Carole-Marie Allard

[Canadian Heritage, June 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House that, since March, Canadians and other genealogy buffs have access to a goldmine of information called the Canadian Genealogy Centre. Just visit www.archives.ca.

Mr. Speaker, as you already know, there are 43 references between 1925 and 1935 to the name Milliken in Immigration Canada's database.

[Canadian Television, June 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage who worked so hard for more than two years to produce this report. My colleague was one of them, and I congratulate her.

As for the future of the Canadian Television Fund, as she is very much aware, there are several possibilities at the present time, and we have had many comments about the need to review governance and fund operations. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has made the same recommendation.

The report will be studied in detail—

[Canadian Multiculturalism Day, June 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, diversity in Canada is increasing. Cultural diversity has become one of our strengths.

This year, Canada is officially launching Canadian Multiculturalism Day on June 27. As the most multicultural country in the world, Canada will celebrate, on June 27, our confidence and tolerance, and we will tell our stories.

Let us celebrate June 27 and be proud of the contribution of our communities of all origins.

[Canada Elections Act, June 10th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, this House is witnessing an historic moment. We are going to take a very important step to improve Canadians' faith in our electoral system.

I was elected in November 2000. As a candidate, I had to learn the electoral financing process, personally invest in order to run in the election and ask my party for financial assistance. I won and immediately thereafter I had to start talking financing in my riding.

First, I had to pay back my election debt and the money I borrowed from my party. I must say it was not easy to understand all the rules of the financing system, but I did my share for my party. I wanted my riding association to have access to a fund in order to help my constituents.

I must say that in 20 years of being a journalist, I always believed that the system's transparency was guaranteed by the act of disclosing political contributions. The logic was simple: if a company obtained a government contract, we looked to see if it had contributed to the party and we would go so far as to conclude, of course, that there was a cause and effect relationship.

But after hearing the opposition members drawing this simple conclusion, journalists reported a number of cases and the public also drew its own conclusions. That is why, today, we must tighten the rules and be even more vigilant. This government decided to do this, and we should be proud of it.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain why, in my opinion, the opposition's amendment, Motion No. 12, must be defeated.

The purpose of this bill is to overhaul the rules regarding political financing. There are new rules regarding nomination contests. These contests, their management and financing were not previously regulated by the Canada Elections Act. Similarly, the bill proposes rules for financing contests to select the leaders of registered parties, also not previously regulated.

As the hon. members know, this bill makes significant changes to allowable contributions, as well as to the categories of eligible donors. Finally, the bill provides for a much more complete system in terms of the disclosure and publication of contributions made to nomination or leadership contestants, candidates, riding associations, and political parties and provincial and territorial divisions of registered parties.

These are significant changes. I believe that these changes mark a key moment in the evolution of our electoral democracy. They help to ensure the trust of Canadians in our political system, and this is essential to the future of our parliamentary democracy.

These new rules change the way political parties will be financed in the future. Bill C-24 gives us a glimpse of the future, but it also raises questions. For example, what about contributions made before this bill comes into force.

The opposition is proposing reintroducing a section that was in previous legislation. I believe we must draw the line. Previous contributions should not be affected by the new rules.

In keeping with the bill, when amounts are transferred from trust funds, for example, to the accounts of riding associations before the bill comes into force, they will be recorded as part of the association's overall assets.

In many cases, the origin of these funds cannot be determined because they have accumulated over the years. The information might not be available any longer. So why get ourselves into such an impasse?

I must admit that I have trouble seeing the advantage for Canadians, and for our democratic system, in imposing rules which would result in exclusion of contributions made to a constituency association prior to the effective date of the bill.

On the contrary, I believe we need to turn over a new leaf. It is preferable for all this money to go to the constituency associations before Bill C-24 takes effect, even if this means they will be able to benefit from funds of unknown origin, and share the benefits with the constituents. The future is what is important. For that, we have guarantees. All funding will have to be reported. It will be recorded in the system and the constituency associations will need to be accountable.

