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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from Longueuil for sharing his time with me.

I rise to speak to Bill C-11. It is a complex and quite honestly dumbfounding piece of legislation. It attempts to strike a balance between the interests of consumers and stakeholders.

The need that the bill is meant to address has been lost in the haste of having legislation in place by an arbitrary date. However, it must not only answer immediate concerns but also future concerns of stakeholders. In its haste, the government is missing a golden opportunity to provide support for Canada's creators and in fact is abdicating its responsibility to them.

In this era of ever-evolving, growing and fluid digital integration of communications and entertainment, it is even more important that the bill strike a balance between the needs of Canadian consumers and their ability to access and enjoy artistic content and the undeniable rights of the creators of that content. It is imperative that a sound legal framework be established to protect the rights of creators and other stakeholders.

The works of artists can inspire, comfort, educate and on occasion help us express that which we are unable to express on our own. In addition, those works fuel the heart of a massive economic engine that drives $85 billion into the Canadian economy and provides 1.1 million jobs, yet those works still are grossly undervalued. The bill underlines that fact by putting business, consumer and user rights ahead of the rights of the creators of those works.

The nature of copyright is better expressed in the French language, “droits d'auteur”, meaning author's rights, the right of the author, the creator. That right gives artists the ability to determine how their works will be used. Sadly, this is conspicuously absent from this document, or at least is addressed minimally.

As an artist, and an advocate of the bill since its previous incarnation as Bill C-32 through to its present state, I have discussed the issue at length. When meeting with individuals and members of organizations in my constituency office as well as here in Ottawa I hear the same concern expressed. Although they agree that new copyright legislation is needed, they all ask why money is being taken out of the pockets of artists and why their needs are not being addressed.

Indeed we have entered new territory and, as with anything new, there is always adaptation required. For the first time in history the types of physical controls that copyright holders held in the past are gone. Entertainment and academic works are accessed more easily and therefore are less protected.

What protection mechanisms do artists have? There are a few cursory exemptions from prosecution or civil action for consumers and their advocates. In exchange a rather dizzy and confusing series of vague obligations are offered, one of which includes shredding their class notes. The artists and cultural communities are offered lip service with regard to the principle of equitable compensation for their creative works. They are also offered an inconsistent and frankly scary approach toward the protection of those works as well as compensation for them.

In its present form, Bill C-11 is an unequivocal failure. It outright fails to satisfy the two most important benchmarks we as parliamentarians use for evaluation. It fails to establish clear, universally understood rules for consumers. It also fails to ensure equitable enforceable compensation rules for those people who dedicate their lives to the creative enterprise.

Many of my colleagues have remarked on the many practical problems of this law, some of which we in the official opposition are committed to remedy through good faith dialogue at committee stage. I hope my colleagues across the way will work with us on this approach with purpose and in the spirit of openness.

After a long career in the arts, I came to Parliament as a voice for those artists and a voice for the constituents in my riding who are artists. From my perspective, this law's greatest weakness is its complete failure to extend or acknowledge the vital and current compensation framework upon which so many artists, writers, musicians and creators depend for their livelihood.

During the 2008 federal election, the Prime Minister made his feelings with regard to artists clear. We took exception to that, particularly in my home province of Quebec. The bill does little to show any change of heart regarding the Prime Minister's view. The images provoked by his words are misleading and undermine the artistic community, which contributes far more to this country than it receives.

Typically, today's Canadian artists continue to focus on their creative works more than where their next meal will come from. The typical artists in this country have a median income of under $13,000, yet the government sees fit to take $30 million a year out of their pockets.

That party's characteristic cynicism, for which it grows ever more famous, shows the value the members of the government have for artists.

I look at the discussion regarding digital access as a reminder of the Wild West days when our forefathers came to this country and were given pieces of sticks and told to go out and stake their claims. For some reason, many people feel that the Internet offers that same opportunity. However, like our forefathers who staked their claims, there are people who own the rights to works of art found on this worldwide entity called the Internet.

The Internet is a tool. It is a medium through which we can access all sorts of information. However, if we walk down Sparks Street and the HMV doors are open, that does not give us the right to walk into HMV, put a CD in our pocket and leave. We must provide compensation, which is what the bill fails to do.

The House resumed from October 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read a second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question. I think the government is continuing to ignore the very people most affected by this. This reminds me of Bill C-11, where the people most concerned are being completely ignored. The same thing is happening with Bill C-18. The people most affected are being ignored.

The Conservatives think they are the only ones who can speak for all farmers, and that is simply not true. The fact that they are ignoring the plebiscite that was held proves that they are not listening to all farmers.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the new official opposition House leader. I had a surprisingly positive and constructive relationship with his predecessor. I say “surprisingly” because some people were skeptical that we would work well together, but indeed we did so in a very genuine way. I am very optimistic that the same will continue with the new official opposition House leader. He has proven himself always to be an individual of very fine comportment so I have great optimism about that.

I would like to thank the member for Windsor—Tecumseh for his question, and now in response to his question, I would point out that the government's top priority continues to be creating jobs and economic growth.

In that regard, I am pleased to say that we have had a productive week so far in the House. On Monday, we passed the Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act and sent it to committee.

This very important bill includes vital measures that Canadians need and expect our government to implement, including a tax credit for small businesses that create jobs, extension of the accelerated capital cost allowance for businesses that invest in manufacturing equipment, and much, much more.

