Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) Committee on Nov. 29th, 2010

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I was going to suggest what my colleague Mr. Lake has requested, and I would ask the analysts to do some work on this and report back to the committee. If some of the folks who are listed as individuals are members of any of the associations, could they indicate that to us?

I'm happy to have them appear with that association and make statements at that time; I'd just like to see it properly put together. If ACTRA comes in to present to the committee, ACTRA can bring as many people as they would like, but they are only going to appear before the committee once.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you, Mr. Del Mastro.

With the indulgence of the committee, let me continue. We have the two one-hour slots scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Could we figure out what we might do in the first hour on Monday?

Then I'd propose that the analysts and the clerk could come forward with a work plan. We'll maybe have a little more discussion today of what members want to see in that. In the second hour on Monday, we will then get a work plan moving forward that will cover next Wednesday, the following Monday, and the following Wednesday.

If members are happy with that approach, we could go that way.

Madame Lavallée.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Pardon me, Mr. Chairman, but I don't agree with my colleague Mr. Del Mastro.

When artists, writers or authors write to us to ask to appear, they want to be heard as individuals. They aren't required to be represented by their union representatives. If they want to come and talk to us and tell us very specific things in the five minutes allotted to them, the least we can do is listen to them.

For example, I saw that Yann Martel's name was on the list. I can't wait to hear what he has to say. I don't know who represents him or what association he belongs to, but his representatives will no doubt make a general presentation. Yann Martel will have something in particular to present to us. He's an author who absolutely should be listened to. His thoughts are intelligent and interesting.

The least we could do would be to listen to people, not just organizations, directly affected by the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Merci.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I just want to clarify this before we move on, because I think the important thing about this bill is we want to create, out of this panel, legitimacy for our new legislation, so we want to be able to say that people were heard. We have a good list. I don't want to add to the list forever and ever and a day. If people were in, they're in. We might make some exceptions, depending on the importance, and I think we can talk about that.

I had said that I was interested in grouping people by themes, because I concur with my colleague Madame Lavallée that artists make their living through copyright. This isn't theoretical; this is what they do. They know copyright more than anybody and they have more of a stake in copyright than any single other person who's going to speak, so they should be heard. I reject just saying that ACTRA can speak for them. If we're going to bring in people about the private copy and they'll bring in people who don't want to have their iPod taxed.... Well, people who don't want to have their iPod taxed really have no stake in copyright. Unless they are involved in copyright, it's an opinion. These are people who make their living through copyright.

I don't want to make a fight about it, but I think there's no reason we can't have for one session three or four artists who are representing that point of view, who are not involved with ACTRA, who are not AFM, even though they might be members of other organizations. I think we have to have that sense of agreement that we're going forward. And we're trusting the clerk to group people, some by sector and then by themes. But I want to make sure the witnesses who we have here are going to be heard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In the same connection, I would emphasize that the bill's consequences for the lives, careers and incomes of these people are considerable. I believe they deserve to be heard. In fact, if my own life and career were affected that much by a bill and I had the opportunity to speak on the subject, I would do it. Some people have extraordinary things to tell us. That will subsequently be analyzed by committee members.

Some specific cases that I've been told about would enable us to gauge the impact that such and such a measure of the bill might have on a career. In fact, here we're talking about specific facts, actual and concrete experiences. I think that's a plus. As important as organizations' work on the major issues is, it could be enhanced, clarified, specified and viewed by artists and creators. I think it's fundamentally important that these people be heard as individuals rather than represented by a group. However, I remind you that we have to hear a maximum of three witnesses an hour so that this is viable and comprehensible.

I take it for granted that, unless we are informed otherwise, the list will stay open.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Rodriguez, I think what we were trying to do is have that discussion next Monday, in the second hour. We would then determine the path going forward. So what I'm trying to get us to do, with the indulgence, of course, of the committee, is to try to get a schedule here for Wednesday, the first hour on Monday, and then in the second hour on Monday we could work with the analysts and the clerk to come up with a work plan moving forward. We would then discuss it at that point.

So we'll move to Mr. Lake

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

I'll start by saying I agree with Mr. Angus on the notion that we should go with themes, so it makes sense to have people interested in the educational aspect together. It makes sense to have consumer advocates together to some extent. Maybe we can work through that.

