Mr. Speaker, on February 22 I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage why his government did not follow the requirements of the Investment Canada Act and in fact allowed Paramount to obtain the book publishing company's Maxwell Macmillan and Ginn Publishing.
The act prevents a non-Canadian from acquiring a Canadian controlled book publishing business.
Ginn Publishing was 51 per cent owned by the government through CDIC. In the case of a non-Canadian wishing to sell an existing Canadian business like Maxwell Macmillan the act requires that the vendor must prove that the potential Canadian investors have had a full and thorough opportunity to purchase. In both cases the government simply ignored the act.
In the case of Ginn Publishing the government claims it was obliged to sell its 51 per cent share to Paramount because of a legal obligation.
Canadians would like to see that contract made public in order to determine what that obligation is, who incurred it, when and where. Even if that obligation is there this government has renegotiated commitments made by the past Tory government, i.e. Pearson airport and the helicopter deal.
The Minister of Industry also claimed there was not "a substantial indication of interest".
Let me quote from the Toronto Star of February 22:
One of Canada's top publishers, Canada Publishing Corporation, insists that its repeated expressions of interest in the company were constantly spurned.
The firm's chairman, Ron Besse, says that the government kept promising a prospectus on Ginn but never issued one.
After the Liberals assumed power, Besse sent his lawyers to Ottawa to again explore the possibility of purchasing Ginn. The next day, he received a call from Paramount asking what he wanted.
In other words, it is Paramount that is speaking on behalf of the minister and the government and not the department.
In the case of Maxwell Macmillan this is a direct acquisition and the act requires that Canadians have a full and fair opportunity to bid.
What effort was made to find Canadian buyers? Why was the acquisition of Maxwell Macmillan not reviewed by Investment Canada as part of the larger review that the act requires because Paramount in turn has been bought by Viacom?
The government could have had significant leverage in negotiating with Paramount but again it failed to do so.
This government could have acted to prevent the book publishing business of especially high school and university texts being dominated by American controlled companies. The fact the government did not has sent shock waves through the cultural community.
As Keith Kelly, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts stated, " What is stopping other transactions from acquiring other Canadian cultural industries?"
One wonders if the ministers involved in this decision really knew what they were doing. Were they misinformed by their advisers? If not, is this going to be the Liberal government's policy, the same as the previous Conservative policy.
I quote from the Liberal red book:
At a time when globalization and the information and communications revolution are erasing national borders, Canada needs more than ever to commit itself to cultural development. Instead, the Conservative regime has deliberately undermined our national cultural institutions.
The purchase by Paramount of Maxwell Macmillan and Ginn is an undermining of our national cultural institutions.
I ask this government, is this what it means when it talks about cultural development? Is this a harbinger of things to come?