balance between the right of creators to receive fair compensation for their work and the right of consumers to have reasonable access to content. We are going to review all potential amendments to the bill in order to create a fair royalty system for artists.

This bill grants several new privileges regarding access to content but provides no alternative method of compensation for artists. This will greatly affect artists' ability to make ends meet.

The copyright modernization act contains a number of concessions for consumers. These are undermined by the government's refusal to adopt a position of compromise regarding the most controversial issue at stake in the area of copyright in Canada.

We propose that the clauses that criminalize the removal of digital locks for personal non-commercial reasons be removed from the copyright modernization bill. We support reducing penalties for those found guilty of having breached the Copyright Act.

Our party, the NDP, believes it is high time that the Copyright Act is modernized; however, this bill contains too many blatant problems.

Over 80 organizations from the artistic and cultural sectors in Quebec and the rest of the country maintain that the bill will be toxic to Canada's digital economy.

These organizations caution that, if the government does not amend the copyright modernization act to provide for adequate compensation for the owners of Canadian content, it will lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and the distribution of that content in Canada and abroad.

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, SOCAN, thinks that the bill should be amended to facilitate access to creative content using new media, and that a fair balance should be struck. Without that balance, creation of creative content will eventually decline because Canadian creators will no longer be able to make a living from their creations.

A law professor at the University of Ottawa said that the provisions relating to digital locks in Bill C-11 and in its predecessors, Bills C-32 and C-60, might be unconstitutional. He believes there are doubts as to whether Parliament has the necessary authority to legislate in relation to digital locks. That is an issue.

Similarly, even if there is an economic issue, it does not seem to fall under federal jurisdiction on trade and commerce, and consequently it falls under provincial jurisdiction. It is also by no means clear whether the federal government has the power to implement international treaties that would justify enacting the bill as it is proposed.

In general, the broader the proposed provisions, the more remote they are from federal jurisdiction and the more they encroach on provincial powers. At minimum, certain aspects of this issue affect the sphere of provincial powers. All of this suggests that the attorneys general and other provincial decision-makers should be actively involved in the discussion.

As for consumers, the "no compromise" provisions grant unprecedented powers to rights owners, which supersede all other rights. If Bill C-11 is enacted, it could mean that we will no longer have access to content for which we have already paid, and we will have no right or recourse. It is draconian and unacceptable to ask students to destroy course notes within 30 days of when the courses end, as this bill proposes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to join me in appealing to the parliamentary secretary responsible for the bill to get a very simple statement. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary would be prepared to guarantee on behalf of the government that individuals who wanted to purchase copies of music would not have to worry about the lock situation. I wonder if he would be prepared to give that guarantee today.

Does the member agree that this would be a wonderful question on which to get a yes or no answer from the parliamentary secretary?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Winnipeg North.

I would ask the minister and the parliamentary secretary the same question. Will he answer the question?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member for Winnipeg North is trying to ask me questions through other members.

I note that this is the second time the member for Laval has spoken to the bill. I want to congratulate him for taking advantage of the extraordinary opportunity we are providing by allowing debate on this topic.

[An hon. member]

What a joke.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, of course the member for Malpeque could care less about artists and individual creators.

Does the member for Laval have any ideas on how we could protect the hundreds of thousands of jobs and creators in this economy? He is the last speaker today of over 50 NDP members who have spoken to this bill, and we still have not received that answer. I wonder if he might avail us with an answer to the question as to how we could protect and preserve jobs and investment in this country if we do not update the act.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one way to protect current jobs is to refrain from putting restrictions in legislation. Bill C-11 in particular is very restrictive. If we want to maintain employment, and not just consider what affects the income of artists and all those who work in the media and elsewhere, the bill should be amended.

Bill C-11—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, not more than two further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the Bill; and

that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the second day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will be a 30 minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to put questions to the government to rise in their places at the beginning of the question period so as to gauge the number of speakers who may wish to participate. As in the past, we have generally considered that one minute is a good timeframe for questions to be put and, similarly, for the response.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was going to start off by saying, another day, another motion to terminate, to muzzle debate in this House, another anti-democratic motion, but that would not be fair to the government.

What I should be saying is, another week, another motion to muzzle debate, to terminate debate, to strike severe blows to the democracy that should be functioning in this Parliament. Because, including this motion, this will be the 15th time that the government has moved either closure or time allocation in 73 sitting days. That is more than one a week now. The speed at which the government is bringing in these motions to terminate debate, to strike blows to democracy is occurring more rapidly than at the start of the session.

Every time it happens, one more record is set that belies anything but that this Parliament is being turned into a farce. We are not being given the opportunity, either on this side of the House, in opposition, or on the government side, the people in the backbenches in particular, to have any meaningful debate on bills that are before this House on issues that are confronting this country. The government is shutting down debate repeatedly.

I say to the minister responsible for this, and to the House leader, how many more times will we see this? Will I have to stand every single day to face these motions?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, after months of the NDP delaying and obstructing important legislation, it has actually revealed its true agenda. It intends to delay all legislation as long as it possibly can. That explains why the NDP has almost never agreed to hold a vote on any piece of legislation in this House.

Last week, I issued an invitation to come to an agreement on moving forward with legislation. The NDP member for Acadie—Bathurst revealed the NDP plan to delay and obstruct all legislation by putting up every speaker possible. He justified this by saying the rules allow that every member has the right to speak. Indeed, that is the case. It is called “a filibuster” when parties put up every single speaker. The normal practice is not to do that.

The bill that we are talking about today has already been the subject of 75 speeches in this House and an opposition to block it from even getting to second reading.

By contrast, the identical bill, word for word, was sent to committee in 2010 after only seven hours of constructive debate in this place so that it could be reviewed in detail and improved through amendments.

If the NDP members had their way, Canada would go the way of other countries, such as the United States and countries in Europe, that have faced a political gridlock in a decision that caused economic uncertainty that threatened the world economy.

That is not what we want from our government. That is not what Canadians want. We are going to continue to have a productive, hard-working, orderly government that makes decisions and does the work that Canadians sent us here to do.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions or comments. I will add, as I should have done earlier, there will be a preference given to opposition members, in terms of putting questions to the government in the course of this 30 minute question period.

The hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the identical bill that the House leader refers to is Bill C-32. I was involved on the legislative committee. Of course, after hearing about 150 witnesses and receiving untold written submissions, when it appeared in its new form as Bill C-11 under the new Parliament, not a single comma had been changed. This leads us to the conclusion that there was no intention to do anything with all that testimony that occurred before the committee.

The House leader mentioned that he invited the opposition to tell him how many speakers it would like to put up at second reading. We came forward, in the Liberal Party, and said we would like to have eight speakers. We were hoping that perhaps he was turning over a new leaf and was going to allow some proper debate. Then we find out today the time allocation is two days. We will be lucky if we get two or three speakers.

Is this an indication of the goodwill that the government is showing toward democracy?

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I will address the first part of the member's question. He is right. We have tabled the exact same bill. It is not because we are not interested in having a parliamentary debate. We put forward the exact same bill and sent it to a legislative committee. His hon. colleague, the critic responsible for this, and I have spoken about this. We are sending this, not to the heritage committee nor to the industry committee which already have very busy agendas on their own, but to a stand-alone legislative committee, specifically on this bill, so that we can have exhaustive consideration of this bill and consideration of the amendments. We have been very open about that.

We tabled the exact same bill on purpose. We had a legislative committee on Bill C-32. We want to have a legislative committee on Bill C-11 to continue the debate. We want this process that began a year and a half ago to continue right through passage of updated copyright reform. We want to hear the opposition amendments. We want to hear what the opposition has to say. We want to continue the debate substantively, with actual amendments, at the legislative committee. We want to move it forward. It is time we get this done, and it is time the opposition stops delaying.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, again, we have a time allocation motion. I am really having a hard time understanding this. In parliaments similar to ours, in New Zealand, Australia and England, for instance, this measure is very rarely used and the Speaker has the power to say that it is not an appropriate time to use it.

In my opinion, a time allocation motion should be used only during a national crisis, for example, for safety's sake, or in the case of an impending war. That is absolutely not the case here. I absolutely do not understand why time allocation motions are being used the way they are now. Time allocation loses all meaning. Using a time allocation motion should truly be reserved for cases of extreme urgency. The way it is being used now diminishes the meaning of using such a motion.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture)]

Mr. Speaker, first, we are all well aware that the NDP's strategy is to block virtually all bills. That is what the member for Acadie—Bathurst said. He revealed a plan to impede the progress of all bills by putting forward as many speakers as possible to justify a strategy in which members have the right to speak.

As my colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, pointed out, many speeches have been given during the current session. During the last session of the previous Parliament, there were, once again, 17 speeches with a range of exchanges concerning bills C-32 and C-11. Before that, there had already been 27 hours of debate.

That is why we are saying it is now time to pass the bill as is. We will accept amendments in committee, but it is time to leave vinyl and VHS behind and move into the digital age. We have to move on without further delay. To do otherwise would be to let the nation get bogged down in yet another political impasse and fail to fulfill our international obligations according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the hon. government House leader.

My concerns with time allocation on Bill C-11 are similar to those of the hon. member of the official opposition. I am concerned that the government House leader and the Conservative Party members do not give the respect that is required toward the functioning of Parliament as a whole and I wish they would. I know the government House leader objected to my tribute to Vaclav Havel, for example.

Free speech in the House is something that should matter to all members. We are elected as equals. In this case we see time allocation over and over again. When we debate time allocation, the inevitable result is representatives of smaller parties, and I admit it only applies to five of us here, such as me for the Green Party, are deprived of the opportunity to debate. The House of Commons itself is the Government of Canada, not an individual party. The result of time allocation, particularly when the government House leader said that to have a full debate under Westminster parliamentary democracy would in itself represent an instability which would jeopardize our economy, suggests that the Conservatives find democracy not only inconvenient but dangerous.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on the topic of the legislation before us, the government is actually restoring the identical bill from the previous Parliament to where it was in the previous Parliament so we can continue consideration of it.

I know it is my hon. colleague's first term. This is my 12th year as a member of Parliament and I can tell her that except for the Liberal government's Bill C-2, the response to 9/11, this legislation will have had more consideration at a stand-alone legislative committee and parliamentary and public consideration with all of the tens of thousands of submissions we received from Canadians in person and in writing and the consultations we did across the country before we drafted the bill. Then we drafted the legislation.

There was reaction to Bill C-32. The committee was considering the bill. I think the committee on Bill C-32 received over 100 witnesses before it, giving us constructive criticism and feedback on how the bill could go forward. Then we had an election.

However, we want to continue all the hard work that was done on Bill C-32. We want to carry it forward with Bill C-11 and continue the process as though it was uninterrupted because there is so much at stake and so much went into the drafting of the legislation.

My hon. colleague should know that this bill will have had more consideration by Canadians at two stand-alone legislative committees and more time in the House than any bill Parliament has seen since the Liberals' Anti-terrorism Act back in 2001. That shows our commitment to ensuring we listen to all Canadians when it comes to getting intellectual property right.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise on this issue.

I happened to be the chair of the special legislative committee on Bill C-32. That bill received some debate in the House and with all party agreement it moved through second reading and to committee where committee heard from about 125 different groups and about 70 witnesses. There was a great deal of opportunity to work on the bill. Unfortunately, the election happened and at the point the committee's work came to an end.

The fact is a lot of work has already been done on this legislation. I have been here on a number of days in the House when we have had debate. Many members have already had an opportunity to speak to the bill.

Other than to delay and obstruct the legislation getting to committee, maybe the Minister of Canadian Heritage could tell us if there is any other reason that the opposition does not want us to move toward having a vote on this, getting the bill to committee and getting the work done so we can do what we can to ensure we protect jobs with this legislation.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the dedication of my hon. colleague from Leeds—Grenville to this issue has been very helpful. His work on the legislative committee has been important.

Just in the past few hours, as we have said as a government that we want to go forward with this legislation, a number of folks have come forward to support this. I want to read into the record what some of the folks have said, who by the way are not necessarily habitual Conservative supporters, but people who recognize the legislation will be balanced and responsible in the way that we go forward.

A press release was just sent to me from IATSE, which is the international union that represents members employed in stagecraft, motion picture and the television production and trade show industries. This union backs this legislation. It says, “The IATSE applauds the government for moving forward with this bill, The Copyright Modernization Act, because the bill will help ensure a stable entertainment industry which is what keeps its 16,000 employees working”.

This legislation is important for the Canadian economy. It is time to get down to work in committee, listen to the amendments of the opposition and move forward with something.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I admit that, in these circumstances, I find it difficult to rank the irritants raised by this issue. I also admit that, unfortunately, I do not have a statistician working for me. However, based on the figures provided, the Conservatives believe they are justified in moving time allocation when just 75 members have spoken to a bill. According to my quick calculation, it seems to me that there are 308 members who have the right to speak in the House. Until the last member who wishes to rise has the opportunity to do so, it is too early for such a motion.

[Some hon. members]

Bravo.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

I would therefore like to support the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who is not here; he does not systematically obstruct debate but fights for the right of elected members and the people of this country to speak. He has my respect.

[Chris Alexander]

Where is he?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

We will find out at the appropriate time. He is not the type of member who tends to hide when he has something to say.

Bill C-11 will bring fundamental change to the lifestyle, or should we say survival style, of the creators who are the foundation of the entire cultural industry in Quebec and Canada. The Conservatives want to wrap it up in just a few hours. That is absurd. I could also quote other unions, such as the Union des artistes, to which I belong, that are not in favour of Bill C-11 as it stands. Can we debate—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The hon. Minister of Industry.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat that this is not my first term, either. I have been here for six years. I have watched this law evolve, given that the Liberals also tried to reform this legislation. However, during the third session of the 40th Parliament, the committee discussed Bill C-32 for 39 hours—a total of 20 meetings at which 78 organizations and 122 individuals appeared. Also, 91 speeches were given over a period of eight days, for a total of 28 hours. This was followed by another seven hours with 17 more speeches.

Also, during this session of the current Parliament, we have heard over 20 hours of debate and 75 speeches. As my colleague was saying, this bill is quite possibly the most debated bill in this House. Speaking of statistics, I have some here and I can say that many people are pressuring us to pass this bill since it will have major repercussions. People are asking us to pass it sooner rather than later, because frankly, the VHS era is long gone.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting to hear the Minister of Industry say that many people are pressuring him to pass this bill. The Minister of Canadian Heritage said he received a few emails in favour of this bill. But they did not mention the 50,000 emails they both received. I know, because those messages were also sent to me.

I was copied on those 50,000 messages. They do not mention those 50,000 messages from people who are opposed to Bill C-11 and who have put pressure on the government to say no.

When we consider that this is the 16th time in less than 6 months in this Parliament that the government has used time allocation, which is a new record for sure, and when we consider the fact that in this debate there have actually only been three speakers from the Conservative side, two of whom are ministers, it makes one wonder if the Prime Minister's Office and those ministers are not allowing their backbenchers to say something, to speak on this. I hope their muzzles are not chafing them. It makes me wonder if they want to speak out on behalf of the people who are so strongly opposed to this, but they are not willing to.

