Debates of Nov. 24th, 1994

Air Atlantic

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the intention which I intended to convey by my first answer. There will be no interference from us. I expect the creditors to evaluate their own positions and vote accordingly.

Government Appointments

[Len Taylor, NDP, The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. In its attempts to reduce costs the federal government has on occasion dealt with the public service job vacancies by not replacing them on the basis of attrition.

My question has to do with the recent appointments to the Senate, apparent worthy appointments. I am just wondering if the Deputy Prime Minister would suggest to the Prime Minister that in the interest of saving costs around this place, perhaps the Senate should be treated the same way as the public service and that vacancies be treated as not filled by attrition.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, there is a slight problem with that logic. I think the member would certainly recognize that he does not want to leave the Senate with a majority of Mulroney appointees.

Canada Development Insurance Corporation

[Tony Ianno, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Financial Institutions.

In a report released on Tuesday the Senate banking committee recommended that the $60,000 guaranteed deposit by the CDIC be reduced from 100 per cent coverage guaranteed to a lower level where depositors, that is Canadians, would assume more risk and the banks less.

Can the Secretary of State tell us if the government is prepared to implement these changes and why?

[Doug Peters, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member's interest in the subject. The Senate committee has reported recently. We have looked at the proposals it has made, some 42 of them. One was the recommendation for a partial co-insurance clause. That is something we will have to consider very carefully.

A number of other recommendations it has made are very positive ones. That one is going to be carefully considered. We would certainly not consider implementing co-insurance without careful consultations with all stakeholders and reference to the House.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I would like to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of Mr. Vilém Holan, Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Points Of Order

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of order following the Prime Minister's comments during question period yesterday on the results of the election of the Speaker.

Standing Order 3(6) states:

The Clerk of the House shall, once all members wishing to do so have deposited their ballot papers, empty the box and count the ballots and being satisfied as to the accuracy of the count, shall destroy the ballots together with all records of the number of ballots cast for each candidate and the Clerk of the House shall in no way divulge the number of ballots cast for any candidate.

In reference to the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, the Prime Minister stated yesterday, and I quote from page 8170 of Hansard :

-Mr. Speaker, that it was by two votes he did not become the Speaker. A lot of people thought we had two great candidates and he lost by only two votes.

In so doing the Prime Minister left the impression that he was in possession of information that is supposed to be secret. By making these comments the Prime Minister has called the whole process into question. I merely want to ensure that the rules of the House were adhered to and that the Standing Orders were not compromised.

I would therefore ask the Prime Minister if his comments were purely-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

I take the point of order seriously.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, in his absence the Prime Minister asked me to transmit to the House that he was basically reflecting on the fact there were two votes. I think everybody who watched the votes in the House that day realized there were actually two votes.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

I do not want to get into a debate on the particular matter. Is the hon. member rising on the same point of order?

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, even in your own response which is also recorded in Hansard you said-and I am not quoting exactly-that this was the first time you realized how many votes you won by.

Obviously the Prime Minister needs to do some explaining in the House.

[The Speaker]

Order. Of course I should not have intervened like that. What really surprised me is that I have not met a member yet who has not voted for me.

I will take both statements under advisement and if it is necessary I will come back to the House.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in Statements by Members under Standing Order 31 the hon. member for Vancouver South said that the leader of the Reform Party should apologize for misleading Canadians.

Under citation 489 of Beauchesne's it is unparliamentary language to use the words misleading the public. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you also rule in this case and perhaps ask the member to withdraw his statement.

[The Speaker]

I will have a look at the blues. Generally speaking the word misleading could be inadvertent. If we use the words deliberately misleading they would surely be out of order. I will review the blues.

Business Of The House

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague, the Secretary of State, the usual question put to him on Thursdays as to what the legislative agenda will be for the next few days?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Secretary of State (Parliamentary Affairs) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, and tomorrow if necessary, we will pursue consideration at report stage of Bill C-57, the World Trade Organization Implementation Act.

We will follow this with report and third reading stages of Bill C-55, the Yukon surface rights legislation.

Since early autumn the Standing Committee on Finance has been conducting for the first time in history formal public prebudget consultations. On Monday and Wednesday next week members of the House will have the opportunity of making their own contributions to the work of the committee. They will be

able to give their own views on public discussions about the next budget and debate in the House a motion to take note of this process and to give the committee an additional week to complete its report.

On Tuesday we hope to debate third reading stage of Bill C-57 and to commence second reading debate of the income tax amendments introduced this morning.

Point Of Order

[The Speaker]

Order! I am now ready to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Roberval on November 16, 1994, concerning the format of the Report of the Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canada's Foreign Policy.

I would like to thank the hon. member for his intervention, and to thank the former member for Ottawa-Vanier and co-chair of the special joint committee, the chief government whip, the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader for their contributions to this discussion.

In his submission, the hon. member for Roberval requested that the report of special joint committee be ruled out of order for a number of reasons. First he noted that Standing Order 108 provides that dissenting opinions be appended after the signature of the Chair and argued that printing dissenting opinions in a second document breached the provisions of the Standing Order.

