Evidence of meeting #27 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Would you like me to speak to the motion at all, Mr. Chair?
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
An hon. member
Okay.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Okay, I'll speak to it very briefly.
Obviously up to 90 million people will tour the pavilion. When we had the exposition in 2005 we attracted more than twice as many visitors as we expected. It seems like a good way for Canada to put its best foot forward, and I think it's a worthwhile study for the committee.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Now, a notice of motion from Mr. Abbott reads:
That the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage consider the request of Konrad von Finckenstein when he asked during his appearance on March 4th, 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.
Would you like to speak briefly to that, Mr. Abbott?
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I'll try to be very brief.
This came out of the committee, and if I recall the word picture that Mr. von Finckenstein used, it was that he had a bomb and he had a peashooter, but what he really required was something between the bomb and the peashooter in terms of being able to bring the kind of control and restriction. He requires tools in order to be able to do his job.
Because all of us were very, very sympathetic to Mr. Bigras' bill, and for various reasons we couldn't support it in the end, nonetheless this came out as something very constructive that the CRTC could use. I think if we have hearings on this and we construct something that would be of value to the CRTC, if we report that to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, I would expect that we would see the government being in favour of something that could be logically, rationally, and reasonably used as a tool of regulation in the hands of the CRTC. We simply need to create that tool, define it, and see what it looks like.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Okay. Would anyone else like to speak to that?
Mr. Coderre.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
If I understand, we're just recommending that he should have that power, and you're asking the minister in charge of the CRTC to make some amendments to the Broadcasting Act to give that kind of tool eventually for a future CRTC. Is that what you're saying?
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
The issue right now, as I'm trying to understand, is that you want to give the power to provide some teeth to the CRTC. I wasn't there before, and I don't know if my colleague can talk about that, but what are the consequences? What should we do? Are we too fast? Is there any report already that we provide with that? I'm trying to understand in what situation you're doing that.
I'm not against the fact that the CRTC doesn't have some teeth, but sometimes they don't know how to play with the tools they have already. But that's another issue.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
If I could answer you, Mr. Coderre, the idea is to define the teeth. How big are they? What are they made of? When would they be used? How would they be used? That is the idea, and this committee is ideally suited to being able to make those recommendations to the minister.
Of course, the minister, on behalf of the government, will say yes or no, or whatever she will say, but she is looking for this kind of thorough hearing and some guidance. Again, the committee is being asked to assist, if you'll pardon the colloquial or the word picture, in defining the teeth, the construction of the teeth, and when they're going to be used.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Basically what you're saying is what the president of the CRTC was recommending, that we make them ours. So we can send a letter of notice to the minister in charge to do something about it, because now it has come out of the standing committee. Is that your point?
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I do support this. I'm glad to hear Mr. Abbott say that his intent is that we hold hearings on this, that we're not making a statement that we're sending off immediately. So it would be helpful, I think, if it was reflected in the motion that instead of saying “consider”, we say “hold hearings on the request”. To me, that would be helpful. I wonder if that can just be a friendly clarification.
Chair, when Mr. von Finckenstein was here, I remember that he mentioned that he could put forward a proposal to the committee or give us more detail on that. Did we ever receive that from him?
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Yes, I think everyone received that correspondence. I know I did.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Okay. It's helpful to be reminded of that, Chair.
The only other addition that I'd like to see in the motion—because I can support this—is that we also report our findings to the House on this. I don't think just writing to the ministers is enough. We should make it a report to the House. So I would add a phrase, “and report the committee's findings to the House.”
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
I don't know if that's friendly or if we need to make that a formal amendment. Jim seems to be nodding his head that it's okay, so maybe we can just proceed.
4:55 p.m.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also agree with Mr. Siksay about reporting to the House.
On the other hand, I think that Mr. Abbott's idea in tabling this motion was a very good one, given that we have unfortunately not been able to study my colleague Mr. Bigras' bill amendment by amendment, point by point. We could have seen this point if we had discussed the bill in depth, but unfortunately, such was not the case. It is very a good idea to look at it this way. I think that this has been a concern for Mr. von Finckenstein, because more substantial fines and a little more significant power were necessary. We agree with this motion.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
I was actually going to make the same kind of comment that Mr. Siksay made, although I wanted to add one thing. I think in fact we should take out the piece that says “and that the committee write to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages about their findings” and say instead “and that the committee report to Parliament about its findings”.
However, I also wanted to comment on one thing. The quote is “power to impose administrative monetary penalties”, AMPs. That limits the report to only one small part of a tooth, and not to teeth. I think if we're going to consider which teeth we should give to the CRTC, that may not be the only one. That may not be the one. We may find other teeth that we want to give it.
So I think this limits it too much, to just stick to AMPs. I think we should look at the whole concept of the report, hear from many people, and see whether we could give the CRTC teeth to implement the things that it needs to do--and find a word other than teeth, because my teeth are beginning to be on edge here, with all this talk of teeth.