Unfortunately, I was surprised that the opposition voted against these positive economic measures. However, we can hope for better in the future.

Then, on Tuesday, we began debate on the Copyright Modernization Act, an important and long-needed bill that will boost Canada's cultural and digital economies.

Unfortunately, members opposite unveiled tactics to delay this bill and the important benefits it would bring to Canada's economy.

In the previous Parliament, that bill had passed second reading after just under seven hours of debate. I hope the opposition will reconsider and allow that to happen this time around.

Nevertheless, tomorrow the House resumes debate on Bill C-11. As I already mentioned, hopefully the opposition will see the wisdom in letting the bill get back to a committee for study and clause-by-clause review.

Yesterday, we began debate on the marketing freedom for grain farmers bill. Again, this is a bill that will have real economic benefits for Canada, especially for the economy of western Canada. It is also a bill which offers members a clear-cut choice, either for marketing freedom or for the continuation of the seven decade monopoly. We are looking forward to a good focused debate on this important platform commitment of ours.

Again, however, we are surprised that we are seeing efforts to prevent this bill from moving forward with a motion to adjourn the debate. We heard some bells yesterday.

We will continue debating the bill this afternoon. The third and final day of debate on the bill, following the motion adopted by the House this morning, will be Monday, October 25.

The next allotted day will be Tuesday, October 26. For the business of the House beyond next Tuesday, I will apprise my counterparts at the earliest opportunity.

Copyright Modernization Act

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

Madam Speaker, first of all I hope that my hon. colleague is going to take a hint. What we are trying to suggest here is that there are some changes required.

A minute ago and earlier today I listened to him talk about how we have listened to so many people and have received so many witnesses and so many written submissions, but what do we see in Bill C-11? Can he tell me that everything that has been suggested under the Bill C-32 legislative committee is actually being considered for the final version, or did we do a tape erase and start from zero? Are we going to go through a sham exercise that will not change a darned thing?

If he wants to talk about listening to Canadians, he has not done that yet.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to this extremely important copyright bill. When I was the science and technology critic before the last election, I had the pleasure of sitting on the committee that addressed this extremely important issue which, as we know, goes back a long way.

Canada, of course, signed on to the WIPO treaty back in the 1990s. We all know that it has been a long tortuous road with respect to modernizing our copyright bill. We in the Liberal Party attempted to do so; unfortunately, with changes in government and other things, it did not happen, so here we are today with Bill C-11.

I participated in a legislative committee before the election when the bill was known as Bill C-32. As has been pointed out many times today already, there is no change in the wording of Bill C-11 versus Bill C-32.

This is surprising to me. In reality we listened to a very large number of witnesses from many different fields. They represented what I would call the three main stakeholders: industry, the producers of video games, movies, music sets, electronic books and those kinds of things; consumers, all of us who buy these copyrighted materials; and finally the third group, the artists. There are a great many artists who are ultimately the producers of the works that we buy.

We heard from a large number of these people, and from other groups in the education field, as well as librarians, photographers and a great many people who have an interest in modernizing the copyright law.

When we finally saw Bill C-11 as it was presented just recently, we discovered, as I said, that there had been no changes whatsoever to it, yet there were some very compelling testimonies presented by the witnesses who appeared earlier this year. Personally I would have thought, and I had hoped, that the version we would be dealing with today would have had some changes put into it.

In relation to many areas that needed to be modernized under copyright, I would say this is a good bill, and the Liberal Party is ready to support those aspects. However, there are also a number of areas on which we feel the points brought up by witnesses were valid. We feel there should have been consideration given to changing it to make it a more balanced copyright bill. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

I have to say that the thought went through my mind as to whether there had been any intention to listen to any of the witnesses who had appeared. So far, on face value, I would have to say no, because nothing has actually changed between Bill C-32 and Bill C-11.

Although we will be going to committee with Bill C-11, my question is this: are we going to end up with exactly the same bill at the end of that process, or is the government really willing to actually listen to some of the inputs? That is my concern.

This morning the heritage minister said that they did not change anything in Bill C-32 when they made it Bill C-11 out of respect for all those witnesses.

Now, there are two ways to take that, and I am not quite sure what he meant. One possibility is that the Conservatives have stored up the witnesses' input and at the end of the process will make changes. The other is that they are really telling us that we will go through this charade for whatever amount of time Bill C-11 will be debated in committee and otherwise, but will end up with exactly the same bill that was presented a while ago. We therefore introduced an amendment this morning.

As I have said, there are a lot of good things in Bill C-11 that we fully support. For example, I come from a riding where there is a major video game presence. It is a large industry. Canada is a leader in this area, and I support the desire and the need to protect against piracy. That is very important for Canada. That is an example of something we support entirely.

We also have no problem with certain other things, such as some of the fair dealing provisions that would deal with parody and satire.

However, there are other areas where valid points have been brought up. The first one, of course, has to do with digital locks.

Our point of view in the Liberal Party is that if people buy a copyrighted product such as a piece of music, a video, or an electronic book, download it and pay for it legitimately, then they have bought the right to that product. If they choose to transfer it to another device, again for their personal enjoyment and for a non-infringing personal purpose, then we do not believe they should be forbidden from doing that, even if it has a digital lock on it. That is fundamental in our position. It is because those people have paid for the product, and it remains a product that they want to use for personal purposes.

