I can tell you from many conversations with the people from CanWest that they would not exist if a licence had not been given to them by the Government of Canada.
The regulatory framework set up by this government in previous times is what makes it possible for that industry to get together on an annual basis. We are very proud as Liberals of the contribution we have made. Those people, because of the base they have in Canada, have gone off now to compete with the world. But you do not compete with the world until you have a company, and you do not have a company until you have a regulatory base. They did not have a regulatory base until they had a good Liberal government. It is as simple and as straightforward as that.
In the publishing industry the key thing to remember, which has not been pointed out perhaps enough in this debate, is that subject to questions of pornography and so forth, any magazine that wishes can enter the Canadian market and be circulated and read. It does not matter whether you are coming from the American market, from the European market, or anywhere else in the world. You can come into Canada, put it on the news-stand, set a price, and people read it. That is competition.
What Canadian publishers have worried about and we as a government have worried about for the last 30 years is the ability of larger companies to use the strength of their organization to undercut the advertising market within Canada. We were convinced originally, when we set out these measures, that certain protections were needed for the Canadian industry. As a result of the steps we took, we have seen an industry flourish. We have seen people have careers in writing. We have seen Canadian subjects come up. We have seen a great deal of research done. We have seen magazines make a profit and we have seen a whole new set of publications that simply were not available to the Canadian reader before that.
From time to time governments have to review their structure to make sure they are up to date with technology. The broadcasting industry is changing dramatically and quickly because of changes in technology dealing with direct broadcasting techniques, new uses of cable, new uses of the telephone system. We are working hard with the CRTC to keep up with these changes. In fact the government just appointed a commission to look at digital television to see the impact it may have on communication systems.
We have a change in technology, which made the regulatory framework we were involved with obsolete. I am not going to speak to the motivation and whether it was done by happenstance or whatever, but somebody saw an opportunity to come into the market and make use of a split run to affect negatively the advertising dollars available to the Canadian industry.
We did not move on this quickly. The last government set up a task force. The last government announced publicly that it was concerned about what had happened, that it was likely to make changes. That task force met, studied the issue for close to two years, and made public its recommendations. Perhaps later I will come to those recommendations. They suggested that the government update its regulatory framework to take into account the new technology. That is what the nature of Bill C-103 is. It is an updating of a strategy that has shown itself to be very positive, very influential, and supportive of the Canadian publishing industry. Those who know Canadian publishing know it is not an industry that creates tremendous wealth. It is not one in which there are moguls involved in huge companies. They are very much small shops in Canada, where people take a great deal of pride in their magazines.
I have a very close friend whose magazine unfortunately did not go as far as he would have liked it to have gone, but the love of that magazine captured his life for a couple years. He enjoyed trying to strike out a market and see it published. Among his friends there is a little club of people with failed magazines. It is a proposition that is enticing and daunting at the same time. People lose a lot of money in magazines. At the same time, the desire to nourish along a project and the desire to build something unique in the Canadian market is something we admire as a government. We did not want to see practices emerge that in fact make it more difficult to survive and make the publication industry more fragile.
I was struck by the arguments put forward by the Canadian Magazine Publishers' Association when they appeared, I believe
two weeks ago, in front of the finance committee. Their arguments were coherent and logical. They understood their responsibility in terms of a product people will read.
Everyone in the House probably goes by a news-stand on their way to the airport to go home for the weekend. They probably pick up some sort of magazine. I do not think any of us would stop and not buy something because it was from another country. I do not think we would say as a government we do not want to see these publications, not at all. If we look at the news-stands we see there is easy access to magazines from other countries right in front of us. I think we should remember that. We should not raise the spectre that somehow the government has arbitrarily taken away the right to distribute a magazine in Canada or the right to make profit out of this Canadian market.
I will bet there are many Canadians, including myself, who regularly buy magazines from other countries and do not think twice about it because of the news and perspectives they bring us.
Simply stated, without Canadian advertising there would not be a Canadian magazine industry. Therefore, we have to make sure there are opportunities for those advertising dollars to be accessed by the Canadian publisher. That is the intent of this act and will continue to be the intent of this government in support of the industry.
In speaking directly about the amendment to Bill C-103 as proposed by the member for Medicine Hat, let me make the following comment. Motion No. 3 would prevent the application of the proposed excise tax on split-run editions altogether. This motion is therefore inconsistent with the vote of this House to adopt the ways and means motion and the approval in principle given to the bill by the House at second reading.
By debating the imposition section of the tax on split-run editions, this motion fails to recognize the important objective the split-run tax is intended to achieve. In particular, the tax will update the government's policy instruments in support of the Canadian magazine industry and therefore allow the government to support the continued existence of a viable and original Canadian magazine industry. That is why we are sticking by our original intent in this and will not support this particular motion.