For instance, I have a message from a person from Halifax who said:

Please do not endorse or push through any legislation that gives more powers to corporations and takes away the rights of the individuals. As you've seen in the U.S. in the last month with the debacle surrounding SOPA, corporations are pushing for the support of laws that take away the rights of citizens to fairly use that which has been paid for, which is what these guys are trying to do too.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have not put up government members because we want to get the bill forward. We have had ministers who have stood in the House. The Minister of Industry and I have stood in the House, spoke to and outlined the intentions of this bill, what we hoped to achieve and made the government's case. Now we want it to go back to where it was in the previous parliament and get down to the details.

What we have done as a government is ceded all of our time for speaking in the House of Commons to the opposition party. We have had an unprecedented number of NDP members of Parliament, who are new MPs who did not get to speak on Bill C-32, who can now address Bill C-11, which is the same bill, and can make their points so we can move forward.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Forty-five speakers.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

It is actually 75, Mr. Speaker.

I think it makes my hon. colleague's argument fall flat on its face. In fact, we have heard from a lot of Canadians on this legislation. Certainly, we recognize that.

Intellectual property law is incredibly complicated and is a balancing act. We think we have the right balance with regard to this legislation, but I do not think that any serious legislator in the country can say that Canada's current copyright legislation works for the digital age.

We have put forward what we think is responsible and balanced legislation. If the opposition parties actually want to approve this bill and table amendments, then let us get on with it and stop delaying what is needed to be done for Canadian creators.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time since I arrived here on May 2 that I have heard the Conservatives use unions as an example.

I say to them no, no and no. There have been exactly 75 speeches. That is the magic number, the yellow light. At 80 speeches, a red light goes on and that means we must stop debating, that it is over and we have to adopt a closure motion.

All 308 elected members here have the right to make speeches on the subject. If the bill comes back at second reading, they have the right to make a second speech. Members have to be given time to express their views. The public, Canadians in every riding have the right to hear their member speak about the subject. It is a question of democracy. Closure is being invoked on debates and bills are being passed quickly. This has been done 16 times. That is a record and it has to stop.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the previous Parliament, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and my predecessor at Industry Canada held consultations. There were approximately 8,000 submissions from all manner of people. This does have to stop. People are telling us to move on to the next stage and to pass the bill.

In our pre-budget consultations, I have had the opportunity to sit down with people in the information technology and communications sector. Failure to move on this bill has put on the brakes. It is dangerous for them because it creates uncertainty in terms of innovation. That is what creates wealth and distinguishes us, increases our competitiveness and helps us find niche markets. However, this requires tools, such as the reform of the Copyright Act. Once again, Bill C-11 is balanced.

All Canadians had the opportunity to be heard and they want us to move on. In 1996, we made that commitment to the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is time to live up to our commitment.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things to clear up. For the sake of time, I will not get into the time allocation itself, but I would like to talk about the bill.

The impression was that when a bill is brought forward the government wishes to continue the process all the way through. It originally was one bill and after the election it was brought back to the House as something else without changes being made. Quite simply, the Conservatives have done this before. In a fisheries bill, the actual bill tabled in the House was debated, and after the election, the bill was brought back but they managed to make changes to it that had been suggested during the process. They could have done that.

In this particular case, the Conservatives are so concerned about having the bill quickly go through committee, they could have done that anyway. Legislation can go to committee before second reading. It has been done before. It was done with the Clean Air Act back in 2006. Perhaps that is the way they should have gone if they wanted the bill to go to committee so quickly.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of options, but we did not. This is better and it gets the bill to a legislative committee more responsibly and, by the way, at the start of the parliamentary process, allows more members of Parliament to speak.

We have the numbers here from the House leader's office and the hon. member opposite has spoken twice to the bill, by the way, in a respectful and responsible tone, because I know that he wants to see progress on this. We disagree on some of the details and we will get down to those details at committee.

I did want to take a minute, though, because my colleague from Halifax West, if memory serves, mentioned there are some who oppose the bill. There is no doubt about that. It is complex, and certainly in many quarters it is a very divisive part of the legislative process. There is no doubt about that, but there are many of those he is counting as folks who are opposed to the bill who are seeking amendments. There are many people who are seeking amendments and as I said, we will certainly be considering those amendments. We want to get this right.

However, to say that because somebody is seeking an amendment that person is opposed to the bill is not true. There are many organizations that support the bill because they see it as progress, maybe not necessarily the ideal as they see it, but absolute progress in terms of protecting the rights of creators, protecting the rights of consumers, and moving this country forward so that we have the best intellectual property regime possible.

We have that balance. We want to listen to the amendments. We want to move forward. Let us continue the debate in a substantive way at the committee stage.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that copyright legislation is complex. In fact, the first time I came to Ottawa as a creator and I met with the minister of Canadian heritage and the industry minister, it was not the two individuals I see before me today.

We know that it has been discussed a lot and that it is complex. That speaks also to the reason it is important that we get this right. It speaks to the importance of members being able to weigh in on the bill.

What we are really talking about right now is the government's credibility on transparency, of which the Conservatives have absolutely none. I want to speak to one clear example of the hypocrisy of the government's moving time allocation. The pooled registered pension plan came before the House. The government moved time allocation on the first day of debate after only the second speaker from the opposition.

We have a serious problem around transparency with the government and once again time allocation. This is a blunt instrument of democracy and the government is using it way too often.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to transparency in this legislation, I have been a part of this bill from its very inception in the previous Parliament as Bill C-32.

We had webcasts and copyright.gc.ca. We had open forums where the public could attend in Quebec City, Montreal, Halifax--I was there--Vancouver, Calgary, here in Ottawa and over in Gatineau. More Canadians participated than I ever thought would participate. There were tens of thousands, and all their submissions were put on the web for free. We made it accessible to everybody. They were freely available for people to see them, download them, debate, disagree. To be honest, it was a fantastic conversation. It was wide open, like something we have never seen before.

Let us move forward with this. Let us make it work. If my hon. colleague thinks there should have been more time used in the House and more MPs should have spoken, as he spoke on the bill twice, maybe he should have given one of his two speaking spots to one of his colleagues who did not get a chance to speak.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find what is happening with Bill C-11 to be really pathetic. If there is one bill where members ought to be walking on eggshells, this is it. Do members agree that this is a really complicated bill? This is the perfect proof of this government's lack of foresight. The government wants to move quickly and says that the opposition has said enough. It is outrageous. I am very familiar with this bill and I can say that it is very complex. Everyone has something they want to say about it.

What is outrageous is that the government is once again imposing a gag order. Clearly, everyone has something to say. It affects me, my colleagues from other ridings, everyone. We want to have choices on cultural issues, and I know that the ministers opposite know this. We are talking about art and inspiration, but this bill is not inspired. The government is telling us that this bill is balanced, but it is just as balanced as a car where the front is a Jetta, the back is a Chevrolet Impala and the middle is some other car. This bill is a nightmare. It is flawed. It is a series of incoherent intentions. It is a major problem. We have things to say and the government is bulldozing us once again.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is balanced. More consultations were held than ever before. This is the most debated bill since the anti-terrorist measures in the early 2000s. Is everyone happy? No. Is everyone angry? No they are not, because the bill is balanced. Everyone benefits, whether it be authors, creators, consumers, IT and communications workers, intermediaries, institutions or the education community. That is what we tried to do.

With all due respect, the hon. member is coming out of nowhere and wants to change everything. We have been talking about this bill for two Parliaments. Consultations were conducted by my colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and by my predecessor. There have also been many speeches here. The hon. member is asking us to mark time, to stay in the era of VHS tapes and vinyl records and not meet our international obligations. It does not make any sense.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to put aside the issue of the bill itself and talk about the process. The government House leader, not once or twice, but more like 14, 15, or 16 times has walked into the chamber and moved time allocation. The time allocation rule is being abused by the government House leader. The government House leader needs to negotiate in good faith with opposition parties to allow people who want to speak to the legislation to do so. The government House leader needs to do the job that he is being paid to do.

Would the minister across the way agree that the government House leader has a primary responsibility to negotiate and talk with opposition House leaders so that things can be done in a more appropriate fashion?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to this bill, we have been more than open. We have given our speaking slots in the House to the opposition parties. We have ceded our time to the opposition members so that they can speak, make their points and arguments. I think that is pretty fair.

As a matter of fact, I invited the opposition critics to my department to have a full briefing on the legislation when we tabled it so they could understand the intricacies of it and the direction in which we are trying to go so that they could plan their amendments, so that when Parliament came back and we re-tabled the same bill, we could get down to work and they could consider the direction in which they wanted to go.

With regard to this bill, it is not an overstatement that there has not been a single piece of legislation in my 12 years here where there has been more open co-operation and good faith demonstrated between the government and the public, and the government and the opposition in trying to get their views on how we can move the bill forward. That includes the next step after this process, which is to go to a legislative committee, hear from witnesses, and get this done. Creators deserve it. Consumers deserve it. Canada needs it. Let us get on with it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, National Defence; the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway, Citizenship and Immigration.

It is also my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #122

Copyright Modernization Act

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

I wish to inform the House that because of the proceedings on the time allocation motion, government orders will be extended by 30 minutes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I am not mistaken, I believe the Minister of National Defence rose to vote in this particular vote. I know that the Chief Government Whip is usually very meticulous and conscientious about these kinds of things. I trust he will ensure that the vote count is corrected accordingly.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the precise rule in this House is that once the Chief Government Whip sits down and the Speaker then begins to define the issue, in the moment between, someone can sit down. Mr. Speaker, you had not said any words.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. It is the rule and the standard practice of the House that once the Speaker begins to put the question, then at that moment no member is allowed to take their seat and then have their vote counted. As I saw events, the Minister of National Defence sat down before I began to put the question, and so I do not think there is anything untoward there.

The House resumed from December 12, 2011, consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Second Reading

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to see that the motion passed, as we now have the opportunity to have further debate. There has been significant debate already on this bill and I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise today to speak on the copyright modernization act.

This bill proposes amendments to the Copyright Act. As my colleagues know, our government made a firm commitment in the Speech from the Throne to introduce and seek swift passage of copyright legislation that balances the needs of creators and users. Our government is delivering on this commitment. We all know there has been significant debate on this issue. In the last Parliament, I had the opportunity to chair the special legislative committee on Bill C-32, the exact same bill now before the House as Bill C-11.

I am happy to see that our government has taken this commonsense approach to modernizing the copyright laws in Canada. We have crafted a bill that differentiates between positive activities and illicit activities in the digital environment. Furthermore, this bill would make Canada an attractive location for creators, innovators and investors. In short, it is a key element of our government's commitment to help create jobs and build the industries of the future.

Our government recognizes that Canada must keep in step as countries around the world respond to the new realities posed by rapid technological change. Every day there is something newer, something faster or better out there for creators and users. Determined new competitors are rising. We need to keep pace. Canada must be prepared to compete in this global economy. This bill is an important tool in accomplishing this.

A modern copyright framework would strengthen Canada's competitive position. The copyright modernization act would bring our copyright law in line with advances in technology and current international standards. It would give Canadian creators and innovators the tools they need to keep Canada competitive internationally. It would implement the rights and protections of the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization's treaties, also known as the WIPO Internet treaties, which represent an international consensus on the standard of copyright protection.

I am sure that hon. members will recall that in the early 1990s, international discussions were initiated by WIPO member states on the type of copyright protection needed to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the Internet and other digital technologies. These treaties established new rights and protections for authors, sound recording makers and performers of audio works. They built on existing international frameworks found in the Berne and Rome conventions.

All these agreements established a minimum level of rights granted to creators under the national laws of WIPO member states. These WIPO standards have been implemented in more than 80 countries worldwide. Complying with them just makes sense. All of our major trading partners have ratified or acceded to these treaties, including the United States, the EU and its member states, and China, Japan and Mexico.

This bill seeks to protect the rights of Canadian creators in a number of areas that are as diverse as the works they create. To this end, the bill institutes new rights, such as the distribution right to control the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials; the making available right for performers and producers of sound recordings, who would enjoy an exclusive right to offer copyrighted material over the Internet; and moral rights for performers to ensure, for example, that a work is not altered in a way that harms an artist's reputation.

The bill would also provide new protections for our artists and creators. For example, it prohibits the circumvention of digital locks, as well as the removal of rights management information such as digital watermarks. It would also establish new rules that would prevent the manufacture, importation and sale of devices and services to break digital locks. In addition, with this bill the term of protection for sound recordings of performers and producers would be extended to 50 years from the time of publication of a musical performance.

I would also note that the bill would make photographers the first owners of the copyright of their photographs. The copyright would be protected for 50 years after the life of the photographer, harmonizing the treatment of photographers under Canada's copyright law with that of other creators. It would also harmonize with it the laws of many other countries. This would allow photographers to take advantage of opportunities in the global marketplace. At the same time, the people who commission photographs would be able to make personal or non-commercial use of the photos unless there were a contract that specified otherwise.

The bill would strengthen the ability of rights holders to control the use of their works online so that they can prevent widespread, illicit use and to promote legitimate business models. Such provisions include the creation of a new category of civil liability that targets those who enable online piracy.

The bill is also about meeting the needs of users. For example, under the fair dealings section, the bill adds education, parity and satire as purposes for which copyright works could be fairly used provided the use of the work does not unduly harm the legitimate interests of the copyright owner.

Finally, the bill introduces technological neutrality. By promoting creativity and innovation, our government is enabling the members of Canada's creative community to assume their rightful place alongside the best in the world.

Before I wrap up, I will say that there have been significant opportunities to debate this bill. In the last Parliament, there was Bill C-32 and there were previous bills in previous Parliaments. There has been more public consultation on this bill than on any other topic that we have dealt with in this House.

In the last Parliament, we saw that the committee, for which I had the honour of chairing, worked well together. The election was called and we never had the opportunity to have amendments to the bill at that point. I know the government is open to amendments and to some potential changes to this bill. We will have another couple of days of debate on this issue. I look forward to seeing this bill getting in front of committee. In the last Parliament the committee did work well together and there were opportunities to hear different viewpoints. This is a bill that is very complicated.

For those who are new members of Parliament, they will hear from a lot of different people about the various parts of this bill. There are many technical things to this bill. It does take a lot of effort to get up to speed and understand this bill. I encourage members to take the time to learn about this and the digital economy. I know many do know a lot about it.

We put this bill forward in the last Parliament and are now putting it forward in this Parliament to help create jobs and to protect jobs in Canada. I encourage the opposition and all members in this House to see this through to committee. I know that when this bill gets passed through second reading, the committee will do good work. I know there are many members of the public and many organizations who want to be in front of the committee to bring their concerns forward.

I look forward to this bill passing because it is something that is long overdue. It will be good for Canada, good for the economy, good for all people in Canada and good for creating jobs.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for having provided some clarification, given his experience working with the legislative committee. Based on his experience, can he further explain the amendments he would have made to improve the bill, since we want to save time? Also, what were the major shortcomings the committee identified in Bill C-11 compared to Bill C-32?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we want to hear right now from the opposition members is how they feel we can improve this bill. I know there are some very contentious parts of this bill, specifically the digital locks and the education exemption. Those things are definitely controversial. We want to hear from the opposition. I know the government is open to amendments on this. This is something we will be dealing with for a long time. This is an ongoing situation. The name of the bill is the copyright modernization act.