The argument presented by the minister of heritage is that if it has a lock on it and the buyers intend to transfer it, they have a choice of either breaking the law or not buying the product. We do not think that is the way we should approach this particular issue of digital locks, nor do the majority of Canadians.

The second thing has to do with fair dealing and the definition of fair dealing. As members know, “fair dealing” is defined under a number of criteria in the Berne Convention. The particular issue that was probably the most contentious was bringing education under fair dealing. When that happened, we in the Liberal Party and a lot of the witnesses asked for a definition of “education” under “fair dealing”. In fact, we proposed, constructively, to codify a number of criteria established by the Supreme Court that would establish whether fair dealing had been infringed because, as members know, if people feel that fair dealing has been infringed, the onus is on them to get themselves a lawyer and say that there was an infringement of the fair dealing with respect to the use of their copyrighted material.

A number of criteria were proposed by the Supreme Court. We believe these are good criteria and that they should be codified. We made that suggestion during the hearings for Bill C-32; a lot of the suggestions were listened to and a lot of people mentioned this same idea, yet we do not find it in Bill C-11. That is something else we find very preoccupying.

Finally, there is the issue of transitional funding to help artists, particularly if we look at an example like the music industry. In relation to this industry, we recognized a number of years ago that artists should be compensated when their music is copied. As members know, we established a levy on CDs and cassettes, and for a while this gave a very good compensation. It got up to about $28 million annually. An organization responsible for sharing that money out among artists did so, and that was accepted by the artists.

Of course, CDs and tapes are not used very much today for recording musical works, so we suggested that an alternative should be put in place, and we still believe it is important to address the requirement for fair compensation for artists who produce works and whose works are copied to other media.

That is the why we proposed this reasoned amendment today. We hope that the Conservative government, as it listens to the debate here and as it goes to committee, is sincere in paying attention to what witnesses say and to all the written submissions.

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 amendment.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have received a lot of correspondence from constituents about Bill C-11. I received an email from a constituent named Mark Burge, who said what I thought was very thoughtful. He said, “A solution to Bill C-11's contentious core problem and the means to avoid the unintended consequences generated by the broad protection for digital locks is to amend the Bill to permit the circumvention of digital locks when done for lawful purposes. This approach is compliant with the WIPO Internet Treaties, provides legal protection for digital locks, and maintains a much better copyright balance--”.

He urges the House to either add an infringing purpose requirement to the prohibition of circumvention or add an exception to the legislation to address circumvention for lawful purposes. Mr. Burge believes that in addition to linking the prohibition of circumvention to the act of infringement, it is paramount for consumers to have commercial access to the tools required to facilitate such lawful acts.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague would care to comment on what I think are some very thoughtful suggestions from someone who clearly has studied this issue in my riding.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I assure the member that Liberals will be proposing amendments. If we wanted to jettison this bill, we would have proposed a hoist motion. The reasoned amendment allows us to specify the reasons why we oppose this bill going to second reading and they are very clear. I read them out before and will not read them again. They explain what is wrong and the sorts of amendments that should be made.

The member talked about all of the testimony that was given. Why did the Conservative government not look at all of that testimony and maybe make a few changes between the legislation that appeared in the last Parliament and Bill C-11 that is before us today? There were no changes made, so I do not believe the government has really paid attention to all of that testimony.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this speech is in line with my previous speeches and came about as a result of my thoughts on whether the current government is truly willing to protect and promote the public interest.

The purpose of the bill before us is basically to replace the current Copyright Act. Those present in the House all agree that this is necessary. Social and technological realities are, by definition, constantly changing and it is important to have legislative tools adapted to the current global economy, in which massive amounts of information are constantly being transferred electronically.

Both sides admit that the letter of the Copyright Act must indeed be modernized; however, the text of the bill proposed by the Conservatives does not address a number of key issues. As a result, the proposed solution could prove to be more risky and problematic than truly innovative and functional.

The opinion of a number of experts on the issue disputes the legitimacy of certain elements and even the adoption of such provisions by the federal legislative body since many issues addressed in the bill actually overlap with areas under provincial jurisdiction.

The legislative exercise must involve weighing the pros and cons. Given that the desired outcome of this exercise is to update a law on so-called progressive materials, the government must support an approach that strikes a balance between the rights of consumers and the rights of content owners.

Taking into account current practices in arts and technology, this bill favours major industry players, the ones that ultimately hold the prerogative power associated with copyright. I will now explain all the concepts associated with licensing and the transfer of ownership.

The agreements binding creators to stakeholders in the arts and culture industry in Canada make systematic use of provisions granting licences or transferring the rights of a creator to the benefit of major industry players. In addition, the real winners of Bill C-11 are the large movie studios and record labels, not Canadian artists and consumers.

Since I come from a family of artists, I was able to witness first-hand the terrible consequences related to the inequality of power that is common in the artistic production sector in its broadest sense.

As an illustration, I will delve into empirical studies by sharing a story about something that happened to my father. My father is an author-composer-performer who speaks Innu almost exclusively. Like me, he comes from the Uashat mak Mani-Utenam community. In the early 1990s, he went to the United States to promote culture and perform.