Public confidence in the integrity of our electoral system has been seriously undermined in recent years. Transparency and accountability requirements are essential to the integrity of any political system. With this new legislation, Bill C-24, we have some rules to guarantee that transparency.

I therefore feel we have adequate guarantees, which will provide us with the means of achieving this objective of restoring public confidence in our electoral system.

[International Museums Day, May 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, May 18 is International Museums Day. This year's theme is “Museums and Friends”, in recognition of the important contribution of volunteers to our Canadian museums.

The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of volunteer work in museums. Volunteers make up 65% of the staff in Canadian museums. Through the Canada volunteerism initiative, the government is working at maintaining and strengthening volunteerism in Canadian cultural institutions, and volunteer organizations in other areas.

We do recognize the contribution volunteers make to our museums and are very grateful to them. I invite all Canadians to celebrate International Museums Day by visiting a museum and volunteering in our museums.

[Library and Archives of Canada Act, May 13th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague if she sees any strong advantages to having this new agency created.

[Library and Archives of Canada Act, May 13th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the fathers of Confederation, once said that there was a duty which especially belonged to Canada: to originate a history which the world would not willingly let die.

Today, 135 years later, I think that my colleagues in this House will agree with me that the people of Canada have fulfilled this duty magnificently. While our country is still quite young, we have numerous feats and accomplishments to celebrate in every conceivable sphere of activity.

Over time, our scientists, doctors, researchers, leaders and many other Canadians have distinguished themselves in various ways. They have enabled our country to make its voice heard among the community of nations.

It is with great pride that I rise today in this House to speak on a bill to preserve and further celebrate our rich history and unique heritage.

If passed, the Act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain Acts in consequence, will give birth to a new agency, the Library and Archives of Canada, from the merging of the National Library and the National Archives of Canada.

Our government is amalgamating these two entities for one reason, and only one: to ensure the new agency will be a centre for information and knowledge management that will provide us, today and in the future, with unprecedented access to our documentary heritage.

In the throne speech of September 2002, our government made a commitment to ensuring that we would have access to our history by creating a new institution that brings together the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada. As this bill demonstrates, our government fulfills its commitments.

With this bill, we want to amalgamate two institutions that are already playing a crucial role in the conservation and dissemination of our heritage and our history. We want to bring together the knowledge, the vision and the creativity of more than 1,000 employees to create a new dynamic and modern entity that will disseminate our stories, our images, our testimonies and our legends.

This new unified agency will be in a better position to manage the millions of documents and to respond to the various requests from experts and Canadians, in both our official languages.

The mandate of the Library and Archives of Canada will be based on the foundations of the current mandates of the two separate entities. Of course, its mandate will also be extended to allow it to work more easily in the interpretation and programming sectors and to make greater use of new technologies.

Over the years, the National Archives and the National Library of Canada have provided us with valuable services and have just about done the impossible to preserve Canada's impressive documentary heritage. Thanks to them, Canadians can now access more than 20 million books, government documents and publications, 340,000 hours of films, videos and sound recordings, 2.3 million maps and more than 20 million photographs.

The Library and Archives of Canada are nothing less than our collective memory and they constitute a real treasure for humankind.

People need to have seen an exhibition such as Reflections of Canada at the Canadian Postal Museum, which features all the stamps issued since the beginnings of our country, to understand the role played by the national archives of a country. The 12,000 stamps in this collection are a unique and original history book that summarizes the most glorious phases of the Canadian epic.

None of this would have been possible without the cooperation of the National Archives and other public institutions such as Canada Post. There are many examples such as these, both for the Archives and for the National Library.

Today, we want to see more of these types of initiatives so that Canadians from all walks of life, as well as people all over the world, can have access to valuable information on our country, Canada, its people, its culture, its society and its values.