Further, he argued that, although the committee had agreed to append dissenting opinions to its report, no decision was taken by the committee to print the report in the format in which it was tabled. He therefore went on to request that the report be reprinted in a single volume.

The House has a relatively recent practice of allowing committees to include dissenting opinions in the reports. In 1991 Standing Order 108 was amended to permit standing committees to "report from time to time and to print a brief appendix to any report after the signature of the chairman containing such opinions or recommendations dissenting from the report or supplementary to it as may be proposed by committee members".

Also in 1991, Standing Order 35(2) was added to permit a representative of the official opposition to give a succinct explanation of such dissenting opinions when the committee report is tabled. These changes made explicit the House practice with regard to dissenting opinions in the committee reports.

As the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader noted, a close reading of these standing orders reveals that the provisions of the rules refer only to standing committees of the House.

A review of the 20 reports tabled with dissenting opinions since these rules were adopted in 1991 reveals that four have been from special committees. Three of these four reports were presented in the House and on these three occasions a representative of the official opposition rose to comment, pursuant to Standing Order 35(2).

It appears that it has become our practice to apply Standing Order 108 to special committees and there has been heretofore no challenge to such a practice. So, unless the House directs otherwise, the Chair does not intend to intervene on that point.

The wording of Standing Order 108(1)(a) is very clear. First, it allows a committee to print opinions or recommendations that dissent from a report or are supplementary to it. It specifies that such an appendix is to be printed after the signature of the chairman. It specifies that such an appendix must be brief and brief means short and concise.

The standing order does not allow for minority reports. Regardless of how the media or members themselves may label such dissent, the House has never recognized or permitted the tabling of minority reports. Speaker Lamoureux twice condemned the idea of minority reports, explaining to the House that what is presented to the House from a committee is a report from the committee, not a report from the majority.

I would draw the attention of members to the rulings of July 24, 1969 at pages 1397 to 1399 and March 16, 1972 at pages 194 and 195 of the Journals .

If members of this House or parties in this House wish to disseminate their views on a matter, they are free to find their own way of doing so. This Standing Order does not exist to provide a convenient vehicle for publicizing a different or alternate report on a subject matter.

With the exception of the provisions of Standing Order 32(4) requiring that documents be table in both official languages, the rules of the House are silent on questions relating to the format of a committee report. These questions are largely left in the hands of the committee.

In the past, committees have allowed their chairs considerable latitude as to the format and presentation of special cover reports to the House. Perhaps in this case we have discovered the limits to such latitude and the lesson for all is that committees

themselves will have to decide these matters in advance of the printing of the report.

Committees must be careful to assume their responsibilities in this regard: they cannot heedlessly go forward without deciding such specific matters as the relevance and brevity of dissenting opinions and the form in which these will be appended to the printed report.

For example, the Special Joint Committee on Canada's Defence Policy presented a two-volume report some weeks ago with the dissenting opinions contained in volume one after the signatures of the co-chairs. This was in conformity with a very explicit motion adopted by the committee to include the dissenting opinions in volume one. But the publication of committee reports in more than one volume is a new phenomenon and this may have contributed to our present difficulty.

The Standing Joint Committee Reviewing Canada's Foreign Policy also adopted a motion to append dissenting opinions to the report, but the committee minutes reveal that the only motion specifically speaking to the question of format is one requiring that the report be printed in a bilingual tumble format. Futhermore, the motion authorizing the printing of dissenting opinions is phrased in general terms and this too may have contributed to the current imbroglio.

The Chair concludes that the report as presented meets the spirit of the Standing Order and that it should be accepted as tabled. While supplies last, the report will continue to be distributed in its present two-volume format. However, I am of the opinion that the report does not meet the letter of the Standing Order. Therefore, should a reprint be required, I am instructing my officials to ensure that the dissenting opinions of the Official Opposition and Reform Party be printed after the signatures of the co-chairs in the same volume.

The terms of the standing orders which allow for the printing of dissenting opinions must be carefully observed and it is the duty of committees to ensure their observance. To avoid any future confusion, the Chair expects that all committees will ensure by means of explicit and carefully worded motions in keeping with the terms of Standing Order 108(1)(a) that their members are perfectly clear as to the format in which their reports will be presented to the House.

I thank all members for their interventions and I hope that this clarification of Standing Order 108(1) will be useful to the committees of the House.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I continue my statement on the amendment moved by my colleague for Louis-Hébert to amend clause 58 of Bill C-57.

Clause 58 of Bill C-57 is eloquent, not to say blatant, on this subject. I quote paragraph ( a ): a ) to fix the performer's performance, or any substantial part thereof, by means of a record, perforated roll or other contrivance by means of which sounds may be mechanically reproduced,

In inventing the phonograph, Thomas Edison thought that sounds could be permanently recorded for reproduction. Personally, I think that the Canadian government thinks that the Copyright Act is and must remain permanently recorded on obsolete media.

