I am not sure that this case was as widely reported in English Canada as it was in French Canada, but it certainly raises a great many troubling questions. First of all, it took one individual, with the occasional assistance of a few lawyers, 14 years to prove the validity of a complaint lodged with the RCMP in 1995, to the effect that a piece of work he had submitted to Cinar several years prior to that had clearly been plagiarized. In addition to that, it was plagiarized by a company that had committed other irregularities, to put it mildly, in the process of obtaining funding from Telefilm Canada—in other words, public funds—to produce a program that had been plagiarized. We are talking about considerable amounts of money here.
To begin with, complaints were lodged by the person who had been robbed, not only of his idea but also his work. The RCMP undertook an investigation and, just when the investigation was almost completed, instructions were received from the Department of Justice to close the file.
Here we have the example of a citizen who was the victim of a huge fraud. However, the judge did award him an amount of $5 million in damages for infringement of his copyright. So, this is not a minor affair.
In addition to that, the amounts obtained from Telefilm Canada, based on two kinds of misrepresentations, amount to millions of dollars. That money had been earmarked by Telefilm Canada to encourage Canadian television production, by Canadians. So, there was a first misrepresentation by individuals who copied the original version prepared by Mr. Robinson. At the same time, these individuals were foreign nationals—of either American or French nationality—and thus, the company would not have been in a position to receive the large grants of money that were paid. Furthermore, because this was public money intended to help Canadian business or a specific type of Canadian business, one of the conditions was that there be a minimal investment by a Canadian company with support in the form of U.S. or foreign capital. In fact, the Canadian company was required to invest 25% of its own capital in the business in order to receive federal funding.
It turns out—and that is now being alleged in the appeal—that even though they had submitted a letter to the government stating that they were in fact putting up 25% of the capital, in the case on appeal, they are now claiming that they were only providing 10% of the capital and that, consequently, they should only be ordered to pay 10% of the total amount of $5 million to the author—not 25%—even though they said at the outset that they were investing 25% of the capital. They were therefore responsible for 25%.
So, there are three substantial issues involved here.
What is worse, and why I believe there is a need for action on the part of the lawmakers, is that, at the present time, despite everything that has been done, people still do not understand why, when the RCMP had gathered considerable evidence—enough to convince a superior court judge—the RCMP was then instructed to set aside this file and not lay charges.
If Mr. Robinson wins on appeal, he will be compensated, although no one knows how long that will take. However, if the judgment is upheld, he will receive $5 million, plus interest. The fact remains, however, that throughout this period, the government—the public—was subsidizing a company which was supposedly 25% Canadian, when in actual fact, it is now very clear in these proceedings that the company in question was only putting up 10% of the capital. And, I might just mention in passing that 90% of the profits made by stealing Mr. Robinson's copyrighted material were paid offshore, when in fact the purpose of the funding program was to encourage Canadian craftspeople.
This case began in November of 1995; that's why we are still talking about 14 years. An initial complaint was lodged by Mr. Robinson with the RCMP for infringement of copyright. I would just like to remind you that copyright is something we have talked about a great deal in this committee, I believe, as well as in others. Essentially, we provide poor protection for copyright here in Canada, even though, as lawmakers, we all realize, when dealing with copyright legislation, the incredible asset that proper protection of copyright really is, since it is a tool for protecting innovation, and so on.
I don't really need to say much more about this. I only mention it to bring home to you that this is a matter of the utmost importance. It is possible that it did not receive the same media attention in English Canada as it did in French Canada, but in my opinion, it is similar in importance to the sponsorship scandal, even though it involves a different area; basically we are talking about public money obtained fraudulently.
As I say, the whole affair began in 1995. In March of 1997, after searches were conducted at the offices of Telefilm Canada and Cinar—the company in question—the RCMP completed its investigation and a request to institute proceedings against Cinar was filed with the Crown. The Crown sought the advice of a copyright expert and decided not to lay charges.