One of the key things in this bill, which is a very positive thing, is the fact that part of the bill calls for a mandatory five year review. This may never be a perfect bill but being that it is in the bill that the law can be reviewed five years later, this will take into account additional technological changes that are sure to happen in the next five years.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since the member has opened the door, let us go through it. We are proposing amendments to withdraw from the bill all clauses that criminalize the removal of digital locks for personal, non-commercial purposes. We support reducing penalties for those found guilty of having breached the Copyright Act, since that would prevent excessive prosecution of the public, a problem that exists in the United States.

Is the government prepared to accept these amendments?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the key things in the bill is that it would protect our creators. It would allow us to have the opportunity to go after the enablers. The bill is not necessarily targeted at the kid in the basement who might be downloading a song, although we should not be encouraging that kind of stealing. The bill is targeted at the enablers, those who are allowing those things to happen, those who are setting up sites like The Pirate Bay and others and are just out and out stealing the works of creators. We want to support culture and our creative industries here in Canada and this legislation would make it very difficult to steal their works.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, congratulate my colleague from Leeds—Grenville for his work in the previous Parliament to bring this important bill to fruition in the form that we now find it before the House.

Would my colleague not agree with the statements that the minister made in the House before the vote we just had and with the whole spirit of the government's approach to the bill, which is that time is of the essence?

There will be amendments and there will be hard work in committee. There are some issues on which there will never be unanimity in the country. However, to protect creators from the scourge of piracy, especially when it involves organized crime, and to protect the rights of millions of Canadians who want full legal access to copyrighted products in the digital age, we need to move forward on the bill. It is a question of jobs, competitiveness and the future of this country. Would my colleague agree?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Ajax—Pickering was elected last May and he has quickly caught on to the importance of this legislation with respect to our economy and jobs. He is from the Toronto area and many of these jobs are located in the GTA.

I was first elected in the 38th Parliament in 2004. I sat on the heritage committee at that time, which was where I first learned about the WIPO treaty. The WIPO treaty was signed in 1996-97 by Canada. Eight years later, in 2004, it still had not been signed, and here we, are almost another eight years later, and it still has not been signed. Canada has not come into compliance. Time is of the essence. This is costing Canadian jobs.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this may be a little sarcastic, but I feel like this is my lucky day and that right after my speech, I should go buy a lottery ticket, because it seems I will be one of the few and final members to be able to speak to this bill, which is vital not only for the arts community, but also for the business community. I will come back to this eagerness to supposedly save jobs, when in fact, the bill is about to undermine the foundation of all the creators that make up this industry.

To begin my speech, I will say that it is fascinating to see how various experiences in one's life can greatly affect how one understands and interprets a problem. That is what concerns me here today, especially as a former teacher, singer and producer, which are all jobs that I have had over the past 20 years. The issue of copyright is something that I am extremely concerned about. I know from my own personal experience that some of the government's proposed exceptions will cause considerable damage.

Before examining them more closely, let us revisit the objective of Bill C-11 for just a moment, that is, modernizing copyright legislation. When I think of “modernizing”, several images come to mind, including some very positive things that we could do with that. As a singer, after reading page after page of Bill C-11, I became disillusioned. Although the existing legislation is far from perfect, so far it has managed to ensure a favourable environment for the artistic development of creators, producers, broadcasters and consumers of Canadian cultural content.

If we try to determine how much of the industry's $46 billion in economic spinoffs should go to the creators, considering the 600,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly affected by this cultural industy, we must admit that creators are probably fewest in number and definitely the lowest paid, and yet they are the foundation of the industry. But what is copyright? Let me remind the House, just to make sure we are all on the same page. Copyright is for artists. We will see in a moment what this means for companies. Copyright is the right enjoyed by every artist and creator to set the commercial terms for the use of their work, either partially or in full, to authorize the use and to receive royalties in compensation for that authorization.

Those earnings represent the bread and butter of Quebec and Canadian creators. Every time the bill introduces new, ill-conceived exceptions that diminish or eliminate the possibility of earnings for copyright holders, it spells out the decline of the production and expansion of Canadian content here at home and abroad. We will not be able to ensure growth of the cultural industry or offer more to consumers if we undermine the opportunity for creators to live from their craft.

Take for example these new exceptions included in Bill C-11 that further shrink creators' earnings.

The first is the exception regarding user-generated content, also quite often referred to as the YouTube exception. This exception would, for example, allow the average citizen to broadcast a video taken during Christmas vacation set to a song the user thought would go quite well with it. That is now allowed. It may be, but just because technology makes it easy to create personal videos of a professional quality, does not mean we should forget the tools we use to produce these gems that we share with our families.

It may be, but we have to stop believing that the artist—the one who created the music that goes so well with our family images and tales—is giving us that music for free. He does not even know us. If it is true that all work deserves pay, then why should the composer not get his due?

Obviously, it is not a question of individual negotiations between each Internet user and each creator. Collective licensing does the job and ensures the necessary balance.

However, this government plunges ahead fearlessly, and by accepting Bill C-11, we would become the first country in the world where companies like YouTube would enjoy the right to use copyright-protected works for profit, without any obligation to have the rights released or to compensate the content creators.

Instead of developing new business models for the ever-changing digital age, we are taking the easiest route. Bill C-11 will become an expropriation of the creators' right to control the use of their works and to earn fair compensation for them.

Then there are the exemptions specifically for the education sector. It is somewhat odd. In the case of educational institutions, it goes without saying that a good administrator saves money by any means possible. He or she may approach competitors or try to use group orders to take advantage of economies of scale when purchasing goods needed by the school. But when it comes to music or movies, oddly, we seem to forget that we will have to buy the materials and pay for the rights. No one, not the administrators nor the teachers, would ever think of stealing furniture from a store or borrowing—in perpetuity—the goods needed for education. That is exactly what is happening with copyright when we appropriate works without asking for the licences that apply.

I would like to share an anecdote from a wise producer with whom I worked a few years ago, and who was often called on to ask the artists he represented to participate in charity events, naturally for free, for a good cause. Each time, this wise producer—and there are not many like him—replied that his artist would agree to perform for free at the event if the employees of the same company would also contribute one day's wages to the same cause. That was a very tangible and real expression of the demands made of artists and the fact that people want to take advantage of their visibility and their role in society.

I will say it again: all work deserves to be compensated. The issue is all the more sensitive in Quebec where the market for French educational publications is very small and cannot forego the funding provided by copyright without running the risk that publishers will close their doors because they are unable to provide financial recompense to their creators.

I would have hoped that resale rights would be addressed in Bill C-11. If we truly wanted to modernize copyright, we would allow visual artists to obtain resale rights on their works. Unfortunately, these rights do not seem to be addressed in Bill C-11, despite the fact that 59 countries have already incorporated such a measure into their legislation. It seems that, once again, our legislation will be lacking.

I could go on for several hours but I imagine that I should already count myself lucky to have had these 10 minutes. I will therefore end my remarks by saying that, to date, copyrighted works may not be used without permission, and exceptions are just that—exceptions.

The biggest problem with Bill C-11 is that it reverses that framework. Exceptions become the rule because, in its haste to please large corporations and their financial interests, the government was too quick to forget those who supply content to the industry through their creativity and who are the driving force behind the cultural industry in Quebec and Canada.

What is more, even legal recourse will no longer be an effective avenue. I could also speak about that exceptional provision but, unfortunately, I am short on time, so I will stop here. I would be happy to respond to any questions or comments from members.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Trois-Rivières on his very clear remarks. He did a good job of explaining the intricacies of this bill, which is deeply flawed with respect to the importance of royalties paid to creators and artists. He mentioned resale rights, which exist in several other countries. I would like him to go into more detail about the benefits of resale rights.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my esteemed colleague for giving me the opportunity to elaborate on that issue. Many of us are familiar with the idea that if, for example, an actor makes a television commercial, the artist is paid for a certain number of broadcasts. If the commercial is broadcast more times, the actor is paid again in recognition of the work.

If the government had seen fit to include such a provision in Bill C-11, the same would apply to visual artists, many of whom gain tremendous recognition once their paintings are resold. Resale rights would give, say, 5% of the profit from the resale of the work to the artist or group of artists that created it. In Canada, one group of artists that would benefit enormously from this are aboriginal artists whose works are widely known. The value of those works has skyrocketed on the international market. Unfortunately, who profits? Those who had the foresight to buy the works for very little money in the communities where those artists still live, many of them beneath the poverty line.

Resale rights would ensure that every time the work is resold, the artist who created it can collect royalties.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although the Conservative government continues to say that the proposed changes to the Copyright Act will protect the best interests of Canadian consumers, the reality is that the Conservatives have based their policy on the concerns of large copyright holders, especially those in the United States. The real winners with Bill C-11 are the major movie studios and record labels, and not Canadian consumers.

Would my hon. NDP colleague agree?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I could give a very succinct answer or a very elaborate one, but clearly, the answer is yes. I was afraid of this shift towards an American approach. I think this has gone beyond just a shift; the Conservatives are copying the American model outright. I must admit this frightens me.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Trois-Rivières for his very enlightening speech. I noticed, however, that he seemed to run out of time, since there is so much to say.

I would like to hear more about his experience as a producer, if he could elaborate on some of his concerns regarding compensation for creators.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question. I could go on about this for the next half hour, but I do not think I have that much time. It is clear—and the principle is a fundamental one—that all work deserves pay. It is simple. There will be no shows, no artistic events, nothing to post on the Web, nothing to share and nothing to exchange if we do not allow creators to live from their craft.

Art is an essential condition for a society to flourish. We cannot address art from a purely financial, material or industrial perspective. It is much broader than that. Creators and artists in our societies are the ones who earn the least. On average, artists and creators live on a salary of roughly $14,000 a year or less. Guaranteeing their right to negotiate the marketing of their products and the fruit of their creation is the least we can do. I will stop there for now.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act.

We live in an increasingly digital society with Canadians spending more time online than ever before. We are creating new and powerful information and communications technologies that are transforming our economy. These digital technologies have had an enormous impact on how people can develop, transform, distribute and make use of copyrighted works.

To be sure, this impact does not come without challenges, primarily the imperative of combatting the theft of copyrighted materials. However, it also creates opportunities which, with the right framework, can be seized by Canadian creators and consumers to add enormous value to our economy.

Consumers today use copyrighted material in ways that were not available a decade ago. Today's technology allows us to copy the films and music we bought onto our personal devices, shifting it from one format to another. We have the ability to back up our pictures on computers or on the cloud. Gone are the days when we had to watch our favourite program at a certain time. We can now time-shift programs by recording them on a PVR, or simply by streaming the content off the web to enjoy at our convenience. Bloggers and vloggers are finding new and exciting ways to create their own non-commercial web content, posting it on YouTube for the world to see.

Today I would like to direct the attention of the House to one particular sector of consumers, those who would use digital technology for educational purposes.

The explosion of digital choices presents many opportunities to the education sector. Perhaps nowhere is the potential of the digital society more exciting than in the field of education. The Internet has made available educational material that was once much more difficult to access. Online learning has created new opportunities for all Canadians, especially those in rural and remote locations.

The bill before us would modernize Canada's Copyright Act to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital age. It would expand the ability of educators and students to make fair use of copyrighted materials in the course of their education and learning. It would also ensure a technologically neutral approach to education, removing references to things like flip charts and overhead projectors. These much needed updates reinforce our government's long-standing policy support for education and training.

Canada's current laws on copyright were last amended before the Internet was available as a powerful educational tool. As a result, the rules around how copyrighted material may be used to support learning have simply lost step with reality. Bill C-11 would correct this problem and ensure that our copyright laws will be able to adapt no matter how the technology evolves. The Copyright Act already acknowledges that certain uses of copyrighted material by educational institutions serve the public good and in many cases provides special flexibilities to foster learning. The bill would enable educators and students to adapt to new and emerging technologies. We want to enhance the traditional classroom experience and facilitate new models for education outside the physical classroom.

We are building on the existing Copyright Act to grant a larger range of uses for copyrighted material. We are expanding a feature of Canadian law known as “fair dealing” to include education. Fair dealing permits individuals and businesses to make certain uses of copyrighted material in ways that do not threaten the legitimate interests of copyright owners and where the use of the copyrighted material could have important economic, societal and cultural benefits. For example, a teacher might provide students with copies of a recent news article that applies to a current lesson.

We also propose allowing teachers and students to use publicly available material found on the Internet, which has been legitimately posted for free by copyright owners, for the purposes of teaching and education. For example, a teacher could make handouts that include an illustration from a website that is freely accessible.

Schools would also be allowed, subject to fair compensation for the copyright holders, to digitally deliver course materials. As well, educational institutions may make a copy of a broadcast of a current affairs program for educational purposes.

The bill would further facilitate online learning. It would allow schools to transmit lessons which include copyrighted sections over the Internet. This would allow, for example, a student in Nunavut to access an online course offered by the University of Alberta. What could be more important for education in a country as vast as Canada than to make sure students in all regions, including Canada's north, have better opportunities to learn?

We are also proposing new measures aimed at supporting libraries, archives and museums in the preservation of our culture. Libraries would be permitted to make copies of copyrighted material in an alternative format if there is a concern that the original is in a format that is in danger of becoming obsolete. Moreover, libraries would be able to electronically deliver material, such as scholarly or scientific journal articles, through interlibrary loans.

These changes are not only important, they are vital to ensure that the products from innovative creators will not be disadvantaged under the law. By extending the fair dealing provisions to the realm of education, we will improve the educational environment, giving Canadians the opportunity to learn in innovative and dynamic environments. At the same time, we will reduce the costs for fair uses of copyrighted materials in a structured educational context.

These changes will bring our educational environment into the 21st century.

As Paul Davidson, the president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, said:

This bill reflects a fair balance between the interests of creators and users of copyright works and is a positive step forward for university communities across Canada.

The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada also responded positively to Bill C-11, saying:

Ministers of education recognize that this federal copyright legislation will have significant implications for how the Internet is used by students and educators across Canada.

Its support is echoed by over 1,000 organizations and associations which have come out in support of copyright reform.

The Government of Canada has also made significant investments in Internet infrastructure, education and skills development. The bill would reinforce and complement those investments.

We are in the process of implementing our strategy for the digital economy, a key element of which is ensuring that we have modern laws and regulations. We passed important new anti-spam legislation and introduced a bill to update privacy laws. These measures will build confidence among consumers, cut costs for businesses and protect the rights of Canadians.

The copyright modernization act will help to advance Canada's strategy for the digital economy. It will assist us in making better use of our substantial investment in education and digital infrastructure. It will help protect innovation and attract new investment, enabling Canadian consumers to make the most of new technologies, while ensuring that creators are fairly compensated for their work.

I encourage all hon. members to join me in supporting this important bill.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member, with whom I sit on the Standing Committee on Industry. I would like him to elaborate on the way in which creators will be paid for their work. I am talking about authors of textbooks or articles, musicians, etc. What would Bill C-11 do in terms of providing the creators with fair compensation for their work?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to working with the hon. colleague on the copyright committee, the legislative committee to study this legislation.