During his time in the United States, a digital recording was made of his voice while he was singing time-honoured songs from thousands of years ago. Some say that that is in the public domain, but someone made a digital recording of his voice and when he came back to Canada many years later, he was surprised to hear the recording in a major American film, of which millions of copies had been distributed. It was difficult for him to understand how his recording had ended up in a Columbia Pictures film. But nothing came of it and he still has a bad taste in his mouth when he thinks about what happened.

Next I want to talk about sharing. I will talk about the traditional way of looking at information sharing. This link with the sharing of traditional aboriginal knowledge is relevant in analyzing the situation before us. While first nations have thus far had limited recourse to Canadian laws pertaining to intellectual property to protect creations resulting from their traditions, it is recognized that unauthorized copies of works by groups and communities; the appropriation of aboriginal themes and images; artist copyright infringement; culturally inappropriate use of aboriginal images and styles by non-aboriginal creators and the exclusive appropriation of traditional knowledge without compensation are quite common within socially deprived communities.

Now, when I say “appropriation without compensation”, that is a direct reference to the pharmaceutical advance that resulted from traditional knowledge the indigenous people had on the land. When I talk about indigenous people, we may go as far away as New Guinea and Australia, but here in Canada, we know that the pharmaceutical and pharmacological industry has drawn on traditional knowledge on the centuries-old use of plants on the land. Today, there are multitudes of medications that derive from that direct application. There is a recognition, in a sense, of the contribution of the Innu and indigenous people in general, but very few patents, in my opinion, have been issued to the indigenous nations.

It goes without saying that the proposed legislation does not answer any of the considerations raised by the indigenous communities and highlighted in the study entitled “Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights”, prepared by the Parliamentary Research Branch in response to a request in 2004. In addition, the bill to modernize copyright will allow a third party to establish a system of digital locks that will supersede virtually all other rights that may be exercised by the indigenous nations over their ancestral works.

As we can see, the imbalance of power that can be observed in the arts industry gives rise to appalling situations, a reality that has unfortunately eluded the text of the bill. The proposed legislation simply exacerbates the disadvantage the artist is at, for the benefit of recording and movie studios that have enormous resources at their disposal for creating a system of digital locks that will supersede virtually all other rights provided in the legislation. Ultimately, this practice will enable the industry to protect its declining capacity to generate enormous profits.

Regarding the concepts of licence and assignment of rights, these are usual clauses that we see in contracts: the artist is not in a position to bargain since most often they are presented with a standard form contract. The clauses already exist. Assignment is a little rarer, but explicit licences are included and the artist is then bound by them. The artist has very few rights, other than the moral right in respect of the ultimate use made of their work, and they are not in a position to stand up to the armada of lawyers who work for the industry.

The government must therefore amend the provisions relating to digital locks before this bill is passed. Apart from its negative effects on artists’ income expectations, that measure grants exorbitant powers to the rights holders, the players in an already very well-off industry.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Manicouagan.

We are very pleased to see that this government wants to take action to modernize the Copyright Act. These changes are long overdue. We are open to making changes. However, we would be even more receptive if the result was a balance that would benefit all stakeholders. The problem is that, contrary to what the government is saying, there is no balance in Bill C-11, as was the case for its predecessor, Bill C-32.

This bill will have fairly significant repercussions for authors, artists and consumers. Once again, despite the fact that the government says that the bill is balanced, we see that various associations and very important organizations representing the stakeholders do not concur.

First, let us talk about authors. We believe that they stand to lose the most with Bill C-11. The majority of writers' associations were opposed to Bill C-32 and now are opposed to Bill C-11, and with good cause. I would like to talk about one organization in particular, DAMI©, which is based in Montreal. DAMI© stands for Droit d'auteur Multimédia Internet Copyright. It is the umbrella organization for 13 professional associations of artists, authors, performers and copyright collectives. DAMI© represents 50,000 cultural artisans who are members of these 13 associations. What did DAMI© have to say about Bill C-32, which, I repeat, is now Bill C-11, currently under review? It had serious misgivings about Bill C-32, especially because of the free use of works protected by about 40 exceptions, half of which are new exceptions being made with respect to the current act.

I would like to read an excerpt from the DAMI© submission on Bill C-32, which, I repeat, is very pertinent because this is the same bill now being studied as Bill C-11.

Thanks to this bill, teachers will be able to use protected works [we are obviously talking about education] in their classes without asking permission, and they will be able to reproduce their course work to broadcast it by telecommunication in the context of remote or distance teaching. They will also be able to reproduce works in their totality for the purpose of display on interactive whiteboards or computer screens. Schools will no longer have to pay royalties to record news programs for pedagogical purposes, to present films, or to perform plays, for which they will be able to reproduce the sets, costumes, and lighting designs created by professional artists. This is a total expropriation of the intellectual property rights of creators in the educational sector. It is as if the government had declared that from now on literary, theatre, musical, and artistic works will be considered collective property.

This is in reference to education, but another important point to consider, especially at the university level, is the issue of the academic book market in Quebec. It is no secret that Quebec is an island of 7 million francophones in a sea of over 300 million anglophones in North America. The American book market serves primarily the Canadian English-speaking market. We need a strong academic book market in Quebec to be able to protect our culture, so that we can adapt or examine various issues—such as the economy, philosophy or other university subjects—from a Quebec and francophone perspective. This book market is small compared to the English-speaking American and Canadian market. It must fight against assimilation and against greater integration of these books that are quite often translated into French, but do not reflect Quebec's point of view or a francophone perspective, even in Canada.

