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

[The Chair (Mr. Gordon Brown (Leeds—Grenville, CPC)), Conservative, Gord Brown]

Good afternoon, everyone. This is the fourth meeting of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-32.

Welcome. It's going swimmingly, I hear.

We're here today, after having heard from the ministers and departmental officials in the last meeting, to discuss the planning of our future work of the committee and the path forward. Our discussions are open to the public.

You have three documents in front of you. The first one you have is the legislative summary that was prepared by the Library of Parliament. You also have a blank calendar that shows the days of the weeks that we have before the Christmas recess, which would include, as we are currently planning, meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 3:30 to 5:30, which would mean this meeting plus five more before the break. You also have before you a list of potential witnesses. It's a rather thick document that contains roughly 200 potential witnesses, those who have either had their names put forward by the parties or who have requested to see the committee on their own.

I'd like to see us get a work plan coming out of today's meeting. I think we should probably at least try to plan to have some witnesses for Wednesday's meeting.

Madame Lavallée, you have the floor.

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

Before we begin our business, I would simply like to provide some information that I think is very important for committee members. Some 100 of Quebec's most prestigious artists, most highly renowned at the local, Quebec and international levels, will be coming here to Parliament Hill to tell us what they think about Bill C-32. They'll be here tomorrow between noon and 1:00 p.m. in Room 200 of the West Block.

Our visitors will include Luc Plamondon, who, as you know, is one of the most famous lyricists in Quebec and in the entire international francophone community. There will also be Robert Charlebois, Michel Rivard, Ariane Moffatt, younger artists such as Marie Mai, and the groups Mes Aïeux, Kaïn and Karkwa. There will be about 100 very well-known artists coming to talk to us about Bill C-32.

Obviously, if they are coming to speak with us, we should at least be polite enough to go and meet and listen to them. I expect Mr. Del Mastro, for example, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, to be there and to go and meet the artists, who are coming here specifically to talk to us.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much, Madame Lavallée.

The floor is open in terms of where we're going forward, but I would suggest that we move forward by....

Mr. Del Mastro, you can have the floor and then I'll come back. Go ahead.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm just looking at the schedule and I'm looking at the list of witnesses. It seems to me that we have a couple of independent, no stakes in the game--no monetary interests in the game--witnesses who would be good to come in and follow up what we've heard from the ministers and the departments. I've met with virtually every group on this list. There's no such thing as a group that has one issue that they'd like to talk about, and I'm sure we'd like to only see witnesses once.

What I would suggest is why don't we start off with Barry Sookman and Dr. Michael Geist, after which we can schedule the witnesses as per the committee's instruction and run through the list? That's how I would recommend the committee operate.

As I've seen—and I'm sure others on the committee have also met with numerous groups on this—their interests are various, but no group has come forward on a single-issue interest. They have interests in various aspects of the bill, which would indicate to me that we might as well just see them as the chair can schedule them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Del Mastro, you're proposing that those two witnesses come for the first hour on Wednesday if they are available?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Yes, I am.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Lake.

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

I agree with that. The other thing I'm noticing is that there are a lot of individuals listed here.

One thing I think we should get clarification on is what organization those individuals would be a part of, because obviously it doesn't make sense for us to have several individuals who are part of the same organization come before the committee. Perhaps the researchers can look into the organizations that individuals might be a part of, go through the list of individuals, and find out what organizations they might be a part of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Lake, the people on that list who are identified as individuals would normally be people who are in fact appearing as individuals and who do not necessarily represent a particular organization. I suggest we hear from them on what they specifically wanted to talk about. But I'll leave that open to the floor.

Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I'm looking through the list, and it seems like a lot of names, but certainly there are many stakeholders.

I would put our trust in the hands of our very talented clerk to actually go through these. I'm looking at some individuals who are listed as writers, and I think a number of individuals would come as writers. Perhaps there will be a day when we hear from the writers, which would make that go in a more coherent fashion, as opposed to hearing from three telecoms and a writer.