The bill is all about finding the balance between the creators of copyright material and Canadian consumers. We want to ensure that we have a regime that rewards creators for their work. Right now the existing legislation does not deal with these new technologies in a way that would allow creators to be compensated fairly for their work. We want to ensure that we create an environment where consumers are paying for the music they listen to, that they are paying for the movies they watch, that they are not watching pirated copies, and that they are paying for the books they choose to read. We want to create an environment where that exists. That environment is not protected right now to the extent that it should be. The bill is all about that.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will tell it like it is. The Conservative member is trying to sell us on Bill C-11. However, recent information published by WikiLeaks indicates that the main American copyright holders probably colluded with our dear Conservative government with regard to the Copyright Act.

The most disturbing WikiLeaks revelation is that a key staff member of the Industry minister at the time, now the President of the Treasury Board, encouraged the United States to put Canada on their piracy watch list in order to pressure the Canadian Parliament into passing copyright legislation that would weaken the rights of Canadian consumers.

What does the Conservative member have to say in his defence?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Madam Speaker, this legislation is among the most consulted on pieces of legislation that I have seen in the six years I have been a member of Parliament, consulted on with Canadians from coast to coast.

We ran two town halls in Montreal and Toronto. We had nine round tables across the country: Vancouver, Calgary, Gatineau, Winnipeg, Halifax, Edmonton, Quebec City, Toronto and Peterborough. We had 8,000 formal submissions and 2,000 comments posted on an online forum by Canadians. We had hours of speech. I believe altogether right now we have had 27 hours and 5 minutes of speeches within the House of Commons on the legislation.

The bill addresses the needs expressed by Canadians. I do not know whether the hon. member will be on the committee, but he will have the opportunity to work, through his colleagues in the NDP, to have his voice represented in the committee hearings if he wants to, and we will have further hearings to hear from witnesses who we have not heard from before.

Rest assured that the bill reflects the interests of Canadians as they have been expressed. We urge the quick passing of the bill in the interests of all Canadians.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to speak in support of the copyright modernization act. The amendment proposed in the bill will not only lay the foundation for the modernization of the Copyright Act, but will also respond to the future demands as technologies continue to converge at breakneck speed.

The bill represents a common-sense approach that considers how Canadians create and use content. The bill, which was introduced in September 2011, is our government's response to the commitment made in the last Speech from the Throne, which we delivered in June of last year.

Members may recall that in 2010 our government first introduced the copyright modernization act. It was introduced following national consultations on copyright reform that were held in 2009.

Thousands of Canadians, businesses and stakeholder organizations shared their ideas on how best to adopt Canada's copyright framework for the digital age. The remarkable response to the consultation demonstrated the importance of copyright in the daily lives of Canadians. It also highlighted its importance to the digital economy and Canada's global competitiveness.

Our government has listened to Canadians and responded. Canadians told us they wanted a technology-neutral framework that would stand the test of time. We have responded with a bill which introduces technological neutrality. This means the law is adaptable to a constantly evolving technology environment which ensures appropriate protections for the creators. The bill provides technology-neutral exceptions for the private use of copyrighted work. This includes exceptions for time shifting, format shifting and making backup copies. These proposed exceptions are not limited to specific formats or technologies.

Canadians also told us they wanted fair treatment for copyright infringement. We have responded with a bill that significantly reduces existing penalties in the Copyright Act for non-commercial infringements. It also introduces proportionality as a factor for the courts to consider in awarding damages.

The bill also provides strong new tools to target those who profit from infringement. For instance, there are new provisions to target online enablers, those who wilfully enable the large-scale infringement of copyright.

Also, the bill's notice and notice regime ensures that Internet service providers have a part to play in curbing piracy and requires them to notify their subscriber when copyright owners detect infringing activity.

Artists and creators told us they should be fairly compensated for their creative works and the investment they have made. Copyright owners told us they needed legal tools to sustain business models in a digital environment. We have responded with a bill that provides new rights, protections and tools to encourage new business models and provide certainty for artists and creators to engage in the global digital marketplace with confidence.

The bill would implements the rights and protections needed to meet our WIPO obligations.

Copyright owners also told us that some online and digital business models depended on strong protections for digital locks. We have responded with a bill that proposes protections for digital locks. This will give businesses that choose to use them the certainty they need to roll out new products and services.

In addition, Canadians told us that they wanted to make reasonable use of content that they had legally acquired. We have responded with a bill that would legitimize many commonplace private and non-commercial uses of copyrighted material. Many of these uses are currently not allowed or were not clearly dealt with in the Copyright Act. These uses include posting match-ups on the Web or time-shifting television programs.

We also heard from Canadians that they wanted more flexibility to use copyrighted material. We have responded with a bill that expands the existing uses allowed as fair dealing, adding education, parody and satire. This reconfirms our government's commitment to education and responding to the needs of educational institutions.

Teachers and students told us that they needed greater freedom to use copyrighted material together with new classroom technologies such as SMART Boards. We responded with new exceptions that recognize the incredible potential that technology offers Canadian students.

We also recognize that copyright law needs to reflect the needs of perceptually disabled individuals. That is why this bill permits Canadians with perceptual disabilities to adapt legally acquired copyrighted material to a format that they can easily use.

Finally, Canada's innovative firms told us that they needed clear copyright rules in order to roll out novel business models. We have responded by proposing new exceptions for computer program innovators as well as limitations on liability for Internet service providers and search engines. We are also clarifying that making temporary technical reproduction of copyright material would be acceptable.

The copyright modernization act recognizes the everyday use people make of technology, both new and old, and provides a clearer set of rules. These rules would better reflect the interests of all Canadians, including those who hold copyrights.

The proposed reforms to Canada's Copyright Act support creativity and innovation in several fundamental ways. This legislation would provide Canadian copyright owners with a solid framework that would better allow them to respond to piracy of all kinds. It would allow them to roll out new business models that support the creative process and to do so with a new degree of certainty.

At the same time, the bill would also foster new and creative uses of digital technologies to provide our educators and researchers with increased access to the vast area of copyrighted material. It would do this while also allowing them to develop evermore efficient ways to conduct their academic research, deliver course material and lessons, and contribute to Canadian innovation.

Canadians are very proud of the high profile that we currently enjoy on the international cultural scene. In order to maintain that enviable position, we heard that we need amendments to our copyright regime that will position us for success both at home and abroad. I am proud to say that our government's response to what Canadians told us would help ensures that creativity and innovation continue to contribute to our lively Canadian cultural life and Canada's economic future.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask the hon. member a question.

In our opinion, the bill is not at all balanced, as the Conservatives have been claiming in a number of their speeches. Creators will lose millions of dollars. It is true. It has been proven. I would like to hear a little bit more of what the hon. member has to say about this. We know that artists are among the lowest paid workers in Canada. On average, they earn $12,900 a year.

Can the hon. member confirm today, here in this House, that, once this bill is passed, artists will not lose a single penny and that they will receive as much income as before? I would like him to provide some reassurance in this regard.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage my hon. colleague to read at the complete bill very carefully. It does protect the interests of creators and artists.

The government undertook a huge consultation, which was probably one of the most detailed, with Canadians from all walks of life, including artists, creators, businesses and individuals who would be affected.

The bill would help in the current digital environment, such as the Web and the new technology that is being introduced on a daily basis. I would encourage the member to read the bill.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Madam Speaker, from the Liberal Party's perspective, the success of our artists has long been attributed to a regulatory regime that has recognized the creator, whether that be visual artists, creative artists, writers, singers or songwriters. There has always been the ability for remuneration.

We continue to hear concerns from creators as to whether this legislation would, in fact, hang them out to dry. Are we making it more difficult for them to earn a living and continue to pursue a dream and a career? Could the member offer some kind of assurance that those provisions are within this legislation?

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Madam Speaker, this bill was put together after huge consultations were conducted throughout the country. There were hundreds of written submissions, round tables, town halls, et cetera. Taking everything into consideration, I feel that the bill serves the purpose and needs of everyone.

For example, I have a constituent who is a photographer in my riding. He is very concerned about being able to protect his property and his livelihood. This bill would help individuals like my constituent.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a stack of emails about Bill C-11, sent to me by my constituents in Saint-Lambert. They told me about their concerns with Bill C-11 on copyright modernization. The large number of email messages supports my belief that Bill C-11 deals with an important issue which, unfortunately, is not being given its due because the government has moved time allocation.

Here is an example of what the people of Saint-Lambert have to say:

Although the bill [C-11] seems more flexible than previous attempts to reform copyright, this bill is, by definition, inadequate because of the very strict anti-circumvention provisions it contains. As a Canadian, I am both worried and disappointed to see the extent to which my rights are easily violated by means of the universal and absolute protection of digital locks envisaged by the legislation.

Copyright involves the competing interests of a particularly broad range of Canadians.

One of the issues raised by Bill C-11 on copyright modernization is knowing how to ensure that the interests at stake are balanced: the interests of the artistic community, business community, consumers, universities and scientific research entities, new technology and media communities, and the public, generally referred to as the general interest.

I would like to remind the House that one of the objectives of Bill C-11 on copyright modernization is to ensure that Canada can ratify the WIPO Internet treaties and strengthen protection for works and other aspects of copyright by recognizing technical protection measures.

We should remember that the WIPO copyright treaty and world performances and phonograms treaty, collectively known as the WIPO Internet treaties, were signed by Canada in 1997. However, to date, these treaties have not become part of Canada's legal system because they have not been ratified. The treaty rules adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization to deal with ongoing technological advances have never been integrated into Canadian law. From this perspective, Bill C-11 is a decisive step towards integrating Internet treaty law into Canadian law. This integration will come with the ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties.

The government says that it introduced Bill C-11 to change current copyright legislation to adapt some of the rules to keep up with technological advances and harmonize them with standards adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Before getting into the problems with Bill C-11, I would like to reiterate a number of facts that demonstrate the imbalance within our society between the significant contribution of the arts and culture sector to the national economy and the paltry earnings of artists, the driving force behind our arts sector.

I will show how Bill C-11 is not a solution to that imbalance and will do nothing to improve our artists' standard of living. This bill confirms what the NDP feared: this government is more interested in pleasing big U.S. content owners than in improving our artists' standard of living.

The facts speak volumes. The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists estimates that the arts and culture industries in Canada contribute $85 billion a year to our economy and provide 1.1 million jobs, employing approximately 6% of Canadian workers. These industries and the jobs that depend on them can survive only in an environment in which intellectual property is protected.

Despite the major contribution of these industries, the average income of an artist in Canada is just $12,900 per year according to 2009-10 figures. A 2008 Conference Board of Canada report found that the cultural sector generated some $25 billion in tax revenue in 2007. That is three times more than the $7.9 billion invested in culture by all levels of government in 2007.

The federal government invested $3.7 billion in arts and culture in 2007-08, just 1.6% of the government's total spending.

Statistics Canada's Survey of Household Spending found that, in 2008, Canadians spent $1.4 billion on attending live artistic performances, or more than twice as much as on attending sporting events, spending $0.65 billion on those.

The least we can expect from the copyright modernization bill is that it not jeopardize the contribution that our arts and culture industry makes to the Canadian economy. Members of the NDP are of the opinion that Bill C-11 hurts the interests of creators and consumers. The bill will take millions of dollars in revenue away from creators and erode the market. The long and complex list of exceptions does not adequately recognize creators' rights. In fact, these exceptions create new ways for consumers to access protected content without simultaneously creating new avenues through which to compensate creators for the use of their work.

Bill C-11 does not adequately protect the ability of people to post content submitted or produced by users themselves, even if it were easy to collectively authorize this.

Bill C-11 creates an artificial distinction between copying for private use and reproducing for private use.

For consumers, the "no compromise" provisions grant unprecedented powers to rights owners, which supersede all other rights. If Bill C-11 is enacted, it could mean that consumers will no longer have access to content for which they have already paid, and which they have every right to use. For example, in the case of distance education, it is draconian and unacceptable to ask students to destroy course notes within 30 days of when the courses end, as this bill proposes.

Even if the Conservative government continues to say that the proposed changes to the Copyright Act are in the best interests of Canadian consumers, the reality is that the Conservatives have the concerns of major copyright holders in mind. The real winners with Bill C-11 are the major film studios and record companies, and not Canadian consumers. That is why the digital lock provision in the bill trumps almost all the other rights, enabling record companies and film studios to protect their dwindling ability to generate huge profits.

Recent information published by WikiLeaks also demonstrates that the main copyright owners in the United States conspired with the Conservatives regarding Canada's Copyright Act. Bill C-11 does not propose adding new digital storage media to the existing private copying system, but rather protects this system in its current form. However, the Conservatives strongly opposed the NDP's proposal to extend the private copying exception to include digital audio recorders. The Conservatives repeatedly described this as an iPod tax that could cost Canadian consumers up to $75 per device. Nothing could be further from the truth, since the scope of the levies would be determined by the Canadian Copyright Board, a government agency under the supervision of the industry minister.

Here is another thing: the Conservatives' copyright bill, Bill C-11, would ultimately increase the existing levies on cassettes, CDs and DVDs. In the words of the Conservatives, we might say this is a tax on these items. There are other causes for concern in Bill C-11. The bill indeed proposes, in uncompromising provisions, new anti-circumvention rights that seem especially powerful for owners of content, who are not necessarily the creators or developers of the content. These anti-circumvention rights prevent access to copyright protected works.

These new provisions are strengthened by fines of over $1 million and sentences of five years in prison. A further provision prohibits access to information protected by a digital lock, such as a digital watermark. This would lead to a situation whereby digital locks would take precedence over virtually all other rights, including the fair dealing rights of students and journalists.

Internet law experts who have read the bill under review say that some of the exceptions in the bill do not seem to adequately recognize the rights of creators in that they make it easy for consumers to access copyright protected content.

In closing, NDP members agree with the people from Saint-Lambert who wrote:

...it is in the best interest of Canadian consumers and creators alike to amend Bill C-11 to clearly link the act of circumvention to infringement, remove the all-encompassing ban on circumvention tools and establish a new TPM labelling provision.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

When we resume this debate, we will have five minutes for questions and comments.

The House resumed from February 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Copyright Modernization Act

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak at second reading of the much awaited, much anticipated and much needed Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act.

Since this Parliament convened last autumn, the House has had a wide-ranging debate on this bill. In fact, the debate began even before this Parliament convened. Hon. members are aware that the provisions to modernize the Copyright Act and bring it in line with the demands of the digital age were introduced in the last Parliament as Bill C-32. That bill died on the order paper, unfortunately, but not before it had gone through second reading and had been discussed thoroughly at committee.

Now we are in a new Parliament and some of the old discussion has been renewed. We have scrutinized many of the provisions of the bill. We look forward to referring it to committee.

From listening to the debates, I have concluded that everyone on both sides of the House agrees on several important points. The first is that we definitely need to modernize Canada's copyright laws. This is long overdue.

Compared to our trading partners, Canada is late in updating our copyright laws for the digital age. Members on both sides of the House have referred to Canada's obligations as a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization. We are among over 80 countries that have signed the 1996 WIPO treaties, but we have not yet implemented them. As a result, Canada's copyright law has simply not kept pace. This bill would bring Canada in line with our G8 partners and most of the major economies of the OECD.

That brings me to a second point made from both sides of the House during this debate. It is often amazing how much commonality we can find if we look for it among members on all sides. The second point is that we would not update our copyright laws simply because we want to keep abreast of our trading partners. We would also do it to send a clear message to artists and creators that we value their creativity and innovation. We want them to live here, to work here, to invest here, to create here. We want their contributions to help make our Canada a great place to work, live and raise a family.