This bill could end up further weakening the academic book market in Quebec—for university texts, for example—and creating even more problems for this market. The industry in Quebec will have to face more challenges if it wants to survive.

What justification will be given if the across-the-board use of photocopying is permitted or there is no adequate compensation for the authors of these books, as mentioned by DAMI©? What motivation will Quebeckers, and francophones across Canada, have to write a book that truly reflects the francophone and Quebec philosophy, vision and point of view? There will be no such books in the future.

This bill represents a real threat to an industry that is living on borrowed time in Quebec. That is why we are calling on the government to work with us to establish greater balance in this bill and ensure that all stakeholders benefit, not just the companies that own intellectual property, which are heavily favoured at this time. In response to our government colleagues’ comments, this to a large extent explains why they have the support of John Manley, among others, and it will come as no surprise that he is the president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. However, they will not have the support of authors' organizations, artists' organizations and copyright collectives.

Nor will they obtain, despite what they claim, the approval, the consent or the support of consumer associations. As it stands, the bill does not permit consumers to make backup copies or transfer the documents they have purchased—content for which they have paid and enjoy certain consumer rights—to other formats. The Writers Guild of Canada, among others, raised this problem. This organization stated that the only option that Bill C–11 gives creators is the addition of a digital lock, which has the effect of impinging upon current revenue streams for creators and creates a defect in the bill by depriving consumers of the very rights that are guaranteed them elsewhere in the bill.

The government said it was giving copyright owners a tool for developing and marketing their products and earning an income. It said it was protecting creators against acts of piracy. Although it is true that digital locks worked or can work when it comes to software, they are too restrictive and very unpopular when it comes to entertainment content. They risk being discriminated against by market rules, as they were in the case of music. Digital locks do not allow for progress and do not help defend the interests of consumers and creators. At best, digital locks will simply block current sources of income for creators.

This income is nevertheless very important. If this bill passes in its current form, authors, artists and cultural artisans could lose more than $125 million in income a year. That is why we are calling on the government to work with the NDP in order to amend the bill. We welcome the desire to modernize legislation, especially since this modernization has been a long time coming, but it has to be done properly. Unfortunately, Bill C-11, as currently worded, does not benefit all stakeholders equally. We want to work with the government to ensure that everyone benefits and to modernize the Copyright Act in a coherent and lasting way.

[Réjean Genest, NDP, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak about this bill.

This is an opportunity for me to wear several hats: I am a member of the House of Commons and an author. My occupation as a gardener led to me write several books on the subject.

I would like to say that the work of an author requires perseverance, discipline, determination and confidence. It is mostly solitary work. There is so much work to do that a book like mine can take three or four years to be published.

Copyright is a way of expressing respect for the author. Once again, I do not see the rights of the author in this bill. There is talk of respect but I do not see dividends for authors. As a producer and an author, I created and produced over 500 episodes of a gardening show on community television. For several years, I found it very enjoyable but that ended when my work was copied by others in both the format and the approach. There was nothing I could do. As an author, I created a gardening website of over 1,500 pages, which I have been maintaining since 1998. When you publish something on the Internet in French, you are speaking to the entire Francophonie. There too, my work was copied countless times and, as an author, I had no recourse.

In the government's bill, I do not see any possibility of recourse for authors or any way for authors to obtain payment from the party that copied their material. Various people will get a slap on the wrist but, in the end, the author's work has been copied and he or she has not been reimbursed. I know something about it. On the Internet, people often wrote to me to tell me that my pages had been copied and posted in various locations but I really could not do much about it. I even saw a world horticultural encyclopedia containing complete passages from my work. I had to exert pressure to have my work removed. As an author, I also had no recourse. In the bill, I see ways that the government could help an author to have recourse.

Authors earn a small income, often below minimum wage, but I do not see anything in the government's bill that would help an author whose work has been copied. There is a project in Quebec, somewhere in Montreal or elsewhere, that has been making headlines for years. Everyone knows that it was copied but nothing has been done. If the government wanted to take responsibility, it would find a way to make a system available to authors and legal experts whereby authors could be reimbursed by the parties who copy their work.

I am an author and I have written books, 10 of which are ready to be published. I am waiting to have the means to publish them, because the dividends paid to authors for the publication of books are between 5% and 10%, and they are paid out a year and a half later. In addition, nothing can be confirmed.

Personally, I plan to self-publish my books. Once again, the government has all kinds of legislation that helps publishing companies, but nothing that helps authors to self-publish. When will this government start taking care of authors and thinking like an author? Singers and people who record music were forced to create their own labels. Why is it that this government refuses to help people who want to self-publish? I do not understand.

Is there anything more logical and simple? We want to help people, but we want to penalize pirates and other offenders. Penalizing pirates will not help authors; it is a question of finding ways for authors to get what is owing to them.

Bill C-11 is identical to Bill C-32 from the previous Parliament. Artists from Quebec came here to Parliament Hill. Let us not forget their demands. This bill does not give artists any dividends. Consumers purchase songs or various things on the Web and copy entire pages of creations from the Web, but nothing goes to the artists. No dividends at all. When will this government bring forward a serious bill for authors, instead of just focusing on building prisons?

