Canadian Heritage Committee on May 6th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Let's get off the teeth business here.

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you.

My initial points were made by Mr. Siksay, that we should put after “consider by means of consultation with stakeholders the request”, just in terms of wording.

But I also have some concerns with the motion, with respect to the CRTC. I always get very nervous when we start talking about giving additional powers to a bureaucracy that has been known to extend the boundaries of its powers from time to time. But that said, I think it's a worthwhile hearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

With tremendous respect to Ms. Fry, I don't agree with her, and the reason is that the commissioner spoke specifically about AMPs, the administrative monetary penalties. I'm concerned that if we go into much broader things, then if this House were to last until September 2009, we would still be in the study. I think that if we confine ourselves to AMPs, we are going to have something quantifiable and a specific tool we can be working with.

I'm wide open to whatever the appropriate wording would be, “and that the committee hold hearings and write to the minister and report their findings to the House”. I'm wide open to all of those things. I don't think we want to take the time right now to do all the wordsmithing necessary, but again, because of the goodwill that we have and the acceptance of this, I'm pretty sure that we can move forward with something that would be appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Chair, I think we should be clear and move forward at the same time. So given that Jim doesn't seem to accept it as a friendly amendment, I'll make a motion that we change the word “consider” to “hold hearings on” and then at the end of his motion that we add “and report its findings to the House”.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Well, that's friendly. That's fine.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay, and that's all I'm proposing in terms of wordsmithing. So if that's acceptable to Jim, then I think we're done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, could I have a question, please, of Mr. Siksay, on his amendment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Ms. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Bill, are you saying that it would then read “That the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage hold hearings on Konrad von Finkenstein when he asked during his appearance...”?

[An hon. member]

“On the request of...”.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Yes, “on the request of Konrad von Finkenstein”.

So you want to stick to the power to impose AMPs alone. You want to limit the hearings to just that.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Chair, in response to that, I think if something emerges out of our hearings, clearly I don't think we're limited by that. We could report on it, but it seems to me that what the CRTC was talking about was very specific, and I think that very specific point was what caught our interest at the time. So I'm happy leaving it there, and if something emerges in our discussion, I think we would be fully able to report that.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Then I would like to speak to that.

While I agree with Mr. Siksay that we don't want to limit it to that, if that is what we use in our motion we will be limited to that, because then we will have a mandate for our report, and we will be limited to that.

We could say--because I don't want to completely change Mr. Abbott's motion--“given the power to impose administrative monetary penalties or AMPs, but not limited to that”, just so that we have some wiggle room. Otherwise we will only want to hear this. I have been on committees that have reported to Parliament, and we had to stick closely to the mandate and not move outside of the specific mandate. This is a very specific mandate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I think I know where the motion came from--again, from when Mr. von Finckenstein was here. To get back to the reason he was here at that particular time, it was, I think, because of Mr. Bigras' motion. I think it was the one thing that came up through that.

I can talk about the peashooter and the bomb, but it was very apparent that you either give a person a good talking-to when they do something wrong or you take their licence away. What he was talking about was having some more powers so that he can maybe put a little more pressure on in between.

What I've heard around the table is that maybe we want to do a full-fledged hearing on the CRTC or on what their rules are, but I think we should stay specific to this. As chair, I think I see nodding of heads around the table, so I will read the motion with its friendly amendment, and if it doesn't pass, then we can go someplace else.

What I see before me right now is a motion

That the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage hold hearings on the request of Konrad von Finckenstein when he asked during his appearance on March 4, 2008 that the CRTC be given “power to impose Administrative Monetary Penalties or AMPs” (Standing Committee of Canadian Heritage transcripts, March 4, 2008) and that the Committee write to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages about their findings and report their findings to the House.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have to give some direction to our clerk regarding planning for future business. We've just gone through our motions; we've accepted these motions, amended or otherwise. I would like to seek guidance on what we're going to tackle first.

Ms. Mourani, because we have held up on some of your motions, would you like to speak to this first?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chair, we have already voted on a motion asking the CRTC to come and see us so that we can talk about the Internet and regulating it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We talked about that a while ago.

We have to be able to get witnesses. One thing regarding CRTC and the Internet is that we'd have to make a request to see when they could have someone here on that. Is there anything else we could put in that would allow us to get witnesses here at least by next Tuesday?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm not quite clear what we're doing right now; I'm sorry. I wasn't sleeping; I'm just not clear. Are we dealing with a motion by Ms. Mourani about the Internet?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

No, we've already dealt with her motion. It's her suggestion that it come forward. We'd have to find out, first, whether we can get witnesses, whether we can get people here. It takes time to get witnesses lined up.

What we're trying to do here—I'm just looking at order of business—is see how we go forward.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I understand that. Then the question that follows is, I know that one of the things the CRTC has postponed and postponed is to look at the issue of digital platforms. The Internet is only one digital platform. If we're going to spend all this time looking at the Internet, we should look at digital platforms. It's important that the CRTC find a way to deal with digital platforms, which are going out of control. Everyone is using them now, and the CRTC has no way to deal with them. The Internet is not the only platform we need to look at; we need to look at other ones.

So digital platforms would be an idea. We could get all kinds of people here who are dealing with those digital platforms, right away, for the next meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I know it's copyright, but It's my understanding that when we get into the digital thing, a lot of it is coming up to the industry committee. It's going to be in industry; right now, most of that type of work is diverted over to that committee. There was talk that what we might do is have combined committee meetings: heritage and industry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

That was my motion.

Mr. Chair, that's copyright. It's a very different thing from looking at a licence for digital platforms. Those are two totally different things. One is copyright and one is looking at licensing new media. This is where the CRTC has not been upfront. Everybody else in the world has been upfront on that, and the CRTC is still sort of dragging its feet on it. That's where I'm saying it sags.

This is an opportunity to open it up to new platforms, and that's totally different from copyright.