Another theme we have heard during this debate is the importance of finding the right balance when modernizing the Copyright Act for the digital age. Anyone who is aware of this subject knows that copyright law has to balance a great many interests. On the one hand, consumers have a definite interest in being able to use different platforms and media to enjoy the products they have purchased. They want to be able to use art and music to enhance their own creative efforts, for example, by adding soundtracks to their home videos. Also, educators and researchers want to use material available online in order to promote learning and to advance knowledge, noble goals.

These interests must, on the other hand, be balanced with those of creators and artists who depend upon the financial rewards of their innovation. Creators have to be rewarded. They have a right to be rewarded for their ideas and efforts.

We must also encourage and reward those working in related creative industries. Ideas do not just simply spring into life and get distributed across the country on their own. In related creative industries from music and film to publishing and video gaming, all those people who invest heavily in creative products need to be compensated for their risks. Such stakeholders have a right to be rewarded for their investment. They have a right to protect themselves from those who want to take what they have helped create but not pay for it. In fact, if they cannot protect themselves in this fashion, they will lose motivation.

There is the challenge: to achieve a balance between the ability of Canadians to access and enjoy new technologies and the rights of Canadian creators who contribute so much to our culture and economy.

On the one hand, the bill would equip businesses with the legal framework to protect their intellectual property. Companies could use digital locks as part of their business model and they would enjoy the protection of the law. However, at the same time the bill would legitimize the everyday activities of Canadians. It would make important exceptions for teachers and students to use new technologies to impart knowledge. The bill would encourage innovation and education by encouraging the use of leading-edge platforms and technologies by teachers and students across the country.

The bill would also provide fairness and balance in the penalties available to enforce the law. The current legislation does not discriminate between violations for commercial purposes and violations for personal use. The bill before us would create two categories of infringement to which statutory damages could apply: commercial and non-commercial.

Under the new bill, Canadians who are found in violation of the law for non-commercial purposes could be fined an amount ranging anywhere from only $100 up to $5,000.

On the other hand, the bill would give the courts sharp teeth when dealing with the infringement of copyright for commercial purposes. The courts then could impose fines up to $20,000 per infringement.

It is important that this message gets out across the country.

The bill before us seeks a careful balance between the interests of creators of copyrighted material and its consumers. Achieving this balance is not easy. Previous Parliaments have tried to find the right balance, but bills have died on the order paper instead.

We hope that this time will be different and we can move ahead with a bill that would be good for both creators and consumers. The bill benefits from the careful planning that went into Bill C-32. Hon. members will recall that before tabling that bill, the government consulted widely with individual Canadians, interest groups and associations. As a result, Bill C-11 before us benefits from the input and the advice of many different points of view.

Now, some hon. members may debate that the balance tips too far to one side. Others may debate that it should go in the other direction. The bill may not be perfect; however, it is very good. We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good by preventing the bill from passing. I believe it has found the proper balance. I am looking forward to the bill proceeding to committee.

As I always do when I rise in this House, I urge hon. members to set aside their differences and to join me in meeting the common interests and aspirations of all Canadians. Let us get together and support the bill.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that we are about to wrap up debate on Bill C-11. This is the 15th time the government has limited the time allowed for debate. I find that worrisome with respect to the work the committee is getting ready to do on Bill C-11.

How can they talk about commonality? The member opposite says that he wants to protect artists, but 14,000 people—that is a lot of people—signed a petition. They took the time to go to a website to express their concern about Quebec culture and Canadian culture.

How does he reconcile those two things? He says he is protecting artists, but 14,000 people are worried. That is a lot of people.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question.

I wish to remind him that, whether he or any individual likes it or not, our duty as members of Parliament is to represent 34 million Canadians. It is absolutely essential that we listen to the voices of every Canadian. However, at the end of the day it is our responsibility to ensure that the laws we pass are effective and work well for Canadians across the board and not only for any one particular group or interest.

I want to mention a few specific instances where it would be possible under this bill to break into digital locks, which I know concerns some of the people my colleague mentions. Those instances include law enforcement, national security activities, reverse engineering for software compatibility, security testing of systems, encryption research, personal information protection, temporary recordings made by broadcast undertakings, access for persons with perceptual disabilities and unlocking wireless devices. These are all examples that perhaps people in the public at large are not aware of but they are very important for this bill.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, in regard to copyright and copyright reform, my colleague talks about achieving the perfect balance in this particular situation, or at least the best balance that can be achieved. In many cases, the balance he is looking for does not exist because we have the two extremes on either side. By way of illustration, people are allowed to download a piece of music. They can share it within whatever method they use to listen to music, whether iPod or MP3 and then onto a CD, for example. However at the same time, digitally locked material is not allowed to be tampered with. So even though they have the right to share it, they cannot. Which, in essence, gives the ultimate power over the laws of copyright to the private sector, and large corporations in that particular case. How do we address that? Does the member think that is the perfect balance that he talks about?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that this is a proper balance has to do with the laws of commerce. It is entirely appropriate for people who have put labour into a product to decide what price they want to be paid for the product. We do not confiscate labour in this country. Labourers are free to charge what they wish for their product, in accordance with market conditions.

So if a creator creates a product, that creator is entitled to say if the buyers want to share it with 10 people they will be charged $10 or and if they want to share it with 50 people they will be charged $50. If we prevent creators from having that freedom to charge as they wish, then all products would need to be charged at the highest possible rate. Prices for creative products would go up across the country. This way, we could allow creators to charge less for lesser use, more for greater use.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place for the second reading of Bill C-11, , the copyright modernization act, which would harmonize copyright law with current international standards and update marketplace framework laws to address new and emerging technological environments.

We need a common sense, balanced approach to copyright, one that is technologically neutral so that, as innovation continues to evolve, the Copyright Act would no longer be constrained by the way in which we respond to today's technological choices. The measure we introduce today in the bill must remain relevant to the technologies not only of today but the technologies of tomorrow.

The Copyright Act was changed in 1988 and then again in 1997. Many of the technologies we enjoy today were not invented by then and many of the students who I used to teach, who enjoy these devices today, were not even born the last time the Copyright Act was changed. The current act does not respond to the opportunities and challenges provided by Web 2.0 and social media. It does not answer the needs of the multi-billion dollar industries of today that were in their infancy the last time Parliament amended the Copyright Act. For these reasons, we need to modernize Canada's copyright laws and bring them in line with the demands of the digital age.

The Internet presents specific challenges to intellectual property. Each country approaches copyright and the Internet in a different way. As other countries have proceeded with copyright reform to bring their laws into line with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties, we can see how important the rights and protections provided by these treaties can be.

In addressing copyright and the Internet, Canada has sought a real balance between the legitimate interests of the consumer and the creator while protecting the interests of the search engines and the Internet service providers. Bill C-11 would implement a notice and notice regime, which is a Canadian approach, supported by Canadian stakeholders, including the Internet service providers.

Under this bill, when an Internet service provider has received a notice from a copyright owner that a subscriber has been infringing upon copyright, the ISP would be required to forward a notice to that subscriber. Additionally, the ISP would be required to retain a record of this notification, including the identity of the alleged infringer. This record could be used if court proceedings were to follow at some time in the future.

I suggest that this made in Canada approach to copyright protection would be much more effective than the notice and take-down approach that has been put in place in the United States of America. Notice and notice is a Canadian innovation in intellectual property law. So, too, is the introduction of a new civil liability explicitly targeting those who wilfully and knowingly enable online piracy. Internet service providers and search engines would be treated as true intermediaries under these provisions. However, together with measures to protect copyright holders from piracy in the digital marketplace, this bill would also provide measures that would enable businesses to work with copyrighted materials in the pursuit of innovation.

Under the current law, an innovative company can run afoul of the copyright laws if it makes copies of another product in order to pursue encryption research, reverse engineering or testing for compatibility or security. The bill would remove these restrictions, enabling innovative companies to appropriately use copyright material to develop new products and services.

I believe that we have achieved a balance in this bill that would enable Canada to move ahead in the digital economy. It would foster innovation among companies and protect the search engines and the ISPs that have become such valuable players in the digital society. The bill would enable us to take our place among nations that have modernized their copyright laws. It would create an environment in which creators can create and consumers can enjoy the fruits of those creations for generations to come.

Canada is late in acting upon its goal to bring copyright practices in line with the digital age. A decade and a half has passed since we were at the table to help craft WIPO's Internet treaties. In the meantime, our trading partners have moved ahead with their own intellectual property regimes. However, although we may be late in modernizing our laws, students who were born the last time Parliament reformed the Internet practices and copyright are now in high school. It has been a long time since we have done this. The bill before us represents an innovative made in Canada approach to enforcing copyright on the Internet and would provide the flexibility that innovative companies require to continue the research and development of new products.

The time has come to put these measures into action. We were delayed in implementing these provisions when the previous Bill C-32 died on the order paper in the last Parliament. The months that have passed since have underscored not only the importance of copyright protection but the importance of getting the regime right.

I believe Canada has found the right balance, a balance that will serve as a model for others. We need to move quickly to pass this bill so that creators and consumers can both benefit, and for the clarity and protection that this bill would provide. I urge hon. members to join me in supporting it as we send it to committee.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I am not happy about the time allocation, which severely limits our debates and enables the government to ignore its obligations to the House. I would like to talk about the interests that this bill really protects: the interests of the powerful.

Yesterday, the Minister of Industry said that the Investment Canada Act should not be strengthened in a way that would hurt investors. The government is applying the same logic to Bill C-11. We are all being sacrificed to special interests, and we have no idea of the consequences of that.

I would like to ask the member how much this will cost taxpayers. If such powerful locks are instituted, the content owners who hold the rights and privileges associated with those locks will be able to do whatever they want price-wise and laugh all the way to the bank. What restrictions will be in place with respect to content distribution? How much will these access restrictions cost students and legitimate users who can currently use content for different purposes, including learning?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in return, I would ask the member across the way what the cost would be of not upgrading our copyright legislation after 15 years of not upgrading it.

When we talk to university teachers, public school teachers and student groups, they are in support of this legislation.

I will quote Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, who said:

This bill reflects a fair balance between the interests of creators and users of copyright works and is a positive step forward for university communities across Canada.

The Council of Ministers of Education, all the ministers of education of every province in Canada, say that they:

...recognize that this federal copyright legislation will have significant implications for how the Internet is used by students and educators across Canada.

This support is echoed by a thousand other organizations and associations that have come forward in support of copyright reform.

Fifteen years is a long time to wait for something when the Internet has provided such changes to our system of industry in this country.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member did not understand the question, since he did not answer it at all, when actually, the question was about listening. Given the time allocation imposed on today's debate and the many others that have also been imposed, can anyone blame me for questioning the Conservatives' desire to engage in dialogue and really work with the other parties to improve the bills they introduce?

My question is rather simple. Can the member opposite give some examples of the concerns expressed by Canadians or the opposition party? This would show us that he really listened to those concerns and took them into consideration. He talked about the right balance, but clearly, many people do not agree. Did he really listen to their concerns? What are they and how did he deal with them?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will not stand here in the House of Commons and summarize the concerns of the opposition. I will talk about the concerns of the Canadian people, the people who actually need to use the Internet, the people who actually need to download information to do their jobs and the people who actually need to download information to pass a course in school.

The current regime we have regarding Internet protocols and copyright legislation is antiquated. Sections of the current bill that refer to education talk about flip charts and overhead projectors. This is so antiquated that it does not apply at all to modern education.

That is why the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is in support of this bill. It states that “the government has demonstrated a commitment to...Canada’s education community”. It goes on to state that students across Canada are greatly encouraged. It goes on to state that “the federal government has a clear understanding of how this bill will impact Canada's students, educators and researchers”.

On time allocation, this is the same bill that was debated for many hours in the last Parliament and all sides of the House at that time voted to send it to committee. Since we supported it and sent it to committee the last time, why would anyone want to delay sending it to committee again? We have waited 15 years and that is long enough.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate on Bill C-11. This is not the first time I have had to debate the issue of copyright.

Back in the 1990s, which dates me somewhat, because some people would say I am a veteran as I have been here for awhile, we dealt with copyright law. I think it was Bill C-32 at the time, although I would need to verify that. We were confronted then with the same things that Bill C-11 confronts us with now, which is the necessity for balance between the rights of consumers, of artists and of the creators of the material that is consumed, to put it crassly. Unfortunately, it seems to us that we are not striking that balance right now.

There is no denying that there are some good things in the bill and that there is strong support for it in certain quarters. However, the reality is that it is the same bill that was before the House in the previous Parliament. A number of people who came before committee at that time indicated a desire for changes. We thought there was substantive progress in terms of where we could effect some change to strike a better balance within the bill and yet we are now confronted with the same bill without any changes whatsoever.

Perhaps the most popular provision of the bill is the one that would allow Canadians to transfer the material they bought from one platform to another. In layman's terms, it means that when people by a CD they can transfer it onto their iPod or computer as a backup and not be faced with criminal charges. That is appropriate because I would suspect that in this day and age that is what most people do. People transfer their music to their computer so that they can transfer it to their iPod and manipulate it to have playlists and whatnot. Personally, I think it is quite appropriate that Canadians who are paying for copyrighted material should be able to use it on their own platform, but not for the purposes of transferring it to friends, selling it or whatever. The bill recognizes that, as it should, and, therefore, we would be tempted to support the bill on that basis alone.

However, out comes the digital lock. The way it came about is, to say the least, very troubling. We now have good evidence that this is as a result of pressure from our neighbours to the south. We even had evidence that two government ministers had asked the United States' authorities to put Canada on the list of piracy to put greater pressure on parliamentarians to adopt the bill back then and to justify the existence of the digital lock. That adds a major sticking point and one that causes great imbalance. If we give anyone the right to prevent owners of copyrighted material to use it for their personal pleasure and benefit, we give that right away to large corporations because they put a digital lock on works that have been purchased and paid for legitimately. It skews the bill entirely and destroys whatever balance might be there. On that basis alone, it causes a great deal of difficulty.

There are other difficulties. We might be going a little too far with the exceptions on education. We have heard a number of artistic groups say that they were concerned and worried about that.

We thought that the amendments that were introduced might perhaps be woven into the Bill C-11 edition of the bill but that seems not to be the case. Therefore, we have another imbalance that has been created here that we had hoped would have been addressed but has not been.

I will tell the House a bit about what happened back in the nineties with that bill and why I would be opposed to it now.

I was on the government side. We had the bill before us. We had over 50 witnesses come forward. It was obvious that this chasm, which we are seeing again, was prevalent then between the distributors and the creators of copyrighted material. We were rapidly going into a logjam. I became very sympathetic to the plight of the artistic creators, those who were creating this material, because, without them, the entire industry would not exist. We need to protect the rights of the artists in our country.

To break the logjam that seemed to be coming, I introduced from the government side, imagine that, four amendments to my government's legislation. It did not sit well with everyone, and I recognize that, but the four amendments were actually carried at committee and became part of the bill.

One of the amendments was to change the definition which ever so slightly tilted the legislation at that point in favour of the creators. It was to define what a reasonable effort to find the owner of the copyright would be. In the first definition, it was that one went to one or two stores to find the owner of the copyright. That would be very easy to do, but not really fruitful in terms of a real search of who owned the copyright.

