Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today as it reviews the various issues regarding Internet broadcasting, or webcasting, of proceedings of the House and its committees. My staff in its usual remarkably diligent way prepared a very long opening statement that reviewed the history of things and what not. Rather than subjecting you to my reading of this, I've simply tabled that with the clerk. I'll give you a summary of that, and that will be available. Perhaps you might want to append it to the proceedings of today, because it has a lot of historical information that I don't think is necessary for me to go through personally with you today, but it might be helpful, ultimately, for the researcher and the staff of the committee when they draft the report, if that's okay.
I'm accompanied today by Rob Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. I'll be speaking to the question more generally, notably on procedural issues involved and with regard to practices in other jurisdictions. A lot of that material, I confess, is in the document I've tabled. I will ask the law clerk to speak on questions of copyright law and privilege.
As you know, this issue arose in the spring of 2007. An organization, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, was webcasting audio and video proceedings of committees on its website. On March 23, 2007, the Office of the Law Clark and Parliamentary Counsel wrote a letter asking them to cease and desist webcasting, podcasting or otherwise broadcasting the House of Commons proceedings. The Parliamentary Counsel advised the group that, and I quote:
broadcasting committee proceedings without permission of the House of Commons could be raised in the House of Commons as a breach of privileges...broadcasting of excerpts of the proceedings of the Standing Committees of the House of Commons without authorization may also be considered a contempt of Parliament since the publication of a partial report of the proceedings may be considered by the House of Commons as an obstruction.
On April 16, 2007, a spokesperson for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting replied to the letter by stating they did not wish to remove any of the material from their website but that they would be pleased to follow any reasonable procedure that the House would suggest to obtain the necessary permissions, and they would welcome the guidance of the House in that regard.
Later that month, the chairs of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage wrote to the chair of this committee to inform him that an organization, namely the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, was offering to its subscribers for download the webcasting of proceedings of the respective committees without authorization. They asked this committee to look into the policies and recourses available to prevent this infringement on the House's control over the record of its proceedings. In its meeting of February 10 last, this committee agreed to hold a meeting today to look at the issues surrounding webcasting, such as establishing rules and/or adding new standing orders determining the authority responsible for this matter here at the House and how other legislatures deal with the issue.
In reference to the authority for dealing with this issue, as you know, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(a)(v) and 119.1(2), this committee has the mandate to review and report on the radio and television broadcasting of the proceedings of the House and its committees and to establish guidelines governing the broadcasting of committee meetings. Consequently, in the absence of a reference from the House of Commons on a question of privilege dealing with the case outlined above, the Standing Orders do certainly give you the authority to deal with this issue more generally.
I don't want to review the history of broadcasting at the House of Commons or the role played by this committee and its predecessors in supporting this committee in this area. The document I tabled, as I said, briefly summarizes that whole history dating from 1970, when the general question of radio and television broadcasting of the House of Commons was referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization—as it was then called in 1970—following debates in the House in 1967 and 1969, through to 2003, when ParlVU was launched initially in April 2003 on the parliamentary Intranet site for members and their staff. The Canadian public has now been able to view ParlVU through the parliamentary website since February 2, 2004.
As this history has indicated, as the environment has evolved, so has the House, and the challenge has been to use the electronic media so as to exploit the opportunities they offer without compromising the integrity of Parliament. This is the same challenge you face today in grappling with the issue of information dissemination.
Again, for ease of reference, I've left with the clerk and asked that there be distributed these two sheets, eight and a half by fourteen, which are basically a chart of the audio and video of parliamentary proceedings. It just explains how these are made available today.
It is in both languages, of course. It is really an at-a-glance summary that explains the options available for those who want access to the audio and video recordings of the proceedings of the House and the committees.
I am ready to take your questions. This was of course prepared by Television and Radio Services, part of Information Services. My thanks go to them.
The House therefore controls the broadcasting of its proceedings; its intention has clearly always been that control of the entire system, especially maintaining the concept of an electronic Hansard, should continue to lie with the House, specifically with the Speaker, as the representative of all members.
The following licence to broadcast appears at the beginning and the end of all broadcasts and webcasts made by the House of Commons as well as on labels displayed on DVDs and tapes that are provided on demand.
It reads as follows, and I quote:
The Speaker of the House of Commons hereby grants permission to use this video content in schools or for purposes of private study, research, criticism or review. Television and radio broadcasting undertakings, licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, may make use of recorded excerpts of these televised proceedings in their news and public affairs programs. Any other commercial use or rebroadcast of these televised proceedings requires the express prior written approval of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
In its 40th report of the first session of the 39th Parliament (March 30, 2007), you may recall that this committee made permanent guidelines for broadcasting committee meetings and, if I may, I would like to quote from the report the following:
The committee will continue to monitor the broadcasting of committees by the electronic media, and retains the authority pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(a)(v) and 119.1(2) to recommend changes to these guidelines.
I think the committee right now is facing something of a dilemma. On the one hand, it should be relatively straightforward to draft guidelines or standing orders to limit the exterior use of any kind of broadcast of the proceedings of the House and its committees. On the other hand, enforcing such guidelines will pose a major challenge.
The original objective of broadcasting proceedings, it's important to remember, was to disseminate to as wide an audience as possible the work of the House and its members. But those decisions were made in a much simpler time. Some of the 1972 report on broadcasting is downright quaint when you reread it. Paragraph 70, for example, reads, in part, “If it is decided to televise the proceedings of the House, it will then have to be decided whether to do so in colour or in black and white.”
We live today in a very different time. Many members have their own websites where they regularly make available streaming of their own participation in the House or in committees. As technology grows daily easier to manipulate, it's only natural that concerns are raised about controlling how House proceedings are used.
What the committee needs, I think—again, this is a personal opinion, and obviously one that I've thought about—is to consider very carefully whether all of those concerns are entirely well-founded. In the great majority of cases, there's no malicious intent in the onward dissemination, if one can call it that, of these proceedings. In those specific cases where genuine concerns exist--where, for example, people might feel that their privileges have somehow been affected--then the House can always reaffirm its control and reassert its authority, for example, by punishing misuse as a contempt of the House.
As I said earlier, I'm joined by my colleague Rob Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. In order to round out this discussion, he will address the legal issues surrounding the reproduction and distribution of the recordings of House and committee proceedings by third parties and the means now available to the House to limit or control third parties in the use they can make of recordings or records of House and committee proceedings.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll pass it over to Rob.