Indeed, it seems the government has big plans to increase the number of prisons in this country. We would prefer a bill that ensures that anyone who steals from authors would have to pay them back and not get out of it by declaring bankruptcy and going to prison. The artists must be paid back. We must find a way to ensure that offenders' goods are seized for longer than just a few years. The seizure should last many, many years so that the person has no choice but to pay back the author.

I wish the Conservatives would really act in favour of authors' needs and not in favour of the needs of their cronies. This is about the authors.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Shefford.

I stand to speak to Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, an act that would bring long overdue changes in Canadian copyright law and help us catch up with technological changes and with changes in international standards.

On the face, this is not a riveting topic for most of the public, but, when we go below the surface, it gets even more complex and we find law that even copyright lawyers have trouble understanding. This is an act of great importance to my constituents and to consumers who worry that once they have paid for content they will be unable to do things that they regularly do now, such as back it up, time shift it, shift the content from iPhones to MP3 players or to laptops. They are worried that these things, which have become routine in their daily lives, will be subject to penalties under the law.

It is also important for the creative industries in my riding which play an enormous role in the economy of greater Victoria, both as a part of our culture and being able to know who we are as a community, but also as a part of our vibrant tourist industry and as a job creator.

A study done by the Capital Regional District in 2010 showed that the economic activity of the arts and cultural sector in greater Victoria was worth more than $170 million in net income and that it employed more than 5,400 people. This includes well-established groups like the Victoria Symphony, now in its 29th season and a relatively new kid on the block, and the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra, which was founded in 1997 in the rural part of my riding.

It includes companies like Ballet Victoria, which has been operating very successfully since 2002, and the Canadian Pacific Ballet, which was founded in 2008. It includes probably the longest running community theatre, certainly in British Columbia I think, the Langham Court Theatre, which has been operating since 1929, and the Belfry Theatre, which has been putting on plays since 1980, including premiering more than 158 Canadian productions. It also includes the small theatre company called Intrepid Theatre, which is the group that puts on what is called the Uno Fest for single performer productions and the Fringe Festival since 1986.

It also includes established visual artists, like Robert Bateman, who has just donated $11 million of his work to the Royal Roads University in my riding, and other well-known artists, like my own personal favourite and friend, Phyllis Serota.

In music, it includes national artists, like Nelly Furtado, who come from Victoria, and again, a personal favourite of mine, Children of Celebrities, who some have described as old guys playing enviro-cowboy lounge music. It also includes a lot of new young bands: the Racoons, the Rocky Mountain Rebel Music, Pocket Kings, the Mindil Beach Markets and We Are The City.

Why am I listing all those groups? Those are all groups that are very much concerned about the reform to the Copyright Act and who believe that this needs to take place soon. What they are looking for is a balanced act that will balance the rights of creators, like themselves, to have an income stream from their product, with the rights of consumers who want to be able to purchase that material.

It is also a concern for the very large number of students and faculty members in my riding and in greater Victoria where we have more than 36,000 post-secondary students attending the University of Victoria, Camosun College and Royal Roads University.

In addition, we have new industries in the software area. One particularly famous one is producing online gaming software. Others are working in video games and other software in the computer industry. They are all very much concerned about the same thing, that they will have a constant and secure revenue stream from their creative work, but also that consumers get a fair deal so they will want to purchase their materials.

There is no doubt that we have a need for this new copyright legislation, one that protects intellectual property and one that does so in a way that ensures an income stream for those producers. We also need to ensure that we do not disrupt existing income streams for those working in the creative industries. One of the fears that we have about this bill in its current form is that it may inadvertently threaten the incomes of artists and other creative industry workers. This is critical in a country where the average artist in 2009-10, as my colleague mentioned earlier, earned just under $13,000 a year.

We need to ensure that the revenues generated by new platforms actually flow to the creators of that material and not just to the big media companies, the big movie producers or the big record companies. Those who actually do the creative work need an income stream to continue to do so. We need a balance that ensures the right of creators to be compensated fairly for their work and the right of consumers to have access to the copyrighted material.

I do want the reform to go forward but not as the bill is currently drafted. Like other New Democrats, I will support moving this forward to committee to try to get the needed attention to the flaws in the bill.

A major concern we have on this side is with the digital lock provisions in the bill. As many have mentioned, if the bill goes forward in its present form, Canada will have the most stringent set of digital lock provisions in the entire world. These provisions would include punitive fines of up to $1 million and 5 years in jail for removing digital locks. If we are going to have penalties like this, I would like to see amendments to ensure they actually apply to the pirates who the members on the other side like to point to and not to the ordinary consumer or, particularly, those with disabilities who quite often must have material shifted from one platform to another in order to make use of it.

In amending the bill, we need to ensure that those penalties fall on those who are trying to steal the copyrighted material and not on those who are simply trying to use it in ways that we have all become accustomed in the new digital world.

We also need to ensure that we preserve the concept of fair dealing for journalist. I think that will take extensive amendments to the bill. As I mentioned, for those with disabilities, we need to ensure exemptions are provided for them, particularly for those with visual handicaps who will need an exception from some of the digital lock provisions in the bill.