I introduced the motion that a reasonable effort to identify and find the owner of the copyright would be to refer to a collective. A collective, of course, is the creation of artists and artistic communities to defend their rights, to defend their copyright. By the way, I know it has been said and I will repeat it, copyright is not the right to copy. Unfortunately, too many people see it that way.

To defend the rights of the copyright, the right of the owner, the creator, we said that a reasonable effort would be to go to the collectives that represent that group of artists. That definition was accepted. It is in the law now and it is what protects.

I am saying this as an example that at the time we had a committee that could and would change the government's legislation, even amendments coming from the government side. I do not think we will see much of that in this Parliament, unfortunately. If I thought we could see some of the government members willing to put amendments forward, say, to get rid of the digital locks, then I might be tempted to support sending the bill to committee so that we could see the constructive work of committees at play, but we are not likely to see that.

My experience, unfortunately, in this Parliament is that the government's majority shuts down anything coming from the opposition side. We have seen it with Bill C-10, so much so that now with Bill C-10, the Senate has had to correct the lack of appropriate dealing with bills in this House.

I have seen it in my own committee where every constructive suggestion coming from either the NDP or the Liberals is automatically shut down. Not seeing any willingness on the government side to be constructive in terms of real work at committee stage, I am reluctant to support sending the bill to committee, because there is this digital lock and there are other provisions.

The bill eliminates ephemeral rights, an important source of income for artists. Given this government's obstinacy, we have no choice but to challenge it.

I will give another example which is a little bit off topic, but I think you will see the relevance, Mr. Speaker.

In the Liberal minority government, we introduced a notion that we would refer bills to committee before second reading so that committees had a chance to work at the bill constructively. The government always had the ability to stop anything that came forward that was way out of line by just not going any further with the legislation.

Two-thirds of our legislation was referred to committee before second reading. It gave the opposition side of the House, at the time the Reform Party, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, a chance to really exercise their craft as legislators positively and constructively. It worked, and by and large, it worked well. Parliamentarians did their job properly. The committee engaged in real work. The witnesses knew they could come to committee and offer constructive suggestions, positive amendments, and that they would be considered.

The Conservative government never does that, not even when it was in a minority situation. Therefore, given all of that, we cannot help but vote against the bill.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member on his speech. In light of the major change that took place in the last election, I would like to ask him if he believes that Quebeckers have had the opportunity to have their say regarding this bill.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, whether Quebec has had a chance to have its say is a good question. All Canadians have the right to express themselves in this country. Fortunately, the Conservatives have not managed to take that right away from us.

To express oneself is one thing, but to have an impact is another. Unfortunately, in this Parliament, the views of the parliamentarians, the public, the media and the world do not seem to have any impact on this government.

We are reduced to having to assert our opinion right out of the gate because, clearly, nothing constructive seems to come out of the work of the committees.

We have to speak out at second reading and say that we are against the bill in principle. We used to be able to say that we were not comfortable with the principle, but were hopeful that something constructive could be done in committee. That is no longer the case, so we vote against.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his comments about Bill C-11, the attempt on the government's part to update our copyright legislation. I know my colleague has been in this place many years and was part of the government for 13 years. The Liberals had a majority government but really made no significant changes to update our copyright legislation. Maybe, as part of that government, he could explain some of the challenges and why no significant changes were made to the copyright legislation and why it is still stuck in the latter part of the 20th century.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously my colleague was not listening. I just finished talking about how we did substantially amend the copyright legislation in the late 1990s. Significant changes were made. New rights were introduced. New levies were introduced. I remember at the time those in the commercial radio community were saying it was the end of them, that they could not do it, that those were neighbouring rights which were being introduced. However, from then on commercial radio in our country has never done better.

The answer is we did as a government introduce legislation. It was passed. It was amended in committee, incidentally, to be more constructive and more balanced. My colleague is wrong. We did as a government at the time do what we needed to do in a balanced manner, in respect of Parliament, parliamentarians and those who testified before our committee.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his speech. He mentioned, among other things, that no changes had been made to the bill in committee, which is not really surprising. We are dealing with yet another time allocation. This is a fine example of the government's failure to listen.

Earlier, I asked the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley to name a single concern of Canadians with regard to Bill C-11, but he was unable to do so. He could not name a single suggestion that had been made in committee to improve this bill.

Perhaps my colleague was listening a bit better. Could he provide some examples of suggestions that were made to improve this bill, in order to illustrate that the committee members worked together and listened to experts and the public?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the main reasons we are at an impasse is the issue of digital locks. Some very constructive suggestions were made that would deny large companies the right to install digital locks, a right that would effectively override consumers' rights and not enhance protection for the artistic community. That is one of the elements that we wanted to change.

Another suggestion was to establish a fund to offset the artistic community's reduced earnings because of the elimination of certain rights.

We thought these were very constructive amendments. They were suggested and supported by many of the witnesses who appeared before the committee. We hoped that the government would listen and make some changes to its bill, but nothing changed. They were not interested and were not swayed by the witnesses, which leads us to believe that they will not be paying any more attention this time around.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place today in the second reading debate on Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act.

Canada's Copyright Act applies in both digital and non-digital environments. The rapid evolution of digital technologies and the Internet has revolutionized the way Canadians produce, reproduce and disseminate copyrighted works. We need to bring the act in line with today's needs. We need to make it flexible and forward looking enough to respond to tomorrow's changes and challenges.

Clear copyright rules support creativity and innovation and underpin economic growth and jobs. In the digital age it is becoming increasingly vital to ensure that our laws can adapt to future technologies and balance the demands of both creators and consumers. The bill before us delivers that balance.

On the one hand, the bill would ensure that the Copyright Act would foster innovation, attract investment and create high-paying jobs in communities like mine in Kitchener—Waterloo and across the country. At the same time, it recognizes that consumers are a key component in copyright, and grants exceptions to copyright where important public interest objectives must be served.

Just as important, the bill before us puts measures in place that would help our copyright laws keep pace with technological change and its impact on intellectual property. The amendments in the bill are technologically neutral. They are intended to be flexible and adaptable to new developments. They would continue to offer the appropriate protections to both users and creators.

The list of industries and groups that depend on copyright is long, and includes authors, performers, producers, the software and video game industry, photographers, visual artists and publishers. They contribute significantly to economic activity in our country and they support this bill.

Here are a few things that have been said by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada:

The government is fulfilling a promise to modernize an outdated law and support the development of new and innovative...business models....this legislation will help provide a framework...and allow creators and companies to distribute their works in the manner that best suits them. We strongly support the principles underlying this bill....

That support is important because it speaks to the economic strength of this sector and why it needs a modern, flexible, legal framework. For example, in 2007, copyright industries in Canada contributed some $50 billion to Canada's GDP. That is 4.7% of our GDP. They employ over 900,000 people. That is nearly one million Canadian jobs that rely on strong and fair copyright laws to reward them for their creativity and innovation.

Every day of delaying tactics by the opposition represents another day where those almost one million jobs, that $50 billion contribution to our country's GDP, and those creative communities are left without modern legal protection.

At the same time, many sectors of the economy benefit significantly from exceptions to copyright through such measures as fair dealing. These include the educational and library community that use copyright material in support of education, training and developing the skills of tomorrow's leaders.

Education in the future will increasingly incorporate publicly available material on the Internet for purposes of teaching and education. It will build on lessons that are enhanced by the latest technologies. It will rely on course materials and library loans that are delivered in a digital manner.

The users also include researchers and innovators in the information and communications technology sector. They are concerned about protecting their own intellectual property, but at the same time they benefit from making reproductions of copyrighted materials for their own research and the development of new products. Accordingly, we can see that users of copyright are increasingly creators of copyright and vice versa.

A modernized Copyright Act must take into account everyone's needs and reflect a balance in the public interest.

I would like to draw to the attention of the House the provisions of the bill that would give business the tools it needs to take risks, invest, and roll out cutting-edge business models. That is what all of us want. In these ways the bill is part of this government's long-standing commitment to productivity and innovation.

Innovation builds on existing ideas to solve new problems. Intellectual property laws, including copyright, play an important role in providing an incentive to create. However, copyright can also be a barrier to the development of innovative products and services. Let me give the House an example. In the 1970s when the VCR was created, it was challenged by copyright owners in the United States as a device that could potentially be used for copyright infringement. The U.S. courts ultimately ruled in favour of the new technology, paving the way for future technologies like the personal video recorder. Today, DVD sales are a major source of income for copyright owners.

We want to encourage innovation. We want to eliminate some of the uncertainty that innovative businesses face when it comes to copyright issues.

Some of the provisions in this legislation are aimed in particular at the information and communications technology industries. The bill would allow, for example, third-party software companies to undertake reverse engineering for interoperability, security testing and encryption research. As a result, for example, companies could test software for security flaws and then develop and sell patches. These companies could develop new products and software solutions, even if they needed to circumvent digital locks to do so.

The bill also clarifies that there are no copyright implications for reproductions made as part of a technical process, such as to enable content to be viewed on a smart phone like the BlackBerry. This is all part of ensuring that Canada's copyright law is technology-neutral and can adapt to new technologies.

The bill also supports innovation by creating a safe environment in which to roll out new business models.

It would protect against piracy by targeting those who promote and profit from copyright infringement. The bill would prohibit the sale or import of tools or services to enable hacking of access or copy controls. The bill focuses on those who engage in this illegal activity for profit, while it lightens the penalty regime for those who have infringed copyright for non-commercial purposes.

This element of this legislation has strong support. Let me read some remarks by Caroline Czajko, the chair of the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, who says they are pleased that the government is getting tough on IP crimes:

Piracy is a massive problem in Canada which has a tangible economic impact on government revenue, legitimate retailers, and consumers.

Bill C-11 would also add to the exceptions allowed for those who would use copyrighted material for certain acceptable purposes. Parody, satire and education are added to the category of fair dealing, a long-standing feature of Canada's copyright law.

I hope we can move ahead quickly with these amendments to the Copyright Act update. I think we can all agree that there has been enough debate in this place and in the public domain. It is time to move this forward. It is time for a special committee to continue the work we started in the last session of Parliament. By encouraging business innovation and the creation of digital content, these amendments are key components of that strategy, and we need to get them into law.

I encourage all hon. members to join me in voting for the bill.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member pointed out a list of people supporting the bill in its current form. Each time I have heard that list, the only people who have been drawn upon are from the video gaming industry.

As an artist for 30 years, I have known full well, from following the bill since its incarnation as Bill C-32, that the vast majority of the artistic community does not support the bill. Artists do not support the bill because it would take away their remuneration and rights. The bill would basically usurp the rights of the creators.

I would like the hon. member, if he would, to answer the question why or what proof he has that the majority of artists support the bill. In addition, I would hope that he would not think this is a delaying tactic, because a considerable number of Canadians do not support the bill. I think it is only right to debate it until we can find that balance and consensus.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is indeed a very long list of groups and stakeholders that support Bill C-11 and supported Bill C-32 in the last session of Parliament, including artists and creators.

I spoke in my comments about the entertainment software industry. Let me go on, as the hon. member wishes to hear the full list.

Our bill is supported by 400 film, television and interactive media companies across Canada; 150 chief executives across Canada; 38 multinational software companies; 300 Canadian businesses, associations and boards of trade; and 25 university student associations across Canada.

Let me quote a great Canadian musician Loreena McKennitt. She said that the changes proposed in the bill are “fair and reasonable” and that “By fair, I mean establishing rules that ensure artists...are paid for their work.... By reasonable, I mean rules that allow consumers to fully enjoy music...that people like me produce.”

I want Canadian artists--

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I will have to stop the member there, to allow another question.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 has been a very controversial bill. Unfortunately, we have seen the government put in time allocation to limit debate. The member made reference to the fact that we are trying to stall debate. The Liberal Party has said that it has a number of concerns and wants to deal with these through debate and has suggested that eight of its members would speak on this particular bill. Yet, the government has said those are too many people, unfortunately.

We need to recognize there are widely varying opinions about Bill C-11 and that the government has done a disservice to this chamber by preventing adequate debate on this particular bill as it passes through the House. Let us not try to give the impression that the bill has been debated for hours and hours since it was introduced for second reading this time around.

My question for the member is, does he not acknowledge the need to at least allow political parties a few hours of debate prior to the bill actually being passed? If we have waited so long, what is the great hurry and why does debate on the bill--

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I will have to stop the member there because there is only a minute left, and I will return the floor back to the member for Kitchener—Waterloo.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I am astounded by the hypocrisy of the question. We are debating Bill C-11. Currently, we have hours allocated for just that. There will be almost 75 speeches. Bill C-11 is exactly the same bill as Bill C-32.

I was on the special legislative committee in the last session of Parliament. On the government side, we wanted to sit day and night to get the bill passed. The opposition members, all of them, sat on their hands and twiddled their thumbs. They wanted to have nothing to do with moving the bill forward. Finally, we have the opportunity to move the bill forward to support innovation and creativity in this country. I look forward to getting that done.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise again to debate on the bill. I would hope that once the bill gets to committee, it would become a little more like what Canadians are looking for. At the present time, it is not.

The hon. member who spoke before stated that the bill, in its incarnation as Bill C-32, was the subject of wide splits then. However, that same bill was re-introduced as Bill C-11 with no changes. I am surprised that the Conservatives feel that people should be accepting the bill in this incarnation.

One of the many issues is the right of the artist. Copyright was something that was created to protect the interests of the artists, the owners and creators of works. However, the bill seems set toward usurping that right and creating a right for users. This does not happen in any other industry. If one builds a car, there are no laws legislating how much one can charge for that car. The pricing is market driven.

Independent artists are independent workers. They create work and the value of the work is based on merit. The use of that work should be controlled by the artist and not by industry or users. Users should have access to that work under certain conditions, but free access is something that neither helps the industry nor the artists.

If an artist cannot make a living doing their work and have no income, they basically have to go to the double arches to flip hamburgers to make a living. How can they create and work if their time is split that way? If there is no artistic work to be used as a result, then the users lose because they have nothing to benefit from.

First and foremost, I will cover the issue of remuneration, which is lost under this bill, as the private copy levy will be virtually phased out with the changeover of technologies. Remuneration of upwards of $30 million now goes to individual artists. This money is extremely important for an artist, because it is the difference between their making enough money to do their work in their craft and having to split their time between flipping hamburgers or working in a restaurant.

Over the last few years, in music particularly, we have seen Canadian artists rocket to the top of the world music industry. This is because they have had the time to polish their craft and create as opposed to doing odd jobs in order to earn a living. This has allowed artists to live like normal people, to have families, and to contribute to the tax rolls and, more importantly, contribute to the beauty and identity of Canada.

The bill would take that away and offers no compensation or re-compensation for the use of artists' work. Again, and I will repeat this many times, the bill first and foremost does not respect the rights of artists

Earlier in the House the members opposite stated that the bill was supported by producers and associations. One artist was named in that list. In a democracy that is fine, but I can tell the House that tens of thousands of artists have come to me and my colleagues to say that the bill will not work for them. If we are continuing debate on the bill, it is because of the lack of movement on the government side to hear what these artists are saying and the other stakeholders who have issues with the bill.

There is no time limit to debate. If a bill does not work, we should debate it until it does work, until it finds consensus. Otherwise, all it would be is one side's thoughts and everyone would have to live with them.

