Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the last of the amendments proposed by the third party through the work done by the member for Medicine Hat.
The issue of split runs that we are talking about is very important to the country and, as I said earlier in the debate, has an historical context. One has to go back to the O'Leary royal commission in the early sixties and be familiar with the work of Senator Keith Davey. A decade later we dealt with the newspaper industry. Canada has constantly had to go back to look at the vehicles it should be using to promote its own culture.
This will not be an exclusionary role. This will not push away other meaningful cultures. We are very involved, for example, with the American culture. They are our best neighbours, as they have shown in recent weeks, and perhaps our most important ally in the world. It will also put into context that which we have to do within Canada to promote Canadian culture.
In so doing we try to make sure people from around the world feel welcome in our markets. If they have products they would like to distribute in the Canadian market, whether it be films, television, magazines or books, they are readily available to all Canadians.
In my former life I was an academic. Nobody more than somebody trained as an academic can feel the pressure of censorship, the pressure of not having access to information to make sure they can contribute to the dialogue in their disciplines, in the public and with our students. It is essential to have access to information that no one else has filtered.
The approach of the government is not in any way, shape or form to prohibit access to materials of benefit to Canadian sports fans. I know the Speaker has probably picked up an occasional Sports Illustrated . I have looked at the New Yorker cartoons to pass the time on a flight back to Winnipeg. These things we love to do and would love to share with other countries.
The Canadian magazine industry has been a particularly vulnerable and difficult industry. We are proud of the way it has responded to measures in the past 30 years and we hope it will continue to do so.
The cornerstone of our current policy as embodied in Bill C-103 is not the work of a group of officials working secretly in a department or of an industry led group trying to push through some protectionist measures. Rather it is a function as a result of the work done by a task force set up in 1993 by another government to deal with the issue posed by a Canadian edition of Sports Illustrated .
In chapter VII the task force talks about a renewed framework of support. Because this report is pivotal to our understanding of what we are trying to do, I thought I would take some time in the House to read some key paragraphs into the record so that we allunderstand why the government is proposing what it is proposing. In part it states:
Free speech would lose much of its potency if there were no Canadian magazines. Without the means to express a distinctive voice speaking to a Canadian audience, cultural expression, social cohesion and a sense of national destiny would be impaired, if not irrevocably damaged.
As part of their heritage, Canadians are doubly fortunate to have unparalleled access to publications from around the world. It is the task force's desire to maintain this freedom of choice, and the measures it is proposing do nothing to deny Canadians the right to purchase the magazines of their choice. We cannot make our borders impenetrable even if we wanted to, which we decidedly do not.
The object of the task force recommendations is not to discourage readership of foreign magazines, but to maintain an environment in which Canadian magazines can grow and prosper in Canada alongside imported magazines. This is a high-wire balancing act that the task force is attempting to accomplish.
The measures we are recommending are consistent with the broad principles of the cultural and media policies of successive federal governments since the 1930s. These policies have been developed in response to the fact that the cultural industries in this country-film, television, sound recordings, books and magazines-are largely dominated by foreign products.
If left to market forces alone, a day could arrive when Canadians would no longer enjoy the choice that they have today between foreign cultural products and those developed for the Canadian market. There simply would be no Canadian product because of the relatively small size and the vulnerability of our cultural industries.
These are words of warning from a group that has spent a long time looking at the issue. It goes on to state:
The Government of Canada has adopted a variety of policies and measures to strengthen the viability of Canadian cultural producers: it promotes, for example, Canadian ownership and content in the broadcast media; it requires the review of investment by foreigners in businesses relating to Canada's cultural heritage and national identity; and it encourages Canadian ownership and original content in the newspaper and magazine industries.
The recommendations of the task force follow in this tradition, while at the same time seeking to ensure that Canada's rights and obligations under international trading arrangements, such as the GATT, the FTA and the NAFTA, are respected. We have also been careful to ensure that the measures we are proposing represent a proportionate response to the problems being faced by Canadian magazines, which have been outlined in detail in the body of this report. We are convinced that what is being proposed interferes as little as possible with freedom of expression or choice. Indeed, in the final analysis, we are seeking to expand choice by ensuring the continued availability of magazines with original content.
Later it concludes with the following:
Although favouring the development of original editorial content, regardless of country of origin, goes beyond the narrower focus of promoting only content of Canadian origin, the task force is of the view that, on balance, it is better to aim wide and comply with trade obligations by promoting original content than to target a narrow field and end up in protracted disputes with Canada's principal trading partners by promoting Canadian content alone. In other words, although it is quite obvious that the task force is concerned with the survival of magazines expressing a Canadian perspective and view of the world, it believes that the best way to achieve that objective is to promote original content, regardless of country of origin.
By promoting magazines with original content, we will meet the objectives and at the same time meet Canada's international trade obligations.
In conclusion I will spend a minute on the specifics of the motion proposed by the member for Medicine Hat on behalf of the Reform Party. Motion No. 4 would allow split run periodicals distributed in Canada to be exempted from the split run tax based on the number of split run issues distributed in Canada during the 12-month period prior to the day the bill receives royal assent. The motion would therefore fundamentally alter the limited grandfathering treatment of split run periodicals distributed in Canada that is proposed in the bill and is therefore inconsistent with the vote of the House to adopt the ways and means motion and the approval in principle given to the bill by the House at second reading.
The motion ignores the fact that on two occasions in 1993 the government clearly warned magazine publishers that should they decide during the work of the task force on the Canadian magazine industry to undertake any new publishing activity that would contravene or sidestep the government's policy objectives for the magazine industry, they would be doing so at their own risk. The motion would also send the wrong signal in that it would reward magazine publishers whose actions, while not directly contravening tariff code 9958, offend the spirit of the legislation. For this reason the government opposes the motion.