I had put in a number of requests for individual artists, some of whom are interested in a private copying levy. Perhaps on that day we could have three or four of them together so that we're at least grouping people together based on general themes. It's not that they're all going to be speaking from the same hymn book at the same time, but there'd be a more coherent pattern to our process.

As for the first set of witnesses, I don't really have a problem with who we have. I think it's a question of availability and readiness. I know that whether it's Mr. Geist or the University of Ottawa's digital law program, whether it's Professor de Beer or David Fewer, there's a whole team right there. I'm sure they're ready to come over on a moment's notice. That would probably be easy. If Mr. Sookman is ready, I don't have a problem with that. What we need to do is get an initial meeting under way, and then let's break these witnesses down, and if we have individual problems with how the clerk is coming forward with the plan, we can deal with them then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Chair, I'm not sure if there were informal discussions among some members to the effect that we would have for the first hour.... I don't disagree with Professor Geist and Mr. Sookman being here, but I think we would perhaps want to consider a third person so that we can utilize the time more effectively, if available. I'm thinking of someone from another university, perhaps Dr. D’Agostino or someone along that line. It seems to me that as we get the themes together--and to be faithful to what Charlie suggested at our first meeting, which I also concurred with--that would perhaps be the best route to go at this point.

If we have two of three, I'll accept it, but we might as well try for all three to utilize our time a little more efficiently. I don't know if that concurs with what....

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Rodriguez.

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

Thank you very much.

With regard to people who want to come and appear as individuals, I recognize the names of people whom I think it would be important to hear. These are people like Eva Avila and Florence K, who have extremely personal and concrete experience to share with us.

In one case, for example, I was told about a video that had been made using certain revenues obtained and certain mechanisms in place, and so on. And that seems to me to be extremely relevant.

Sometimes this is what enables us to better understand exactly what's permitted under the act and what isn't, and what the impact of amendments would be on this type of situation. I think it's extremely important for individuals to participate—even if they're just individuals—on the basis of what they do in their lives.

I also simply want to ensure that the name of Quebec's minister of culture, communications and status of women appears on the list.

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

It's there; I saw it.

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

Perfect. It's extremely important for me that we be able to hear her on this matter as well.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Madame Lavallée.

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

In general, I agree that we should hear from all the people whose names are on this list. I think we'll need to meet all these people if we want to conduct not just a general study or overview of the subjects, but a serious study so that we can really understand them, to get to the bottom of things and to be able to ask questions, .

We can meet people from organizations, inevitably, but we can also meet people from associations of organizations. However, if we receive people from associations of organizations, I wouldn't want to exclude the organizations they represent. They can often go further into a specific topic, particularly since they only have five minutes to come and testify here and to present important and complex issues.

I would let them all testify. I've said so from the start. I want to conduct a very serious analysis and I want to gag no one. There are indeed a number of individuals. Should we let them all come? Perhaps. If they've asked to come, it's because they have something interesting to say that goes beyond the organizations that represent them.

So I would let them come and speak here for five minutes out of their lives to explain why they deserve their copyright and why they are asserting it. I think that's immensely important. We have no right to gag them if they want to come.

It's extremely important to hear from Quebec's minister of culture, communications and status of women. However, if she came, I would invite her with two other witnesses in order to receive her in a manner appropriate to her position, but I wouldn't give her an hour to herself. I believe the minister deserves these considerations.

Then I would leave the list open and I would ask the clerk to organize groups of witnesses, as we said, that is to say two groups of three spokespersons. I would let her organize the meetings based on the availability of each person, particularly since we won't have finished by Christmas. So there's some flexibility there.

I would obviously leave the list open because, in the course of the meetings, there is always someone whom we've been unable to reach. In addition, people are currently outside the country. We've been unable to reach them in Quebec and we're waiting for them to come back so they can sign up. So I would leave the list open.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Merci.

We'll go to Mr. Lake.

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

I just want to reiterate what I said, and I'll use an example.