In June of 2000, Radio-Canada revealed that the expert in question was the sister-in-law of the president of the company. As a result, a second request to resume the investigation was brought forward in October of 1999. At that time, the front men scandal was exposed—in other words, the fact that American or French authors were copying or adapting Mr. Robinson's original work and that copies were being signed by Canadians who had had no involvement whatsoever in that work. Once again, funding intended for Canadian craftspeople had been directed to American or French nationals. So, the whole front men scandal was exposed in October of 1999.
Following fresh allegations of tax irregularities, and at the request of the Minister of Canadian Heritage—Sheila Copps, at the time—the RCMP reactivated its investigation of Cinar, in two parts: the tax irregularities and the copyright infringement.
In May of 2000, the RCMP made it known that the investigation had hit a brick wall because of a lack of cooperation from the federal Department of Revenue.
In February of 2001, the RCMP's investigation into tax irregularities was completed and it recommended that criminal charges of tax fraud be laid against four executives and former ex-executives of the company Cinar.
On January 22, 2002, after consulting an expert with Justice Canada, the Crown announced its intention not to lay criminal charges against Cinar for tax fraud, but the criminal investigation into the copyright complaint continued.
In December of 2003, the Crown decided, for a second time, not to lay charges of copyright infringement against Cinar. It claimed there was insufficient evidence, even though important witnesses had not yet been heard. That marked the end of all RCMP investigations.
For its part, the Ontario Securities Commission decided to open an investigation into Cinar's activities, but thus far, no information has been made available as to the results of that investigation. The Quebec Securities Commission also has an investigation underway.
Finally, Mr. Robinson went before the Superior Court to defend his copyright. When proceedings were first initiated against Cinar with respect to infringement of copyright, Claude Robinson was at the very centre of the front men scandal, because he is the one who realized who had actually written the copy of what he had submitted. So, even though the defendants engaged in multiple delaying tactics—changes of lawyers, repeated requests for additional details regarding the application, and so on—$2.4 million in lawyer fees and 14 years later, Claude Robinson won his case before the Superior Court on August 26, 2009.
In a 240-page judgment, Justice Claude Auclair of the Quebec Superior Court awarded $5.2 million to Mr. Robinson, the author of Robinson Curiosité, which was the name he had given the work he had submitted to Cinar. The judge was highly critical of the defendants, saying that their behaviour was, and I quote “scandalous, despicable and immoral” and that the conduct of their business was “based on cheating, lies and dishonesty.” The judge went on to add this: “The conduct of the defendants is abusive, premeditated and deliberate. Even during the trial, they continued to hide their wrongdoing.”
I have skipped over many parts of the judgment, quoting only those passages that are the most salient, in order for you to understand just how important this whole affair was.
In 1997, to terminate the RCMP's investigation, the Department of Justice relied on the expertise of Danielle Aubry, sister-in-law of a Cinar vice-president. It took her only two days to review 26 episodes and hundreds of pages. The investigation was subsequently reopened, and two subsequent assessments concluded that Cinar had used most of Robinson's project.
Bertrand Gagnon, a former RCMP investigator on the file said: “Yes, if our bosses had not believed in this, I would not have worked on this investigation for three years. The evidence speaks for itself—what we had, what we were receiving; it was always positive, and yes, we kept on going. We had to discover the other side of the coin.” That was confirmed in 2001 in a passage from an interim report on the second RCMP investigation. It says, and I quote: “It seems increasingly clear that the work entitled Robinson Curiosité was plagiarized.”
Again, I remind you that the Department of Justice stepped in to prevent the RCMP from initiating proceedings on the basis of the complaints that had been lodged.
Bertrand Gagnon, the former RCMP investigator, went on to say: “Could someone please explain how an investigation ordered by a federal minister [Sheila Copps] could not be considered in the public interest… I just don't get it.”
It is also important to remember, in terms of the public interest, that foreigners claiming to be Canadians had acted as a front, in order to receive federal funding.