Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 10th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We'll look at that as well. That seems to be a bit of an issue, so we'll look at that as well.

I would remind members that we're in public.

Mr. Hill had one comment, please.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

In response, I suppose, to Madam Redman's concern, I really don't think there's a problem with sending these, even though it's a bit presumptive, I guess. Our side has expressed concerns about this, but both the Bloc and Monsieur Proulx--I'm not sure about Monsieur Godin, but I know the Bloc, in particular, and Monsieur Proulx.... Let's put it this way. Members of Parliament, maybe from all parties, who are from Quebec, who are familiar with this, have raised this as a concern. If an election were to happen quickly, would Elections Canada be able to implement this provision? I think that's the concern.

So I don't think it hurts us to have this on record, just expressing that we would like to know what the timeline is, that we would like to know what the form would look like, so that perhaps at least those who are familiar with it, from Quebec, could offer some constructive suggestions as to ways to improve it. We could also hear, if Mr. Mayrand is expecting any delay, whether that is a reasonable delay, in our opinion.

So I don't see any harm in sending this, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, I think what we're going to do is just get the letter massaged a little, redrafted a bit, and we'll bring it before the committee again.

My apologies on the translation again. I certainly don't like doing things three times, let alone twice, but we'll get that corrected.

Colleagues, the next item on the agenda here is that I do need some direction from committee members on whether we want to hear witnesses with respect to the heritage and finance committees' letter to us regarding Internet postings. We all recall that discussion from the last time.

Mr. Hill, do you recall that? This is the issue of public meetings being posted on the Internet, whereby broadcasting licensing by the House of Commons is not granted so generally. I am looking for witnesses.

Colleagues, just so we don't run out of time here, I will suggest to you that we do invite the law clerk in to discuss the issue with us. I think we have a very good handle on the issue, but perhaps we could invite the chairs of the committee to come to brief us on that. Does that make sense to the members? I don't want to waste anybody's time.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

All the committees?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

No, I'm sorry, Madam Redman, the two committees that wrote to us regarding this issue, which are heritage and finance. But I don't want to waste people's time. That's a big issue.

And any other witnesses...I think we need some more.

Ms. Redman, please.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

It might be a thought, if a committee were to support it, to write a letter to all chairs asking if this has been a problem. I wouldn't want to see an unending revolving door, but maybe it could go to clerks or the head clerk as well. It would be just to ask if it is an issue that has been a concern. It may be specific to these two committees, but there may have been small irritants or infractions that we don't know about. We could send a letter and see what the response would be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Would it make sense to ask them what their suggestions on the issue would be? Would I have the authority of the committee to simply do that without bringing the letter back for approval--simply to ask the chairs to reflect on the issue, and to let us know if they've had experiences such as this? I could explain the issue briefly, for those who may not have had the experience, and ask them if they have any solutions or ideas for us.

How would it be if we were to do that? Okay.

Do we have any other witnesses? Is there any desire to have Internet security experts come before the committee?

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps we might call on Internet experts. We need to determine, if this constitutes a violation of the Copyright Act, which organization is wronged. Is it CPAC? If it is Parliament, perhaps we should invite Mr. Milliken or the parliamentary legal counsel to explain this to us. I think we should start with the latter and determine whether the Act has in fact been violated. If it has, we could decide which witnesses could assist us in establishing a process to put an end to this problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

All right.

Mr. Hill.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

It gets back to the point that Monsieur Proulx was making in our earlier discussion, that I don't think any of us are averse to discussing this issue, perhaps even in some depth.

I'll just throw this on the table. As is the case for the other one, if the end result is not that there either exists now sufficient sanction or that we're going to recommend some sort of sanction, this type of thing is just going to continue to go on.

My colleague and I were just discussing the issue of the Rick Mercer Report and what he uses. He has been asked to desist with that. He takes pictures out of the House of Commons from question period, presumably from debates or whatever, that run on CPAC, and then he distorts them. All of our leaders have been treated this way. It's extremely disrespectful, and it's against the rules. But if there are no sanctions that go with the rules.... Mr. Mercer has not stopped doing this. He just continues to do it, and in any likelihood, if there were a fine, it would probably be CBC that would pay it, and the taxpayers would pay, and they would just ask for a bigger subsidy, I guess. I don't know.