We also need to ensure that we preserve exemptions for education. I spent 20 years teaching in a post-secondary institution. I am concerned when I see a provision that says that copies produced for educational use will have to self-destroy in five days. I spent 20 years trying to convince my students to start their projects earlier than five days before they were due. Five days is a timeframe that simply does not fit with the kind of work students need to do in their academic careers. We need to ensure, particularly for those who make use of distance education, that they can maintain and use those materials longer than 30 days. This is particularly important in more remote and rural areas where distance education is sometimes the only alternative people have.

Although I am from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and I talk about greater Victoria, a lot of people at the end of my riding are two and a half hours from downtown. There are people who lack public transit to get into town or get to educational facilities, particularly those who live on reserves in the rural part of my riding. They need the distance education. They need the alternative delivery methods. We need to ensure there are exemptions in the act to protect their access to education.

The New Democrats do not stand alone in our concerns about the details of the act. Experts like Michael Geist and Howard Knopf are both critics of these very strong digital law provisions. We have had more than 80 arts and cultural organizations express their concern about fair compensation for artists. We have had concerns expressed by the Writers Guild of Canada and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers.

When we come to consider the bill after second reading, I would ask all members to join us at the committee stage in standing up for artists to ensure their income stream continues, for students to ensure they have access to the materials they need for their education and for consumers to ensure they can use material they have already paid for in ways that are non-threatening to producers.

We need to ensure the benefits of the copyright reform flow to the actual creative artists, students and consumers, not just to the major U.S. media companies, the big movie studios and big recording companies. We need to ensure this is a copyright act that benefits ordinary Canadians and those who work hard in our creative industries every day to make this a brighter and better country where we understand each other better through the medium of arts and culture.

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

Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of being on the legislative committee that looked at Bill C-32, the predecessor to Bill C-11. I met with the 132 witnesses and saw the hundreds of written submissions.

I would say that Bill C-11 has a lot of very good and very important things in it. I also feel there were some very good things that were presented by the witnesses representing all sides: the stakeholders, the industry, the artists, as well as the consumers.

What bothered me was that when Bill C-11 was brought forward very recently, it had absolutely no changes in it whatsoever. The Minister of Canadian Heritage said this morning that was done out of respect for the people who had spoken previously. I do not really understand what that means.

Does the member for Winnipeg North share my concern that perhaps we are going through a charade in terms of an exercise here? Nothing was changed between Bill C-32 and Bill C-11, so in the end we are going to end up going through a voting process that will make Bill C-11 the law with absolutely no changes, never mind how many witnesses came and spoke or how many written submissions were presented.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-11, a bill that I understand has a bit of a history in the chamber. I can appreciate that at times the government is frustrated because it does not necessarily get what it wants.

In previous minority governments, the Conservatives attempted to pass legislation of a similar nature, almost a word-for-word bill, but because of the frustrations of not being successful in getting it passed, we once again have Bill C-11 before us, the same bill with a different number.

I would suggest that many of the concerns that were expressed over the last number of months and beyond still exist today and I would encourage the government to open its mind as to what types of amendments would make the bill a healthier one. At the end of the day, even though Liberals have moved an amendment to deal with the bill, we recognize that there is value to ensuring that we have copyright laws that are fair and balanced.

We recognize the importance of the individuals who create our music and other aspects of our culture and we want to encourage the industry. As has been pointed out by many, our cultural community provides a huge economic benefit for all Canadians. We need to do what we can as legislators to protect and encourage that industry and to ensure that it is going to be able to not only continue but grow and prosper. When that industry grows and prospers, we will see more jobs being created and the overall lifestyle in Canada being improved on many different fronts.

We recognize the value of artists and others and recognize how important it is for us to be there in a very real and tangible way, but we also value the importance of the consumer. We want to ensure that consumers' rights are in fact protected. This provides me the opportunity to share with the House some of the concerns I have with regard to that particular issue.

My biggest concern is the whole concept of the digital lock provisions in the legislation. I must admit that I am somewhat dated, in the sense that I can still recall the good old eight-tracks and record players. People went to Kmart or Zellers and bought blank cassettes. They had music at home on the record player and they recorded the music that they, or maybe even their parents, had purchased from the store. They recorded it on cassette so they could continue to enjoy that music on a trip in the car, believing that they had acquired the song they wanted to listen to.

I recall hanging around with my buddies and talking about the fact that we had to buy records for x number of dollars just to get one or two songs that we liked. We ended up buying five or six records and put all our favourite songs on one cassette, and there was never any feeling that we were pirating anything or that it was an illegal act.

The vast majority of consumers want to do the right thing. Consumers are responsible individuals and contributors to our communities, and they recognize how important it is that we protect our artists.

Quite often when we think of artists, we think of big name artists, and there is a bit of resentment toward them. Some would look at the late Michael Jackson and ask themselves just much money this guy really needs and the type of royalties that one would pay. There might not be as much sympathy for big name artists, but we still have to protect artists through copyright laws.

A vast majority of the artists are not multi-millionaires. They are hard-working Canadians who have sacrificed their time, energy, thoughts and ideas. Maybe they rented a recording studio and put together a CD. Now they are hoping to make enough money from that CD to recover their costs, and if they can make a little extra, they are very grateful.

In Winnipeg we have a wonderful annual event known as Folklorama. I suspect a number of my colleagues in the House will be familiar with it, and I would recommend that all members visit Winnipeg during a Folklorama and become familiar with it. They would witness a litany of those types of artists who are so committed to making events like Folklorama work and who are so committed to what they do that they sacrifice a great portion of their energy and their time in order to produce that contribution to our culture.