This is what artists are fighting. This is what other organizations, arts organizations, theatre companies, film companies, actors, musicians, all the people who have a vested interest in this copyright law are fighting. The government needs to listen to them.

I will hold the minister to his word that he wants to see amendments that make this bill better come out of the committee.

In terms of the type of people this bill affects, as in rights holders, it does not cover re-use laws. For example, when a visual artist creates a work, a sculpture or a painting, and that work is sold for $1,000, and then within a period of time the physical owner of that work sells it for $10,000, none of that $10,000 is seen by the artist. It moves on in time, and as the fame or the talent of the artist grows, the work grows in value. The artist who created that work does not see the profits from that work. This is something the bill needs to address.

It is the same thing with photography. When a photographer takes a picture, who owns that picture? If a photographer takes a picture at a family outing, a wedding or whatever, who owns the rights to that picture? If the couple wants to make copies to send to family members, which is a wonderful thing and something they need to do, that photograph is being copied and the creator is not being remunerated for that.

Centuries have gone by where artists were looked upon as vagabonds and beggars and useless members of society. I, being an artist, have always taken offence to that, but hey, the world is what the world is.

Not so long ago copyright was created to prevent artists from having their work taken from them. Once upon a time an artist would create a work and he or she would be given $50 and the work would be the property of whoever bought it. None of that remuneration would ever come back to the artist. The original copyright laws were put into place to help stop that from happening.

Today there are blues artists who have contributed to the growth of music in the world but who will die destitute because they have no claim to the work they created. This copyright bill needs to protect them. It needs to address that issue even further.

In terms of digital locks, why? Digital locks only serve the producers of the work, the shared copyright holders of the work, the industry, per se. Locking a piece of work only serves two things. It serves those whose sole interest is in finding a way around the lock, which seems to be a favourite pastime of many people. Finding a way around these digital locks gives them an opportunity to practise their craft, so to speak. What can be locked can be unlocked. How does this benefit artists? How does taking $30 million out of their pockets and putting a lock on their work benefit them?

The bill needs to be considered a good long time. It is something that has been needed for a long time to become compliant with the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, and create devices against piracy.

However, the bill seems to leave more to punitive speculation after things are done as opposed to making sure that: one, artists are remunerated properly; two, people have reasonable access to that; and three, how we make a bill that serves everybody as opposed to one segment of society.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's speech. It is wonderful to hear an artist's perspective on Bill C-11.

Could he give us his view of what this country would look like and how Canadian society would benefit if artists were properly valued for their contributions and remunerated accordingly?

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen the benefits that properly remunerating artists has had. Canada is second to none in the creative industry, in the music industry, and even in the film industry as we grow. That begins to create a Canadian voice in the world.

Much of what the world learns about another nation or another culture is through the entertainment arts, such as film, television and music. Canada's voice is being heard loud and clear, and has been over the last couple of decades due to the fact that artists are remunerated in such a way that they can focus on their art.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we look at what is going on today with time allocation, and some of the other issues, for example, the dysfunctional behaviour of committees, the manoeuvres used in camera at committees, and the constant time allocation motions brought in by the government, and it tells us that we have debated the issues time and time again in the House. It leads me to wonder whether the members opposite are getting bored, but Canadians are not. They want their voices heard.

We are debating a very complex bill here, yet for the pooled retirement pension plan legislation we only had two members speak to the bill before the government moved a motion for time allocation.

These are very serious implications. I wonder if my hon. colleague could speak to the serious implications of the serial use of time allocation.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, time allocation has been a problem. It has been used more often than need be.

Bills of this complexity, whether they be on the PRPP or copyright, need time. We are constantly hearing that the debate has gone on for a long time or a number of years. However, there was a historic shift in this last election whereby approximately 110 new members, including members on the government side, were elected who had not taken part in the prior debates. For that reason alone there needs to be a thorough debate of the bill.

Any bill that has such complexity and such division needs to be debated until consensus can be found.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite ironic that the opposition members keep talking about closure, yet when they have the opportunity to put up new speakers to speak to the bill they actually do not do that. They put the same speakers up to speak more than once. I know that the opposition critic has spoken twice on this legislation. Many other members have spoken twice on the exact same piece of legislation. They do not seem to be so concerned about getting their new members involved in the debate.

How does the member justify the fact that what they are trying to do is actually delay a bill that is so important to the Canadian economy and to artists? How does he say on the one hand that he wants to protect artists but on the other he is against the protections that this bill puts in place for artists and creators?

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the premise of the member's question because this bill does not protect artists.

Although the government may view this as a delay tactic, which just demonstrates the government's frame of mind, it is not a delay tactic. We are asking for a proper debate on the bill.

There is no point in passing a bill which is so flawed that it will damage the industry as opposed to help it. If we are to pass a bill, let us pass one which is in good, solid form.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to voice my support for the copyright modernization act.

Our government recognizes how important copyright is for Canada's creative industries. In the Speech from the Throne, we committed to introduce and seek swift passage of copyright legislation that balances the needs of creators and users. I have had a lot of discussion in my riding with groups of creators and artists and they are very pleased that our government created this opportunity to pass this legislation as soon as possible. Bill C-11 delivers on this commitment.

Creative industries help drive our nation's economy. The Conference Board of Canada has estimated that culture generates roughly $46 billion in economic activity and accounts for 3.8% of the country's gross domestic product. It estimated that in the same year, Canada's creative industries employed more than 630,000 people. This is a significant contribution to the vitality of the Canadian economy.

Canada's creative industries depend on a strong intellectual property regime, one that protects their interests and gives them the certainty they need to develop new products and services. This is why our government has introduced legislation that will provide our creative industries with a clear and predictable legal framework.

Bill C-11 contains a number of important provisions that will help Canada's creative industries reach new markets. It will also help them to roll out new business models. It will provide them with the rights and protections they need to flourish in the digital economy of today and tomorrow.

In this context, I would like to mention that one of the great companies in Hamilton, PV Labs, a leader in high-end image acquisition and analytics, will receive an Academy Award in Hollywood tomorrow for the concept, design and implementation of the Pictorvision Eclipse, an electronically stabilized aerial camera platform. That is the type of thing we are looking for. We are looking to promote our creative industries.

The bill proposes a new making available right for performers and producers of sound recordings. This will allow copyright owners to control how their works are made available online. Copyright owners will also be given distribution rights. These rights will enable them to control the first sale of every copy of their work.

Performers will be given moral rights. These rights will ensure that their performance is not altered in a way that harms their reputation.

Photographers will also be given the same rights as other creators. They will be the first owner of copyright in their photographs and they will receive the same benefits as other creators.

The bill implements the rights and protections of the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Internet treaties. This will bring Canada in line with its G8 partners and most of the major economies of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It will also help open up new trade markets for Canada's creative industries.

With Bill C-11, Canadian industries that depend on digital locks to protect their works will have the support of the law to do so. The Internet and digital technologies provide copyright owners with new opportunities to increase their business. However, they also carry a significant risk as they can also make copyright infringement easier. This is why some copyright owners choose to turn to digital locks to protect their content.

Software producers, video game producers and movie distributors have told our government that digital locks are an important part of their business model. They use digital locks to protect the significant investment they make in developing new products.

Canadian jobs depend on the industries' ability to make a return on their investment. These industries need to have the protection of the law. Bill C-11 sends a clear message that copyright infringement is unacceptable. It is detrimental to the growth of Canada's creative industries.

Bill C-11 recognizes that the most effective way to stop all online copyright infringement is to target those who enable and profit from the infringement of others. Here I am thinking of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing sites. Bill C-11 would target these sites. This would help support the development of legitimate downloading and streaming sites in Canada. This would ensure that our creative industries continue to make an important contribution to the vitality of Canada's economy.

Our government also recognizes that it is important to balance the needs of Canada's creative industries with those of users. That is why Bill C-11 includes copyright exceptions that recognize uses of copyrighted material that are reasonable in the digital environment.

These exceptions serve the public interest and are responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the digital age. I would note that these exceptions have been carefully designed to be technologically neutral and to ensure that they are restricted to the activities they were intended to permit. For instance, the bill would allow Canadians to record TV programs for later viewing, to copy music from CDs to MP3 players or to back up data if they are doing so for their own private use.

Bill C-11 also includes a number of measures that would allow educators and students to take advantage of digital technologies. For example, it would allow educators to use publicly available material from the Internet. Teachers would also be able to connect with students in remote communities across the country through technology enhanced learning.

The bill would also expand fair dealing for purposes of parody and satire. This mirrors a number of other jurisdictions in the world. This would recognize the importance of these acts in the creative process. By allowing these and other activities, our government is demonstrating that it recognizes that many new digital technologies have become commonplace and are a regular part of Canadians' lives. Our government believes that all Canadians, users and creators alike, will be well-served by more clarity and predictability and sufficient flexibility to adapt and take full advantage of new technologies.

The copyright modernization act is an essential part of our government's digital strategy. This update to Canada's Copyright Act is needed. It would give our creative industries the tools they need to protect their investments, reinvest in future innovation and create new jobs for Canadians. This legislation would also help Canadians better address the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital age. For these reasons, it needs to be passed by this Parliament as soon as possible.

I want to congratulate four of our software creators and engineers who, tomorrow, will receive their academy award in Hollywood: Mr. Michael Lewis of PV Labs; Greg Marsden, L-3 Wescam; Raigo Alas, a PV Labs contractor; and Michael Vellekoop of PV Labs. They will all be honoured for their engineering and software advances of gyro-stabilized aerial camera platform specifically designed for the motion picture industry.

In that context, Bill C-11 would help those creators of those innovative products to be on the front edge of technology. It would put Canada in the forefront of technology in digital format information.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my colleague had the opportunity to speak today considering the limited time for debate due to time allocation. It is unfortunate that more people will not be able to speak to this legislation because it is important to our artists.

My colleague said that our performers would be properly protected under the bill but I would challenge him on that. Rural performers in my riding are very concerned about the bill because they do not think it will protect them. They believe that it would protect the entertainment industry but not that it would protect the performers.

I wonder if the member could tell me how the bill could be amended in order to properly protect the interests of our performers, especially performers in rural areas.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have had a lot of debate on copyright. I have some statistics for my hon. colleague. In the previous Parliament, the bill had 6 hours and 50 minutes of debate and a total of 17 speeches. In the committee, it had 39 hours in a total of 20 meetings. We had 78 organizations and 122 different individuals appear.

Bill C-11 has been debated for 20 hours and 50 minutes, with 74 speeches.

I am an engineer. I am looking forward to passing the bill at second reading and sending it to committee where we can debate it and where, I hope, some of the concerns will be addressed. We need to move forward.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would not want to question the member's sentiment toward getting this passed quickly and getting on with the modernization of copyright laws in light of trade agreements, such as what we are doing with the European Union.

However, the issue is that when the government first made the attempt to bring the legislation into this House it died on the order paper. When it came back, changes were made. I do not think the government is totally against changes that are fundamental, but this time around it is. I am not quite sure why.

The government has heard from many witnesses, and the member just illustrated all the witnesses and all the testimony, but not one change was made.

The government said that it was open to technical amendments, although I am not sure it is, but in order for these to pass, they should have gone to committee before second reading. A lot of these amendments may not qualify because we have already accepted the bill in principle.

Perhaps the member would like to comment on why the government did not put it to committee already?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, instead of always opposing what our government is saying, the other parties should put forward some interesting proposals instead of always trying to contradict what we are doing.

We need to go forward. Obviously, if the members have good proposals, they will be taken into consideration by our government.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat odd to hear the NDP member talk about time allocation. I note that he has actually spoken to the bill twice, taking up a slot of the onslaught of NDP members who, apparently, want to speak to this bill.

I wonder if the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East could talk about some of the dangers to the Canadian economy of the reckless NDP attitude to filibuster this bill, hold it in the House and not allow it to go to committee so that we could actually hear from more witnesses, perhaps consider some technical amendments, such as the Liberal member noted, and bring back a bill that works for Canadians and that protects our artists and our creators?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. We do need to move forward. There will be serious dangers if we do not update our copyright laws. They are outdated. We were working through 15 years of issues. The world is moving forward. We need to be able to capture the changes and to use them to protect our own creators, like the company in Hamilton that is listed in the motion picture awards.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel very honoured today, as the member for Beauport—Limoilou, to be one of the few members who is able to speak in the House about this bill. In fact, it is completely shameful that the government is imposing a gag order to basically prevent us—one could even go so far as to mention censorship—from offering our suggestions and stating the reasons why we are concerned.

As long as this dialogue of the deaf continues, we will continue to make and reiterate our suggestions and those that Canadians have expressed to us directly. Let us be fair. Abusing gag orders and using them repeatedly is a cowardly way for the government to avoid doing its duty in the House. That is a fact.

I will now focus on Bill C-11. I would like to seize this opportunity to talk about the economic impacts we can expect if this bill is passed. Members will have noted that this is a topic that I am particularly concerned about and that I have spoken about in the House many times. Unfortunately, the Conservatives were listening only half-heartedly, if at all, except to sometimes hurl insults.

What is truly a shame, what is truly unfortunate is that many aspects of the bill that we are debating today, as it now stands, are valid, in whole or in part. We could agree on these aspects or request certain amendments.

However, the members opposite refuse to listen to what we have to say about the other aspects of the bill, which are a cause of great concern to us and which we oppose because of the damaging, if not completely unfair, impact they would have on all Canadians. It is truly appalling.

The debate on Bill C-11, like all debates in the 41st Parliament, shows just how dysfunctional the House of Commons has unfortunately become. If I take the liberty of using that word, it is because it has already been used in the past to call an election and to try to muzzle the opposition.

I am here because I am deeply concerned about certain specific aspects of the bill. In fact, I would like to raise two specific issues, two aspects of the bill that are of great concern to me. I am completely shocked that members of the government party are defending these truly negative aspects of the bill so strongly.

I would like to begin with the first aspect. The scope of digital lock protection under C-11 is huge. It is absolutely unbelievable. In fact, one has to wonder for which particular interests the government is working so hard.

Yesterday, when speaking about the motion we had the honour to move, I condemned the government for abandoning not only workers and pensioners, but all Canadians, because of the flaws in the Investment Canada Act. At present, anyone is more or less completely free to steal jobs, intellectual property, our heritage and our resources, right out from under our noses. These resources belong to all of us. The digital lock protection proposal goes so far that it is practically a submission. The word is not too strong. The government is imposing something that is almost a submission to special interests, particularly foreign interests.

There are other repercussions. Such broad protection could cause other problems because it would not respect certain provincial jurisdictions. This would even have legal repercussions concerning some aspects of our Constitution. This protection, this advantage, could go so far as to create a quasi-oligopoly among the multinationals that hold the copyright to certain works.

What would be the result? It is a basic economic principle. When an oligopoly exists, as is the case in other industrial sectors and areas of economic activity, we can expect upward pressure on prices. All of us, ordinary consumers, all Canadians, would pay the price because a very small group of copyright holders would impose their rules, their prices and their distribution limits on our market. This could have unbelievable and devastating repercussions. We must be aware of this. Time allocation is nothing short of an outrage, because it prevents us from examining all the repercussions of this bill. It is truly unbelievable.