Again, though, on this idea of having the elected leaders of groups of artists, I assume they've elected and hired the people they want to represent them. If we were studying replacement legislation, we wouldn't invite every union member and every person in management and all the companies affected. We would invite the leadership. The organization would come, and as we see in committee after committee, they might choose to bring people who are personally affected by the legislation, but we certainly don't open the door for every single member of every union to come, or every single member of the management team of every organization.

In this case we've got an artist group that obviously has selected leaders. They've hired people to represent them. Those people have come to meet with all of us. I look forward to hearing from some of the individuals on this list. I assume that someone like Rex Goudie might come with ACTRA or come with another organization he's a part of. He's a good spokesman. He articulates the arguments well. I would assume they will have him come with them. But it's incumbent on those organizations to decide who is going to come and speak before the committee.

Mr. Angus is an artist himself. I think he would stand to get a cheque from the iPod tax if we had it, from the collective aspect, right? He's giving me the thumbs up. So maybe he wants to appear before the committee as an artist who would be getting a cheque if we had the iPod tax. I don't know.

There is no end if we go down that road. Going back to the previous meetings we had, we have to get through this process and pass some legislation, whatever that's going to look like when we get through the process, and we have to do it in somewhat of an organized manner, and again to open the door to thousands and thousands of individual artists and then potentially thousands and thousands of individual business people. At that point we're probably going to go down the road of inviting thousands and thousands of constituents and taxpayers. We have to constrain this a little bit, I think, in a way that's going to get us the best information to make the best decisions possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I just perused the list, and to give members an idea of what they're talking about doing, there are 214 witnesses on the list.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay, my staff miscounted then. It makes my argument even better.

I have 214, so at three witnesses per session that is 71 and one-third meetings. If we're looking at meeting twice a week, that's about 18 sitting weeks just to hear witnesses on this bill. It's outrageous.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Of course it's serious work, so let's get serious about getting it done.

Here's the bottom line. As I have indicated--and as Mr. Lake has indicated--I met with a number of these people with affiliations to groups. It is the responsibility of members on this committee to meet with individuals. I meet with individuals all the time, but having gone through pre-budget.... And by the way, when we meet on pre-budget and we're meeting this number of witnesses, we don't meet twice a week for two hours; we intensify the meetings and meet a lot.

If you want to meet with 214 people, we had better start meeting more often, or get down to the bottom of this witness list and start to get serious about who really needs to be here who will impact your decision on the bill. To say that we need to hear from the witnesses so we can make up our minds, I think Madam Lavallée has already made up her mind on a number of areas, so all we'll be doing is dragging out the passage of this bill. That isn't my understanding of why we formed this special legislative committee.

I don't want to waste an hour next week, when we have so few hours scheduled, to talk about when we're going to hear the witnesses. What I would like to see happen, from this point forward we should start using the meetings to hear from witnesses. So let's start lining them up, but let's use this meeting to talk about what we need to hear from this witness list. If the witness list is going to remain open, we'll still be meeting on this in 2014, because there'll still be people wanting to come in.

We can't simply have it open and hear every single person who wants to be heard on it, because that is the responsibility of members. Members can go away from here and meet with as many individuals as they deem fit. I have met with hundreds and hundreds of people on this bill, and have held consultations from coast to coast to coast, with 8,000 submissions. We can make the 8,000 submissions available to the members of the committee if they would like to review them.

There's all kinds of information out there, but the committee cannot sit that long just hearing from witnesses, agreeing to leave it open, and just meandering about the job. It's irresponsible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Madame Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

But you said that about 100 artists would be here tomorrow. I imagine their names will all be on the same page. We've all met some of these people in our offices. So we won't have to see them again. We know there will be 100 of them tomorrow. They will probably all tell us the same thing. They must have communicated with each other. It will be a pleasure for me to be there too because I think it's important. However, we're already meeting them individually. I think we have to allow the others the opportunity to speak. It's our duty as a committee and as members to meet them when we receive a request to do so. First of all, we're going to know what Quebec's position is. We can imagine. We've had a lot of briefs to read.