As has already been mentioned by the National Archivist of Canada, Ian Wilson, and by the National Librarian, Roch Carrier, there is no doubt that these two institutions have converging roles and similar responsibilities. Their respective administrations already share the same building and perform four similar activities, namely, identifying, selecting and acquiring; describing and promoting; preserving; and making accessible collections.

Until now, it was mainly the type of documents that determined which of the two institutions would have responsibility. The National Library was responsible for the preservation of printed material, such as books and magazines, whereas the National Archives handled prints, microfiches, manuscripts and various other important documents.

In this area as in many others, new technologies have brought down the barriers that delineated responsibilities. Until microchips replaced microfiches, we had no other choice but to go with the flow and modernize our laws and the structure of our organizations to be able to meet the needs of Canadians. We must also make the widest use possible of the enormous potential provided to us by cyberspace to help us access information regarding our heritage. That is what we are proposing with this bill today.

In 2001 and 2002, the number of visitors to the National Archives website exceeded 2.5 million, a 30% increase from the previous year. As for the National Library website, it was accessed by 4.3 million Internet users, which represents a 20% increase.

The demand is there. It is strong and growing. We must meet this demand as best we can to bring our history to Canadians wherever they live in this vast country of ours. After all, the Library and Archives of Canada are not meant to be used exclusively by those who live in the national capital region.

This bill also provides that the new agency will concentrate more on programs which are designed for the public. For example, thanks to its many collections, this new institution will provide material for the Portrait Gallery of Canada which will open in the next few years.

The proposed legislation also provides that the Canadian heritage minister may establish an advisorycouncil to advise the librarian and archivistwith regard to new exposition and interpretation activities and the collection of non-governmental information.

The new agency will continue to develop its collections through the same mechanisms, that is legal deposit, recording, sampling, transfer of government documents, donations, acquisitions and administrative arrangements. But a new mechanism will be added. The new institution will be allowed to take from time to time a representativesample of the documentary material that is accessible to the publicwithout restriction through the Internet.

The Internet has become a true reflection of our society, and we are going to make use of it so that, 10, 50 or 100 years from now, historians will be able to get, thanks to these samplings, an accurate picture of the concerns, issues and culture in Canada at a given moment in history.

Obviously, to make this possible, we have to amend the Copyright Act to allow the agency to take from time to time representative samples of our documentary heritage for preservation purposes.

We have worked hard on this file with all parties concerned, so as to define a specific exemption to copyright for librarians and the National Archivist.

I wish to reassure the members of this House that we have not overlooked any details. We have taken our inspiration from the legislation of a number of countries. We also propose other changes in the Copyright Act in order to strike a fair balance between the needs of those holding copyright on unpublished works and the needs of the Library and Archives of Canada.

Since we made the last series of amendments to the Copyright Act in 1997, some Canadian authors' heirs have expressed their concern about the new criteria covering copyright duration for unpublished works.

After consultations with the Canadian Historical Association, the Bureau of Canadian Archivists, the National Archives of Canada, and The Writers' Union of Canada, we have reached a consensus by which there will be transitional periods depending on when authors died.

We also want the Library and Archives of Canada to become a centre of expertise within the Government of Canada for the management of government documents. At present, the National Archivist plays an important role in this field, advising government institutions concerning standards and procedures for the management of records.

The bill provides that the head of the new agency will retain this responsibility. But the government wants to go farther in order to ensure that all valuable historical documents are preserved for future generations. The Librarian and Archivist of Canada will thus have the power to require the transfer of any documents considered to be at risk.

In the private sector, the word “merge” often implies budget cuts, major organizational restructuring, and staff cuts. But in this operation, such is not the case. The budget and staff of these two institutions will remain unchanged. However, we should remember that certain valuable collections have been threatened by the decrepitude of the buildings housing them.

In the last budget we allocated $15 million to respond to certain specific, short-term needs and to conduct studies to give us a better overall view of our long-term needs and priorities. The new entity we want to create should also make it possible to have a clearer vision of the way forward.

