Evidence of meeting #4 for Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was list.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
—to see more witnesses if they so choose.
We'll move to Madame Lavallée, and then I'm going to try to move this forward.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I agree with the last part of Mr. Lake's statement. I think he's right: this list shouldn't be set in stone. It should be left open because, throughout our proceedings, we may want to meet other individuals, other groups, other businesses. It would be a good idea to give ourselves that option.
I want to clarify another point. We are meeting some people in private. Mr. Del Mastro has met a number, and I've met a few. However, I'm going through entire pages where I only see people I haven't met. The people from eBay Canada have never called me, those from Electronic Arts Canada either. To date, I haven't seen any of those that Mr. Del Mastro has met. It was the Conservative Party that met the people from Electronic Arts Canada; it was also the Conservative Party that met those from Epitome Pictures; I haven't seen the ones from EyeSteelFilm. Perhaps you haven't met all those the Bloc Québécois members have suggested. It's a good idea to come tomorrow. Few of those artists are on this list.
On the one hand, it's good to meet people who are interested in a bill in private, and it's necessary to do so because that prepares us to go further in our thinking and to push them further in their evidence. On the other hand, it's also very good to let them speak to us, so they can explain their positions and arguments to us in public. That's important, and that's why we meet in committee. If we had to stick to Mr. Del Mastro's private meetings, we would have finished up a long time ago, and this bill would have been passed in a hurry.
We won't pass it in a hurry. We're going to go about it calmly, and we're going to do a good job. We're going to do one thing at a time. As I said, we're going to leave the list open. Mr. Lake made an excellent suggestion. We're going to meet with the representatives of businesses and organizations that want to see us and speak to us in public. This is a very important process. If we didn't do it, if we gagged some of these individuals, they might criticize us for it, and they would be right to do so.
I also note that the Conservative Party's list mainly includes industry representatives. Perhaps some of us would like instead to suggest a list of stakeholders from the Department of Canadian Heritage. In any case, we have every interest in taking our time to study this 62-page bill, which is immensely complex and complicated.
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
At the risk of repeating myself, but also perhaps to provide some guidance to you, Chair, and your researchers, it might be helpful if at the next meeting this wonderful compilation done by our clerk is put in the form of theme. This would accord with what Mr. Angus has said, but also I think would be worth bearing out if we can actually break these down into categories.
I recognize that there are some people from particular areas who are going to want to talk about all aspects of Bill C-32, so it would be very difficult to pigeonhole these organizations into groups and those who wish to be witnesses, but it might be helpful in terms of us crafting the way ahead and the next steps.
Once again, in my experience one of the best ways to proceed is to know where you're going.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm not afraid of meeting with people. I've undertaken consultations across the country with the ministers—which are all public record, by the way, including the ones in Quebec—that were in a format very similar to this committee. As I said, there are over 8,000 submissions that were made. I'm sure members might be interested in seeing some of those.
I would like to propose that if this is what we want to do, if we want to meet with essentially everybody who came before us and said they'd like to appear before the committee, I'm fine with it. But I would like to get the committee to consider enhancing the meeting schedule of this committee so we can get through this in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise it's a stalling tactic, and I don't think that's what we formed this committee for, to simply run it out, run the table, and see if we can prevent a copyright bill from ever being passed.
As much as artists are interested in this, there are a lot of wealth creators and job creators and investors who are looking to this bill and counting on us to pass it--people who will create jobs and people who currently employ people, who are counting on us to pass this legislation. We need to do that.
I am happy to meet with every person on the list, happy to add more people, but we need to have more meetings. It's the responsible thing to do.
I'd like to put a motion on the floor that we accept all witnesses, that we take additions. But I would like to see the committee meet either an additional two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays in the evenings, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8:45 and 10:45, to accommodate the witness list in a reasonable amount of time.
I'd like that motion on the floor, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
Is there discussion?
The motion is to add additional meetings on Monday evening and Wednesday evening, or to add Thursday from 8:45 to 10:45.
(Motion negatived)
We'll go back to the original plan here. We have a proposal for Wednesday that in the first hour we hear from Dr. Geist, Mr. Sookman, and Ms D'Agostino, and that in the second hour we hear from the Copyright Board of Canada and the Access Copyright group.
Is there anyone else in that one-hour grouping that members wish to add?
Mr. Angus.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I thought we were going with opening themes, and I don't have a problem with that. But if we're saying that we're getting an academic perspective, Barry Sookman is a lobbyist who works for CRIA. Maybe he should come with CRIA. There are a number of other academics we could have, and he could come at the time when we're actually dealing with the issues of the industries he represents. I follow his blog faithfully. He's not there as an academic; he works for some of these companies. So I would prefer we have some other academics, and maybe even, if possible, the Canada Council for the Arts, because they can give us a broad artistic perspective.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I was just going to comment on Ms. Lavallée's assertion that somehow our witness list is only industry-based. I look down the witness list and I see the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Canadian Museums Association.
The last I saw, the CNIB wasn't an industry association. So I'm not sure what Ms. Lavallée's point was.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Okay. I heard you say--and we can check the record--that our list was an industry list.
Well, we do have translation. I don't know if she's blaming it on the translators.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I actually appreciate the translation, and I assume they got it right.
Anyway, that said, when I expressed my agreement with Mr. Rodriguez to an extent, I wasn't saying we should open it up generally, wide open, that kind of thing. As we've mentioned, we have 214 witnesses. It wasn't a recorded vote, but obviously it was the Conservative members who voted to add more meetings and all three opposition parties opposed that. If we're not going to add meetings, we have to consolidate the list. If the opposition's position is that we're going to continue to have four hours of meetings every week and that we're going to hear from 214 witnesses now on the list, plus an untold number of new witnesses who might be added later, clearly there is no will on the part of the other parties to actually pass the legislation. They simply want to have an endless succession of meetings.
Clearly, it doesn't look as though we're going to make decisions today. We may get one meeting scheduled, or maybe two or three meetings scheduled, but I do hope that as we move forward members of the committee will consider either adding meetings or somehow consolidating this witness list, because we can't possibly do our job here and hear from 214-plus witnesses. That's going to be impossible, given the schedule we have right now, and actually pass any legislation.
I'm simply putting that forward. It seems it's a dead end for us here, those of us who actually want to pass legislation and feel we were elected to do that. It seems that's a bit of a dead end. But there is no way we can hear from 214-plus witnesses at four hours a week.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Because I'm sensing a bit of a panic from the government about this actually not getting done, I wonder if there is an election coming. I'm here to do work, I'm here to listen to witnesses, I'm here to come up with the kind of legislation that's necessary. If there is a sense that they're going to pull the pin in February, it wouldn't matter how many witnesses we have seen. So I would prefer we stay focused on the task at hand, which is that we have a witness list, we have legislation.
From the New Democrats, we like to work in terms of building in themes so we can have a coherent legislation pattern. But if we keep going back to the fact that nobody seems to want to work and this isn't going to get passed, it seems to me they're worried there is going to be an election called. I'm not aware of one, so I'd just as soon get down to work.