Industry Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Bienvenue à tous. Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, October 28, 2013, we are considering Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. Today we'll be considering it clause by clause.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1 shall be delayed.

First I'll go Ms. Charlton, who wants to raise a point. It was agreed among the parties that she would do that first.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I know we're still waiting for one of the members of the Conservative Party to arrive, and we've agreed to hold off from voting on clauses until that member does arrive. In the meantime, I do want to raise an issue that is of great concern to us on this side of the table and, I hope, to all members of this committee.

As you know, Mr. Chair, all members of the House have a right to be able to participate in the proceedings of this House in either official language. On Friday we received the full set of amendments at 3:30 in the afternoon.

While it's possible for all of us to read those amendments over the weekend, for us to participate in these discussions as a group, as a caucus, we need to be able not only to prepare our notes but to have them translated into both official languages.

That's impossible when we receive amendments at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. It means reviewing those amendments over the course of the weekend and getting them to the translation of the House, at the earliest, first thing Monday morning, and then asking them to provide those translated notes on those amendments back to us by noon.

I think that puts unbelievable pressure on translators. They do a fantastic job in this House for us. They bend over backwards. Today, for example, some of the people who help us with the translation were sick, adding extra pressure on the workload of those staff.

We had an agreement in this committee that we would all get the amendments by noon on Friday. I know that three and a half hours doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is when it comes to the workload of people who do translation for us in the House.

I wonder if we can arrive at some kind of consensus in this committee that we will either meet those deadlines or, if it's not possible, not proceed with clause-by-clause considerations of bills on Monday.

I've spoken to the parliamentary secretary. We had a conversation about it over the course of the weekend. I've agreed that we will go ahead today, but I think as a rule we should come to some kind of consensus in this committee about making sure that all documents are available, that we have appropriate time to caucus amendments, that this can also happen in both official languages, and that this requires some time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ms. Quach.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

I would actually like to add to what our critic Ms. Charlton said. When we receive the documents on time, we can talk about the issues and amendments. As you can see, Ms. Charlton speaks English whereas I speak French. It is a challenge for us to communicate when we don't have enough time to work out a strategy. Regardless of which side you are sitting on in the House, being prepared clearly makes it easier to move things forward more effectively.

This is an important bill, and everyone agrees to work on it and to move things forward. However, if we don't have enough time to talk about the issues and amendments and figure out how to move things along, it is not appropriate to hold a committee meeting and a clause-by-clause consideration.

I therefore fully support the request to receive the documents by the deadlines we have agreed on. That would enable us to come prepared.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Ms. Quach.

Mr. Lake.

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

I did have a good conversation with Chris yesterday and over the weekend. I have a lot of sympathy for what she's saying. It seems there might have been a little bit of a technical glitch or whatever with the documents coming out on time, but I do understand the concerns she has.

We talked about the possibility of moving this meeting to Wednesday, but of course we have a meeting that has to happen on Wednesday, so that caused some complication this time around. We'll go through this meeting and maybe be patient, if Anne has some extra questions and wants to clarify some things, as we go through the process today.

But I want to back up what Chris is saying about making sure that we have the documents in time to ensure not only that the translation happens according to the rules of the committee and all of those things—which wasn't an issue in this case—but also, on the realistic side of things, in line with dealing within our caucuses, and needing to get things translated internally. The timing has to respect that too.

Just to reiterate, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I don't think we need to get into that right now. It's just more something to be aware of as we move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ms. Sgro.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The issue that just adds to that is why are we in such a rush on Bill C-8? It's an important piece of legislation, and I do think all of us probably would like to support it. This just adds another reason to ask if we have to start clause-by-clause today.

Can we not continue to seek some more information for another couple of meetings? Where's the deadline? And what's the pressure that this was to be done in three and a half or four meetings? Could someone explain that to me?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I'm certainly not hearing any resistance to it, other than the translation issue.

Mr. Lake, did you want to speak to that?

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

I think we agreed as a committee how we would proceed, and I think we're ready to go clause by clause now and should just proceed.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I don't think anybody agreed. At the first meeting, Mr. Lake suggested there would be four meetings. That was not something we voted on; it was just his statement. Of course, you have the majority so it's useless that we raise any issue, but if the intent is to produce good quality legislation, what is the rush? I don't know.

I have lots of quite serious questions that I hope we get answered today so that we can go forward and all of us can produce a good quality piece of legislation. I don't follow why there had to be only four meetings. One of them was half a meeting because there was a vote and we had to go back to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I'd like to say how pleased I am to revisit this committee. I was here before you, Mr. Lake, I think. When I heard we were going to be doing clause by clause of the copyright bill, I was ecstatic because we were doing that way back in 2006.

So it's great to see you have made this progress, and I'd sure like to see this bill passed and moved forward. I know this is something the Canadian public has been waiting an awfully long time to have accomplished, so I'd encourage us to move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Ms. Charlton.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I obviously have some sympathy for what Ms. Sgro is saying. I'm not about to prejudge whether we'll actually finish clause by clause today or not. Like her, there are many things we want to discuss at some length.

I don't want that issue, though, to overshadow the issue I originally raised. I think they are two separate issues, and I hope we can move forward with some agreement that the deadlines we set here for the distribution of amendments in both official languages are dealt with as a deadline, not as some suggested timeframe. That part is really important to me, and I don't want that to get lost in the other discussion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It certainly isn't lost as far as the chair is concerned, Ms. Charlton. Thank you very much.

Seeing no other debate regarding this issue, we'll move then to clause by clause. I did mention to you already that we will be dealing with the short title later. I'll go to the members now.

(Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 5)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We have NDP-1.

Ms. Quach.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

By introducing this amendment, we just wanted to point out that similar imports would no longer be included in Bill C-8. A number of experts and witnesses have made submissions asking the committee to clarify this point. We want to make sure that small and medium-sized businesses are not the only ones paying the price for this type of trade, which makes it possible to offer competitive prices to consumers. It is a legal trade that meets the health and safety standards.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Ms. Quach.

Mr. Lake, you have the floor.

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

You will probably see a pattern today, but what I'm going to do is to go to the officials and get them to comment on the effect of this amendment, or whether this amendment is necessary in their view.

[Paul Halucha, Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry]

Thank you.

I'll start off by reminding the committee that parallel importation is the act of importing legitimate copies into Canada against the wishes of a copyright owner, authorized importer, or distributor, and which originate from the source having some relationship to the rights holder.

So parallel imports are by definition not pirated copies, not counterfeit copies, and Bill C-8 clearly exempts parallel imports from the application of the new border measures. I would point out that proposed paragraph 44.01(1)(a) does this by requiring the copies to have been made without the consent of the owner of the copyright in the country with which they were made.

In short, the legislation as it exists already has a clear exemption for parallel imports. They are not included, and having a second amendment would effectively do the same thing as has already been done in the legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

Go ahead, Madame Charlton.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

I think from our perspective we're not disagreeing with the intent at all. I do think we heard some expert testimony, though, that has suggested that perhaps the initial legal drafting wasn't quite as clear as all of us in this room had hoped, so our amendment really is to tighten up that language. So are you saying that you're not comfortable with tightening up the language? Is it a misunderstanding? Because I think you're explaining the intent, and I think we're all onside with the intent.

[Paul Halucha]

Basically I'm saying that the amendment would not be necessary as it's effectively duplicating an exemption that already exists in the legislation. So it doesn't have the purpose of clarifying it, but effectively repeating it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Any other questions or debate?

Shall NDP-1 carry?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

NDP-2.