Of course, we as parliamentarians have great respect for libraries and archives. The Library of Parliament, now undergoing renovations of extreme urgency, is a resource of inestimable value. It provides a wide range of services without which our work would be much more difficult.

The National Library of Canada provides the same type of services, but to a much broader clientele. After all, this library serves all Canadians from coast to coast.

As a parliamentarian, I have been on many committees, and I have put together many personal files. So it is easy for me to understand that the archives represent a wealth of information. They are a veritable gold mine for students and academics hoping to understand the debate on, for example, the Canadian flag or the second world war. And they are a rich source of institutional memory for those developing policy or seeking information on the Spicer commission or the Pépin-Robarts commission.

Given the value and the potential of the collections, I am sure that the House will agree when I say that it is important for a large number of Canadians to have access to them. Our institutions must keep up with the times and reflect the introduction of new technologies.

That is why I am pleased to take part in this debate. It is clear, when I consider this legislation, that it will ensure we can rely on a new, improved, modern cultural institution better able to protect and promote the documentary heritage of this country.

By merging the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada to create the Library and Archives of Canada, this government is recognizing a situation that has evolved over the past few years. However, we are doing much more than that. We are also creating a new agency with modern tools to meet our informational needs in the 21st century.

Everyone familiar with these two institutions knows that they have been collaborating closely for many years. Already, these two entities share various administrative services such as finance, human resources, some facilities, security and information and preservation services.

Merging libraries and archives is popular in universities. Increasingly, university courses relate to both disciplines. Therefore, it is not surprising that the National Library and the National Archives of Canada initiated this merger.

In addition to the close collaboration between the National Library and the National Archives, there are other reasons to believe that the merger of these two venerable organization into one new and modern institution will be a good thing.

There is a constantly increasing requirement for Canadians to have simpler access to knowledge and information, particularly in the areas of heritage and culture. The explanation for this is the constant evolution of information technologies, which has whetted their appetite for rapid access to information in all of its forms. The new technologies also have a huge potential for storage, organization and consultation of documents.

We now have the capacity to digitalize books, newspapers, photographs, pictures, sound recordings and films. What is more, we can also create a single access point for all this material. The magic of the Internet can also facilitate the sharing of all these records with people here and elsewhere.

Technological progress has also redefined the conservation field. Better climate control, a better understanding of the composition of materials, more sensitive sensors and other new developments help us to preserve the most precious artifacts of our heritage for future generations.

This will put life back into our documentary heritage and will provide us Canadians with enhanced access to a vast quantity of information about ourselves and our country.

For this and a number of other reasons, I am proud to add my voice to those who support Bill C-36. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the House to follow my example, so that we may meet the needs of Canadians wishing to learn more about their country.

I might add that Bill C-36 includes some other amendments to the Copyright Act, which are absolutely vital to the proper operation of the new agency.

As you know, copyright is a controversial issue and has been for some time. In the 19th century, Charles Dickens was annoyed because the Americans were getting around the British copyright legislation by copying his works and trying to make money off them. Today, the situation is somewhat reversed.

One of the key issues in today's debate on copyright is the need for governments to strike a balance between the needs of artists and the needs of consumers. In other words, how can they provide artists with protection so they are the only ones to profit from their efforts, while at the same time providing users with reasonable access to their works?

This challenge is even greater when it comes to artists who have died or whose works will never be or never were published. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of situation that can arise for libraries or archives. Imagine if a collection of documents was donated by a Canadian, and a researcher discovered a short text that was never published in a collection of short stories or in a book. Does this discovery belong to the author's estate or to his or her descendants? That is the type of confusion this legislation seeks to avoid.

In 1997, during the last review of the Copyright Act, the Government of Canada ended the permanent protection of unpublished works by submitting them to the same general rules that govern copyright protection in Canada.