We've already done a good part of our work. But I think we have to enforce a rule and give everyone a chance to speak. However, we have to concentrate this. We can't spend eight months on this issue. People are waiting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I've been ready for this bill since 2004, so my main focus is to get good legislation and hear the witnesses. As I said, if we're going to have a new copyright act there has to be public buy-in and a sense of legitimacy, so we'll take the time.

That being said, I think Mr. Lake's position is interesting. It shows us in our early stages trying to deal with heritage and industry. Perhaps in industry they deal with factories and sectors where they're under unionized agreements, but it's very different when you deal with the heritage component.

Artists may belong to collectives--I've belonged to a number of different collectives over the years--but we don't have a collective agreement. We don't work in a single work environment, and we don't have defined job descriptions. Artists are in fact very much individual entrepreneurs. They represent very small collectives of organizations.

In heritage it's been standard that we have representation from ACTRA or the Writers' Guild, but in our committees we also hear on a given issue--whether it's changes in arts policy or something--from a number of different organizations and artists, because we need to get a sense of what it really means on the ground.

I've offered my support to grouping a number of these together by theme. If we have a number of single musician artists come together, I'm more than willing to put more on a panel rather than fewer. I'm not saying that people don't have the right to speak because they're members of SOCAN; that they can't speak as artists, and only SOCAN can speak for them; or because they're members of ACTRA they can't speak. I don't want to go down that road.

I think we have a good, broad witness list. We just need to group it and then get down to business. Otherwise we're going to continue to fight with each other for the next 17 weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I think it's important here to understand that we are all in good faith. I'm happy to know that Mr. Del Mastro is meeting a lot of people. We are all meeting people too and we're doing our job collectively.

That said, there is very important work to do in committee and that results in a dynamic in which we ask questions and debate them.

In my view, it's important to leave the list open so we can add not a lot of people, but unavoidable witnesses. For example, if we realize that the minister of education from Ontario or Alberta wants to come and testify but is not on the list, I want that kind of person to be added to it.

We're not talking about amending the list here. I think that work has largely been done. Instead I hope we have the opportunity to invite witnesses based on evidence we've heard and on how important it is for the issue for them to be here.

So I think the list clearly has to stay open specifically for that reason, not for the rest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Monsieur Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I agree with Mr. Rodriguez. We have a list, first of all, and the people who are on it would normally have the opportunity to speak. It's up to us to determine how to manage it and whether it would be useful to group witnesses together or whatever. Whatever the case may be, the people who have asked to be heard should be heard.

But especially, this list should stay open. I'm not saying that, once the list is established, everyone who asks to be heard before the committee should automatically be heard. We could invite someone else on the recommendation of the committee or of one of its members.

Certain individuals are very representative of what artists may be experiencing but have been unreachable to date. They might become available during the process and the committee could benefit from their evidence. That's why it's important. The committee has to know that the list will stay open because subsequent events may be very important for our work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Mr. Lake.

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

I have a couple of things. To Mr. Angus's last point, I think maybe we're coming to a place where we can find a little bit of a compromise here. We've said three witnesses per meeting for an hour, but if ACTRA is coming and we know we're hearing from artists and maybe we want to add five or six witnesses to that meeting, they'll just have to split the time accordingly, but it might give an opportunity to hear from more people. It might cost us a couple of questioning rounds, or whatever the case is, but it might be a good way to hear from more witnesses.

So maybe that's a compromise. At a meeting where we'd normally have three witnesses, maybe at that particular meeting, when ACTRA's here anyway and there are several ACTRA members who want to participate in the meeting, maybe they can come to that meeting as well. So I'll throw that out there.

In relation to Mr. Rodriguez's comment about leaving the witness list open, and Mr. Cardin kind of commented on that a little bit too, I'm cautiously in favour of that, I guess I'd say. I think there might be people who aren't on this list right now who as the debate goes on want to add their point of view to the mix. Now, in many cases those people can submit briefs, or whatever the case is, but we may want to hear, and we may decide as a committee that we want to hear from some of those people, so I don't want to write it in stone right now based on this list. We may, based on the agreement of the committee, decide that we want to hear from someone else. So I'm in agreement with that.