Maybe it wouldn't solve anything in this particular case, but my point is valid, I think, in that there has to be some sort of sanction at the end of the day. Otherwise this is just going to continue to snowball. I know that all parties, and certainly the whips, have discussed this whole issue of blogging and that kind of stuff, and of having access to certain videos, which we then see on blogs. That's the issue here. We're going to have to deal with it as a Parliament. But the end result is that if we're not prepared to say at some point that there's going to have to be some sanction to deter people from doing it, we can talk about it until the cows come home--which was Monsieur Proulx's point--and nothing is ever going to change. It'll only get worse.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, before I go to Monsieur Proulx, just to summarize our discussions here, I'm hearing that we should invite the Speaker of the House, the head clerk, and the law clerk as witnesses when we discuss this.

My thinking is that we're also going to send a letter to all the chairs asking them for their experiences and suggestions, so it sounds to me as though we should almost wait until we get the responses from those letters and continue this discussion. But I'm just trying to summarize it for you.

I was handed a piece of paper suggesting Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canadian research chair of Internet and e-commerce law, as a potential witness, just so we have that on the record. So far that's what I'm hearing about the discussion.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I think our main concern is the television feed or audio feed that is taken exclusively by the House and shipped out. When we see clips on CBC, Global, or wherever, they all originate from the House systems. There are no CTV, CBC, or Global cameras taking clips in the House of Commons. It all comes through one funnel--our own services.

Could we ask our researcher to tell us what drives this? Surely to God there must be some rules and regulations when we feed these clips to networks. We approved the policy on broadcasting on the Hill the other day. I'm not a specialist in that, but there must be something in that. If there isn't, let's get something.

If this were something done in a movie house or a private company there'd be rules and regulations accompanying it. They would use the Broadcasting Act to give sanctions to whatever happens. Surely to God this must apply to us, don't you think?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, I'm going to let Jamie respond to that, and then we're going to wrap it up.

[James Robertson]

We will get information for you on that. I'm advised that when some committees travel across the country there are different controls when they meet outside of Ottawa. Sometimes people come into committee rooms and either plug into the sound systems or use electronic devices on the road. Because they're outside the precincts, there aren't the same security systems in place. As a result, there are times when people have surreptitiously taped proceedings and used that, particularly on the Internet.

So you're perfectly correct that on the proceedings that are televised by the House and sent out by the House there are certain security precautions in place. We will give you a briefing on that.

There are other issues that arise, particularly outside the precincts.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I think we have to modernize our way of doing things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Monsieur Godin, please.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

In my opinion, we must make the distinction between somebody guilty of abuse and who is changing what is happening here. We know that all parliamentary debates are televised. Radio-Canada, CBC, ATV, etc., in short I think that all the channels have signed agreements. There is a difference between the groups that want to rebroadcast these proceedings and someone who is using them for entertainment. There is a difference between the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We should bring that up when we get into the discussion at another meeting, because that is a big part of this problem.

I just want to ask committee members for some direction. I made the statement earlier that we should wait until we get this letter out to chairs and get the responses back. Doesn't it seem that we can move forward on this at the same time? Perfect. So I'll just change that. We'll get the letter out and get it back, but we're going to start putting this on the agenda.

Jamie has kept a list of the witnesses we have so far. Mr. Geist is probably going to be on that list. We may have other ideas.

I want to briefly let you know about some future items. Mr. Silva will be appearing on Tuesday regarding his item of private member's business. I think we should allow Mr. Silva the entire meeting and not subject him to half a meeting. However, we have a number of little items before the committee. If possible, I would like the steering committee to stick around at the end of that meeting. If things go well, it will be within the timeframe. The last half hour of that meeting I will try to set aside for the steering committee. Then we can get all these little items we have coming up into some order so we can deal with them here at the main committee.

I would also like to remind members that there are probably four bills coming our way. So we have a very busy agenda ahead of us. Hopefully at Tuesday's meeting an hour and a half will be dedicated to Mr. Silva and half an hour to the steering committee.

I see everybody nodding that this is the way to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, is there any further business?

Mr. Owen, my apologies.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I would like to put that off to the steering committee meeting this afternoon. A preliminary discussion of it there might be appropriate.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

It's Tuesday afternoon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Do you mean your steering committee on another committee?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

We have a steering committee this afternoon, don't we?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm sorry--that's the subcommittee on the code.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay, you're going to let that go until then.

If everybody's happy and there's no further business, the meeting is adjourned.