There is something else that I find ridiculous. I would even laugh about it, if not for the truly serious consequences of the penalties for those who try to circumvent a digital lock. How can we support the potential criminalization of users who may be students or grandmothers? I know many women over 60 who use the Internet and the new tools a great deal. They could be fined up to $1 million and sentenced to up to five years in prison for circumventing a digital lock deliberately or inadvertently, as it might be someone in their family or circle of friends who did it.

A two-year prison sentence results in a criminal record, which precludes travel to the United States, for example. Such a harsh sentence for circumventing a digital lock? Where is the logic? How can the government defend this measure and threaten thousands of Canadians with such a stiff penalty? This is definitely like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. I realize that the government has shown rather poor judgment in its decisions, such as the procurement of military equipment. We are trying to reach out and offer our help so that it makes better choices. But this is going too far.

The government's complete unwillingness to listen and its very disrespectful answers show the extent to which this government is against Canadian society. Its contempt for most members of this House is unacceptable behaviour and cannot be condoned by anyone. Our concerns are legitimate. We are not asking the government to reject all of Bill C-11; we are just asking that it listen to us. We spoke to specific groups and we want to make amendments. We even want to work with the government because, I repeat, the bill contains some valid elements. These elements will fall by the wayside and this government, as it often does, will not hesitate to accuse us in a backhanded and malicious way of voting against this bill.

The government is refusing to listen to us and will make millions of Canadians pay. This type of behaviour must stop. If the government continues to act this way in the next four years, it will pay a high price. I will personally see to it.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, that is another member who spent a lot of time talking about the lack of potential debate on this. However, he has spoken to this bill already once before. My first question is, why is he taking a spot from one of the new members of the NDP caucus who might actually want to speak to the bill? If there are so many members of the NDP who want to speak to the bill, why are the same members speaking to this bill over and over again?

My second question for the hon. member is this. How far will the NDP go in its reckless policies to delay this bill and make sure it does not go to committee so it cannot hear more witnesses or make amendments? How far will it go in hurting the Canadian economy for the extreme left-wing ideological bent that it keeps bringing to this place?

Does he deem to protect creators in legislation going forward? If he does not support technical protection measures, how does he deem to protect creators and artists going forward?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my answer to the member is simple. I am a father. Sometimes, when dealing with certain behaviours, we must keep repeating ourselves. We will not hesitate in the least. If the government continues down this road, I believe that millions of Canadians will say again and again that they no longer accept this at all.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, according to recently leaked diplomatic cables, some parts of this copyright bill were designed to address the concerns of American industry instead of the concerns of Canadians, including digital locks.

Does the hon. member expect American industries to exert this type of power in the future? What sort of precedent does this set? I would like to know what he thinks about this.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her very relevant question. Yesterday, I was watching the Radio-Canada show Enquête, which was reporting on the scandalous behaviour of the authorities and their accomplices in the asbestos industry. We saw exactly the same thing with the tobacco industry. It is absolutely unbelievable. I want to thank the hon. member because she is exposing the same modus operandi, the same danger to the general public. It is scandalous to subject some 34 million Canadians to some very narrow special interest groups.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have heard my colleague speak to this bill. It is important for the opposition to express its point of view and be heard. I thought it was rather ironic that the hon. Conservative member asked the opposition earlier to propose things and tell the government what it wants, when the government turns around and limits debates. This is not the first time it has done so. It is rather ironic that the government asks us to propose things and then tells us it has heard enough and it is going to do whatever it wants.

Does my colleague believe that the government wants to listen to us when it is limiting debate and introducing unbalanced bills? Every Canadian I have talked to says that this bill is not balanced and it should be amended. The government is not listening to us and it is limiting debates.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Sherbrooke. I would encourage him not to be shy about telling the government a thing or two just because he is young. This bill, like many others, will affect his future for a long time to come. He has every right to speak up. I strongly encourage him to participate, and I very much admire the work he is doing here.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the government's bill to amend the Copyright Act. Bill C-11 fulfills a commitment we made in the last speech from the Throne to reintroduce and seek swift passage of legislation to modernize Canada's copyright laws.

It has been more than a decade since the last major update of the Copyright Act. In this time, the Internet and other forms of new media have radically transformed the way in which Canadians produce and access copyrighted material. This transformation is ongoing. Technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Apps for mobile devices continually improve our access to content. Tablet devices allow readers to access e-books, e-magazines and all kinds of other content. They also allow doctors to access online services to offer diagnoses for their patients. These are just a few examples of how content moves quickly to newly adopted technology.

It is important to point out that all of these services involve copyrighted material. That is why the government would modernize Canada's Copyright Act. The reforms that we are proposing would go a long way to strengthening the tools that Canadian creators and innovators need to protect their work and grow their businesses in this digital economy. This legislation would update the Copyright Act and bring it in line with advances in technology and current international standards.

We are taking a common-sense approach to these updates. I am proud to say that both content creators and Canadian consumers would benefit from the proposed amendments. With these changes we would ensure that the Copyright Act supports innovation and attracts investment and jobs to Canada.

The government first introduced the copyright modernization bill in June of 2010. Before being dissolved, the legislative committee that studied that bill heard from more than 70 witnesses and received more than 150 submissions. Over the course of the hearings two clear messages emerged. First, the committee heard that the bill balanced the interests of various stakeholders. Second, the committee also heard that Canada urgently needed to pass legislation to update the Copyright Act. Therefore, our government is proposing a uniquely Canadian approach to copyright reform. The approach takes into consideration the views of all Canadians.

Canadians from all walks of life understand the importance of copyright. They are concerned about the impact of copyright on their daily lives. They recognize the importance to the digital economy and Canada's global competitiveness. The bill before the House reflects a common-sense approach. It reflects the interests of consumers and of rights holders alike.

Canadians have told us that Canada's copyright regime must take into account technology that does not even exist yet. This is a challenge that the copyright modernization bill addresses. It recognizes the importance of responding to the ever-changing technological landscape with amendments that are drafted in a technologically neutral way.

The proposed copyright modernization legislation would recognize the many new ways in which Canadians use technology. It would provide clear policies that would enable them to increase their participation in this digital age. We would be establishing new provisions that are technologically neutral that can be adapted to constantly evolving technological environments while ensuring appropriate protections for both creators and users alike.

Let me remind my colleagues that the bill includes the flexibility to respond to future realities because we have built in an automatic review process. It would require that a five year review of the Copyright Act be undertaken by Parliament.

Canadians want to make reasonable use of content that they have legally acquired. That is why the bill would legitimize many commonplace private or non-commercial uses of copyrighted material, uses that are not allowed, or that have unclear status under the current Copyright Act. Canadians would be able to record television, radio and Internet programming in order to enjoy them at a later time, with no restrictions as to the device or the medium that they wish to use.

Canadians would also be able to copy any legitimately acquired music, film or other works onto any device or medium, like an MP3 player, for their private use and to make back-up copies of these works.

Canadians would also be able to incorporate existing copyrighted material in the creation of new works, such as Internet match-ups, as long as it is not done for commercial purposes and the existing material is legitimately acquired.

Canadians with perceptual disabilities would be permitted to adapt legally acquired material to a format that they can easily use. The changes would also clarify the law regarding the import of adapted material into Canada and would explicitly permit the export of certain adapted materials, including Braille and audio-books.

The bill would also extend fair-dealing provisions to permit the use of copyrighted material for education, parody and satire. Furthermore, the bill would facilitate access to content for educational institutions, libraries, archives and museums. It would do this with exceptions that would allow for uses of copyrighted material that are reasonable and serve the public interest. It would do this in a way that would be responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the digital age. These exceptions have been carefully designed to ensure they are restricted to the activities that they were intended to permit. We believe that all Canadians, users and creators alike, would be well served by more clarity and predictability and sufficient flexibility to adapt to new technologies and take full advantage of them.

I will now tell my colleagues about the benefits of some of these exceptions. Students, particularly those in remote locations, would benefit from new exceptions that accommodate the use of technology for live or on-demand learning. They would be able to reproduce lessons for use at a more convenient time. At the same time, educational institutions would be required to adopt measures to prevent abuse.

Our government wants to encourage innovative companies to continue to develop new products. This bill would provide such companies with the legal tools to protect the investments they have made. This would allow them to invest in future innovation and jobs.

With this bill, our government has introduced important measures that would acknowledge the importance of our creators, those industries whose success depends on copyright, for example, software companies, filmmakers, musicians, writers and publishers. We believe that these changes would encourage greater online participation in the virtual marketplace, an area that is experiencing dramatic growth with global e-commerce transactions that have become so vital to the growth of so many companies.

Our government recognizes that Canada's Copyright Act must help Canadian businesses remain competitive. We realized from the outset that our approach to modernizing the legislation had to balance the interests of a wide range of stakeholders. I am proud to say that we have achieved that goal. I look forward to the day when this proposal becomes law. It demonstrates our government's continued commitment to fostering creativity and innovation and supporting Canada's creative economy.

Our government has sought a balance in our copyright legislation and reforms. We sought a balance between protecting creators and ensuring that consumers' rights were also protected. Over the course of two Parliaments, there have been a number of attempts by our government and a lot of debate and discussion, both in this chamber and in committee, to refine those proposals. I strongly believe that we have found that balance. We certainly sought and received input from Canadians. I believe this bill is one that finds that balance and seeks to move forward in an appropriate manner to allow for the future, for new technologies that will be developed and those that exist now, and ensure that the balance is created. We have done that and I am very proud of that.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim that Bill C-11 will protect artists, but many artists have shared their concerns about this bill with us. Because we have very little time left to debate this bill, I would like to ask a question on behalf of an artist who contacted me directly. He said:

As an emerging artist, I find it difficult to compete with recording industry heavyweights that have access to every possible medium to promote their products. The Internet is an intelligent and economical promotional tool that levels the playing field and supports the free market, giving me and those discovering my work a way to share my music. There are already effective mechanisms in place to protect sharing of copyrighted material. For example, my own music has been temporarily blocked on my own YouTube channel because Warner Music Group's monitoring software detected that I was sharing protected content.... My question is, how can this government tell me that it is protecting my rights as an emerging music creator when it is actually curtailing my freedom of expression?

I would like the member to answer Patrick Bernier-Martin, who asked me that question and who, as an artist, is very concerned about this bill. He does not see how this bill will protect his rights at all. He thinks, and many experts agree, that this bill will protect big industry, which pressured government to introduce it.

Can the member answer this artist?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member has sought to consult with stakeholders, whether they be those who are creators or consumers. I assume that she has met with consumers as well and has heard from her constituents on it, as I have. I have met with many creators, including recording artists, over the last couple of years. I have certainly heard from many of my constituents. I have spoken with educational institutions, with libraries in my constituency and elsewhere, so I have heard many of the thoughts and concerns, just as I am sure she has.

I believe our government has found a balance. We need to ensure a balance is created that protects the creators, including the recording artists the hon. member mentioned. We are ensuring that we are finding the balance between protecting them and also ensuring that consumers have access to what they want to be able to have access to.

I think we have found that balance. If some individuals have concerns, they should share those at the committee stage, which, hopefully, we will be at very soon, to ensure their concerns and thoughts are heard but--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. We need to leave a bit more time for other questions.

The hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, my question pertains to the balance the hon. member discussed in his speech. He said there were two things that came out of the hearings, first, that a lot of people had interest in this, but obviously second, that a balance has been achieved.

I want to question that. We need to look at fair use, at fair dealing. He talks about the education exemption, which basically means, for the purpose of education, one can use copyrighted material. However, if the material in question has a digital lock placed upon it, it cannot be used in this exemption.

Perhaps the hon. member would like to work out that balance, because it does not really make a lot of sense to me.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose the hon. member is entitled to his opinion. However, we sought input from a variety of sources and all kinds of discussion have taken place at the committee level and here in the House. Members of the government have, as have members of the opposition, consulted with those who are creators in the recording industry or otherwise, or consumers.

All of us have consulted with our constituents and what we are hearing is that, although there may be some concerns in various areas and it is difficult to find a balance, they believe our government has found that balance and that we have found a balance that is fair to both creators and the consumers.

I am proud of the fact that we have worked hard to ensure the balance is there and I do believe it exists.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We will be resuming debate but before I recognize the member for Vancouver Quadra, I want to let her know that I will have to interrupt her part way through her speech as 1:15 p.m. is the end of government orders for today.

The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add a few comments to this important debate. The Liberal Party absolutely believes that Canada's Copyright Act must be modernized. In this era of iPhones, iPads, cloud sourcing and so on, we must have modern laws.

That is not the challenge here. The challenge, or the issue, is to implement reforms that are fair and that balance the rights of authors and the rights of the Conservatives. We all know this is the objective of the bill. However, the Conservatives have not succeeded. That is obvious. A number of groups have told us and them that the bill is not balanced.

One of the greatest concerns for me is the fact that the Conservatives will continue with their agenda without listening to Canadian citizens, groups, experts and opposition members. We could call this dictatorial federalism.

We know that this bill has sparked a great deal of discussion and that many suggestions were made to improve it. But did the Conservatives add some ideas? Did they change what they will do? No. They introduced a bill that ignores everyone else's ideas. That is not democracy. That is not enough for those of us on this side of the House.

Why do we have to be in such a rush to pass a bill when, when it comes right down to it, the result is not acceptable for so many people and so many organizations in terms of the objectives we have here in Canada? Why? This is a complex issue. This bill is very detailed, and there are many valid arguments. It is worth listening to them and continuing to work on the bill in order to achieve a good result.

Why put forward a policy that is so important and that affects the lives of all Canadians, only to be satisfied with a poor result that does not achieve the balance that everyone wants, when that is the very goal of modernizing the legislation?

It is the same with other issues. The process used by this government and the Prime Minister is a bit dictatorial. They understand while others do not. It is insulting to those who oppose and also to organizations that work every day, every year, to explain the issues with respect to the modernization of the Copyright Act.

Why shorten the debate in such a manner? Why? There is no support for doing so outside that group.

In the beginning, I spoke about the process, which is faulty. I would like to continue in that direction and speak about something that is of great concern to me.

I just asked an NDP member a question about that. Who is managing our decisions as Canadians? Who is in charge of our country's legislation? Recently we learned that some diplomatic cables have shown that some parts of the Conservatives' copyright bill, which we are talking about this afternoon, were drafted to satisfy the concerns of the American industry instead of addressing the concerns of Canadians.

Many Canadians are opposed to the digital locks, which seem to only address American interests. That worries me a lot because the Americans are major partners. They are our friends and neighbours, but they are not in charge of our legislation. This strategy is very worrisome because it sends a message to specific industries in the United States that they can push Conservative MPs in a direction that does not serve the best interests of Canadians.

Our sovereignty belongs to us, to Canadians. It is very important to the people of Canada. Handing over our sovereignty on a silver platter by creating legislation for the American industry is very dangerous. Other industries are going to see that and expect Canada to do it more often. It is unacceptable and we must stop doing it right now.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It being 1:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made Wednesday, February 8, 2012, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Monday, February 13, 2012, at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you would find consent to see the clock as 1:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from February 10 consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-11.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you would find agreement to apply the vote from the previous motion to the current motion, with the Conservatives voting yes.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this fashion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members will be voting no.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Liberal members will be voting no.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc will be voting no.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party votes no.

[Peter Goldring, Independent, Edmonton East, AB]

I vote yes.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #125

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #126

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly the bill stands referred to a legislative committee.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)