On September 30 I had a meeting with ACTRA. They came to my office, and at that meeting they had as guests who were supposed to come Rex Goudie and Eva Avila. Now, we have Eva Avila, we have Rex Goudie, and I'm sure we have ACTRA here, and probably some other people who would be part of ACTRA.

I think if we're going to get through this, we have to have some semblance of organization, which is why I'm saying that it's kind of important for us to know, when we see these individuals on the list, what organization they're part of. At my meeting it turned out that Eva couldn't make it, but Rex Goudie was there, and I found the meeting really interesting. I thought he had something to offer. So when ACTRA comes before us, they might want to bring one or two individuals with them as part of their appearance before the committee.

I actually wound up having a second meeting with ACTRA, where I met with more people. I'm sure that they may want to come before the committee as well. But we can't have thousands and thousands of witnesses individually appearing before the committee. We have to have some semblance of order. I wouldn't expect that when we have Corus Entertainment, for example, before the committee, or Google, that we would have the president come one day, the marketing director come a different day, and the person in charge of privacy issues come a different day. I would assume that Corus would come as one entity on one day as one witness. And if they bring two or three people, as happens all the time, they will split their time and take questions, as appropriate, for the individuals who are at the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you.

I had meant to put this name in. It was probably a mistake on my part. I think we should hear from the Copyright Board of Canada. I think at the beginning, in the early days, we need to hear from the various organizations that are tasked with making decisions and collecting copyright revenues. We've heard the broad, political positions and opinions of the various organizations, but it's also a technical issue in terms of how mechanicals are counted, who does it, and who sets tariffs. I think if we go forward and don't hear from the Copyright Board, we're making policy without getting the technical details. So I think early on we should try to group up some of the organizations that deal with the reproduction rights and the mechanical rights and get that in place.

In terms of Rex Goudie and Eva Avila being with ACTRA, they probably did come with them. But I said in my previous round that I think there are a number of artists and touring artists who want to speak about the private copying levy and what it means, which would be separate from an ACTRA presentation. I think we could group a number of those artists together. They can present at the same time. It's however we divide it up. But I think we'll be moving towards some kind of general consensus.

I notice that there are a number of representatives--former and present members--from the Writers' Union of Canada. We could probably do that in one or two sessions if we group them together, as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

To second my colleague's point, I think it's really important as a committee—I mean, we don't need to hear.... I've been through this on the finance committee, and I defer to my colleague across the way, Mr. McTeague, who has been here since 1993. When we go through these procedures and we have the same presentations from different people but with the exact same message, it is no more effective than if they appear once and make the case properly in the first place.

I don't think we need to hear from dozens of people on the private copying levy. It just means we'll line up dozens of people who are going to say they don't want their iPod taxed.

It takes away from what we're actually trying to do, which is work on the copyright bill. I don't think we need to hear from people time and time again. I agree with what my colleague Mr. Lake has just said. I have met with a number of the folks requesting to appear as individuals, who are part of lobby groups on the Hill under the heading of ACTRA, or others—the Songwriters Association, for example. The recording industry has also brought people through who are now on the list as individuals. They are best represented by the association to which they belong or with which they have been lobbying.

Having the same message represented multiple times to the committee, I can tell you from the finance committee that after a while committee members tune it out. It is not effective at all; in fact, it is not a proper use of our time.

I would concur with what Mr. Angus has said with respect to the copyright collective and so forth. I'm happy to get them in early. We can get them in on the first day, in the first or second hour, however the chair sees fit to schedule it. But I would agree that we might as well get them in up front so we can have a good discussion about how things currently operate.

I'm happy to do that as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much, members.

In trying to move this forward, I'd like to see us try to get Wednesday scheduled. What I am hearing is that at least in the first hour we'll hear from some academics, and in the second hour from the copyright folks. If members are happy, then we'll move forward to fill those two one-hour periods with those two groups.

Do I see consensus around the table for that?

Mr. Del Mastro.