Now, unpublished works are protected for 50 years after the death of the author. A five-year transition period was established in 1997, for heirs of authors, to prevent the works from entering the public domain immediately. These amendments came into force December 31, 1998 and the unpublished works of authors who died 50 years prior to that date, 1948 in other words, will enter the public domain on January 1, 2004.

However, while certain authors' heirs have expressed concern regarding copyright protection, there are a number of people, including historians, archivists, genealogists and other stakeholders who have been calling for unpublished works to enter the public domain. The concerned parties undertook negotiations and arrived at a reasonable compromise. They then presented it to the government so that it could consider implementing it in this bill.

Accordingly, the legislation being debated here will make the following changes. First, unpublished works from authors deceased before January 1, 1930 will remain copyright protected until December 31 of this year.

Unpublished works of authors who died after December 31, 1929 and before January 1, 1949 will be copyright protected until December 31, 2017.

In both cases, all unpublished works that are published before the protection expires will be granted an additional 20 years of copyright protection from their date of publishing.

The changes I have just described extend copyright protection for unpublished works. However, we are also make an amendment to help historians, archivists, genealogists and other stakeholders.

Bill C-36 will also amend section 30.21 of the Copyright Act to remove certain conditions that the archives must abide by to make a single copy of an unpublished work. This type of copy is used for research or private studies.

Currently, under section 30.21 a copy of an unpublished work deposited before September 1, 1999 may be made only when the archives are unable to locate the owner of the copyright. The bill also provides that a record be kept of all the copies made under this section. As members can imagine, these conditions represent an extra burden for our archives.

The amendments proposed to the Library and Archives of Canada Act that we are debating today would eliminate these two conditions. I am very pleased to point out that this change has been supported by all the stakeholders who took part in the negotiations on this issue.

This is further evidence that the Library and Archives of Canada will have the mandate, the powers and the tools required to reach its objectives.

Our documentary heritage belongs to us all and it must be more readily accessible. The proposed amendments and the other changes mentioned by my colleagues will create an institution which will be highly appreciated and which will make us proud.

This is what is being proposed in this legislation. By recognizing the complementarity of the mandates and collections of the National Library and the National Archives of Canada and by building on that fact to create a new and more effective institution, the government is providing the citizens of this magnificent country with a new cultural institution which will reflect, stimulate, interpret and celebrate our national identity; an institution that will help Canada become a real knowledge-based society.

The proposal being debated today will herald a new era for Canada. With 130 years of experience in the collection, preservation and diffusion of the Canadian documentary heritage, the Library and Archives of Canada is the institution we need in the coming century.

We cannot change the course of history. However, we will be in a better position to face the challenges of the future if we know our past.

Thanks to the bill before the House today, the Library and Archives of Canada will be prepared to take up the challenges of the 21st century and will be able to preserve the many records of our collective history.

Therefore, I urge all members to support this bill, which will equip our country with the necessary tools to bring together in wonderful collections our books, prints and drawings, musical recordings, films, maps and digital documents of yesterday, today and tomorrow and make them more accessible to Canadians.

We Canadians will thus be in a position to carry out our duty as set out by D'Arcy McGee a century ago: to originate a rich history, in the knowledge that it will be preserved, celebrated and accessible to all.

[Canadian Heritage, May 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there are no limits to the creativity of the Department of Canadian Heritage. In 2002, we launched the cultural capitals of Canada program and we are now ready to announce the winning communities: Caraquet in New Brunswick, Red Deer in Alberta, Rivière-du-Loup in Quebec, Thunder Bay in Ontario and Vancouver in British Columbia.

These cities will be awarded between $250,000 and $500,000 to support specific activities. We congratulate them for their activities in the field of the arts and culture.

[Arts and Culture, May 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian television fund was created to enhance production in Canada and it did. We will certainly be happy to announce a solution in order to promote production in Canada.

[Canadian Television Fund, May 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, never rush a good thing.

This government speaks with a single voice. Decisions will be made in due course.