One individual at the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre on Robinson Street in Winnipeg North--I believe his name was Lavallee--played the violin and performed a jig, which is a wonderful fancy dance I hope to be able to perform someday myself. This artist lives in a modest apartment in Tyndall Park. I did not ask him how much he was making or what the proceeds were on his CD, but he sure was proud of it. He felt it was right on, and good quality. At the end of the day, after the audience had been able to listen and hear this man playing live on stage and after the concert was over, he stood by the door selling his CDs.

I enjoyed the performance. I was pleased to meet him, shook his hadn, and said I would love to buy the CD. I did not purchase the CD because I wanted to go home and listen to the music right away, but because I wanted to support a young artist and saw the benefits of doing that.

I would argue that there are tens of thousands of Canadians who would do likewise, because we get an appreciation of the artists' efforts. In many ways we are talking about our sons or daughters who are in this line of work or engaged in this creativity, and I suspect we would find a great deal of support, but when I look at the legislation, I see that the government seems to be determined that it has it right and it does not really matter what the opposition has to say: it will go to committee, where it has a majority, and pass it the way it is.

I do not make that assertion lightly. I was listening to some of the speeches earlier, and we hear that there were literally hundreds of people, if not thousands, who provided feedback to the government with regard to the legislation. They provided ideas that could have made it a better piece of legislation, yet the government, for whatever reason I am not sure, has made a determination that what it has is as good as it is going to get and that they are really not open to any changes or amendments.

That is why I believe the responsible thing for the Liberal Party to do was to bring forward this recent amendment. We want to see balance when it comes to copyright rules and laws. It is important that it be balanced, and the government has not recognized or acknowledged that.

I will give an example. If my daughter were here, she would be able to tell us anything we wanted to know about iPods. It is amazing what young people can do with one hand with these little items. From pictures to music and videos, the technology is incredible. Should not my daughter or millions of other Canadians who purchase an item in digital format, such as a song, have the right to use that purchase in different ways, as long as it is for personal reasons?

I am not going to suggest that my daughter or anyone else should be able to buy a song and download it onto the computer and send it out to two million Canadians. That would not be appropriate.

What would be appropriate? She has a cell telephone. She has an iPod. She has one of these iMac computers. Should she be obligated to buy one copy for each? I'm not entirely convinced that should be the case.

I would look to members to tell me if I was wrong when, in those younger teenaged years, I acquired records that I enjoyed and would pick and choose songs from each record and record them onto a blank cassette so that I could listen to the cassette with all of my favourite songs on it. Was that wrong? I do not believe it was.

When we require such things as digital locks, there are impacts. I have DVDs. We all have DVD movies. I have some VHS movies that have digital locks. There are some movies that I really enjoy, and quite often I will put on such a movie in the background while I work on my laptop doing constituency work or whatever else it might be. The movie is playing in the background, but DVDs get scratched up and VHS tapes get worn. Should I not be able to back up the material that I purchased? Do I not have the right to do that?

These are very real question marks. They are there today with regard to the proposed legislation.

We have to ask if this is the type of legislation we should be moving forward. We have to keep in mind that because there is a majority government, no matter what we hear in committee, all indications are that the government is determined to pass the bill the way it is. The government is not really open to amendments.

If we are trying to address genuine, bona fide concerns in the second reading debate, one can understand why the Liberal Party is suggesting that we pass the reasoned amendment. If government members were to stand and say they are prepared to listen and act on some of the concerns being expressed by opposition members, there might be the will to pull the reasoned amendment. There would have to be a clear indication from government members that they would accept some amendments or amend the bill themselves. I have participated in majority governments in Manitoba. Many amendments that originated from the opposition were passed. If an amendment would make the legislation better, why would the government not at least approach it with an open mind?

One of the more appropriate ways to do that would be for a government minister to approach the critics. There should be briefings for the critics to explain what it is the government hopes to do with the legislation. The critics could take that information to members in their caucus. The issues could be debated to see if there could be some changes. We should invite stakeholders outside Parliament to voice their concerns and if, through that consultation process and through the work of the critics and ministerial staff, there are some amendments that would make a better piece of legislation, we should be prepared to accept them.

I have heard other concerns. I do not know how extreme it is, but will students be obligated to get rid of their homework after a certain amount of time? To be honest, I have not had the chance to read every detail in the bill, but a lot of red flags go up the pole when I hear a member of the opposition say that after a certain number of days a student might have to shred the notes that were taken in class. That is worthy of more discussion.

Let us see what sort of amendments might come up. I look forward to the bill going to committee. I look forward to seeing how the government will respond to amendments put forward by the New Democratic Party or the Liberal Party.

One of the benefits of allowing for debate on the bill is that individuals such as myself can get up and express their concerns. Some members are very specific in their concerns. The government has the responsibility to digest what is being said. The government itself can bring in amendments at committee stage. Imagine the goodwill that would be shown if the government were to identify some of those concerns.

I suspect that if we were to check with most Canadians, a number of the concerns that have been raised this afternoon on this bill are quite legitimate. They are definitely worth looking into to see if things can be done to make the bill better. If the government is not prepared to do that, the best thing we could do is go back to the drawing board. Let us look at the reasoned amendment that has been proposed by my colleague.