Here is a very small example illustrating how outdated Canada's Copyright Act is. The cultural community in Canada and Quebec is still waiting for a real review of this law passed in 1926, which has been only slightly amended since 1988.

Unfortunately, it is only because of economic imperatives arising from multilateral trade agreements to which Canada is a party that Canada is concerned about the cultural development of Canadians and Quebecers.

The Union des artistes, which appeared before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade studying Bill C-57, is very explicit on this subject. I quote: "At a time when digital technology is breaking down the old distinctions between various audio and audio-visual media; at a time when direct satellite transmissions and the information highway will redefine how our works are consumed and used, Canada is still protecting its creative artists and defending its culture with measures imposed on it because it signed international trade treaties».

Continuing on this route is unthinkable.

The amendment presented by my colleague from Louis-Hébert would simply modernize and update an obsolete, antiquated law and at the same time give our artists a minimum of protection, and I do mean just a minimum.

Let us hope that Quebecers will soon have an opportunity as well to rejuvenate their political system and adapt it to new realities and to get rid of the outdated structures of Canadian federalism.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, we recommend that this amendment be rejected because we have problems with it.

First, the new expression would be inconsistent with clauses 2, which includes the definitions of "plate" and "producer", as well as 5.4 and 5.5, which refer to "a record, perforated roll or other contrivance by means of which sounds may be mechanically reproduced". Second, it would therefore be difficult to apply in a consistent manner these provisions, if we were to use the new expression contained in the motion.

I should also point out that Canadian jurisprudence gives a rather wide interpretation to the current wording. Therefore, although the expression is somewhat archaic, it does include new technologies.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the motion tabled by the hon. member for Louis-Hébert.

It is strange and almost sad to amend the archaic and obsolete Copyright Act because we are forced to do so when dealing with a bill which indirectly affects it, as the hon. member for Laval East pointed out.

If I were sitting here at the end of the Second World War and reviewing this bill to implement the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization, I might feel comfortable with clause 58(a), which reads:

(a) to fix the performer's performance, or any substantial part thereof, by means of a record, perforated roll or other contrivance by means of which sounds may be mechanically reproduced,

Indeed, if I were debating this bill at the end of the Second World War, I might feel comfortable with this clause, although the perforated roll was already somewhat obsolete at the time.

Now, more than half a century later, the government tables a bill to implement the agreement establishing the successor of the International Trade Organization, namely the World Trade Organization, and we still have an archaic and obsolete provision.

In this era of high technology such as optical fibres and laser techniques, the government is talking about the perforated roll. The parliamentary secretary said that, according to existing precedents, new technologies are included in this clause of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I do not see why the government refuses to modernize the wording in the very simple way proposed by the hon. member for Louis-Hébert, a way that allows for any new technology. We know that technology changes very quickly. As I said earlier, today it is fibre optics and lasers, but what will it be tomorrow? Will we have to change the legislation again to include new technology?

I consider that we have to allow for any technological change that might apply in the future to sound reproduction, and even image reproduction, although the bill is rather vague on that. I suppose that the parliamentary secretary will tell us that it includes sound reproduced with picture.

At the time of the Second World War, the reproduction of sound and picture was not all that common. There has been a tremendous technological evolution and the technological changes are not even considered by the legislation as presently drafted.

The proposal of my colleague for Louis-Hébert is very simple. It is the result of submissions made to us by artists and creators, more specifically by the Union des artistes, which appeared-which took the time to appear-before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, to voice its concerns, concerns which are the bare minimum and quite far from what they would really like to see in a piece of legislation. I am glad that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is present. We are talking about amendments to the Copyright Act in an indirect fashion, through changes to Canadian legislation brought about by the signing of the Uruguay Round Agreement, or the creation of a Department of Canadian Heritage.

When are we going to amend the Copyright Act to bring it up to date? The government does not have the political will to do so. Absolutely not. The old Copyright Act is being amended in a roundabout way through other legislation. It is absolutely unacceptable.

Could it be that the present Minister of Canadian Heritage does not have the necessary clout with his colleagues to have the Copyright Act amended as it should be and as the artists are demanding? I am very sorry to see, following the speech by our colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, that our government colleagues intend to oppose this proposed amendment which, after all, is rather innocuous, but affects writers, authors and performers in a fundamental way. It is at their request that we are proposing this amendment which is, I could not stress it enough, very important for them.

However, as I mentioned before, what they would like to see is a comprehensive review of the Copyright Act. But in the absence of real political will, in the absence of a minister who would truly stand up for them, in the absence of any reform of the Copyright Act, this piece of legislation should at least be adapted to today's reality.

I hope that the government members will not prove to be close-minded, that they will not choose to oppose this amendment, otherwise we will have to conclude that they lack openness and concern for the needs of the industry, and that they do not take into account the new technology. It will be a pity if the

government chose to oppose this proposed amendment just because it did not originate on its own side.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is the House ready for the question?