moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-103, in Clause 1, be amended by deleting lines 33 to 36, on page 2.
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-103, in Clause 1, be amended by deleting lines 30 to 42, on page 5.
Mr. Speaker, the reason I have moved these motions to amend the legislation is that I am concerned that our government is placing an impediment in the way of Canadian magazines. I am very concerned that by doing this it is jeopardizing the future of Canadian magazines.
Specifically, for people who are not familiar with what exactly this bill is about, I will provide some background. Bill C-103 is legislation that would retroactively apply most specifically to Sports Illustrated magazine. It would prevent the use of split run technology to publish their magazine in Canada and also pursue Canadian advertisers. I will address that whole issue in a moment.
This clause does not permit Canadian magazines which have circulations in the United States that are less than what they have in Canada to use split run technology to get back into their own market. By introducing this clause, the government is effectively blocking the way for the expansion of Canadian magazines which does not make any sense.
This weekend I was at the Canadian Association of Broadcasters meeting in Ottawa. As a former broadcaster I thought I had a pretty good handle of what was going on with broadcasters. However I was quite surprised to find out that some Canadian broadcasters have extended far out into the rest of the world. In doing so they have not only strengthened their balance sheet and profit picture, they have also provided tremendous opportunities for Canadian actors, writers and producers. As an example, I found out that Power Corp. out of Quebec is the largest broadcaster in Europe. I was surprised by that.
That tells us something about what we should be doing if we really want to give Canadian cultural industries a leg up on the competition. We should not be looking inward, becoming insular and engaging in navel gazing and putting up protectionist walls. We should be putting in place legislation that encourages free trade, that gives businesses the incentive to go out and compete in the world by getting into Europe, as Power Corp. has done. It has provided all kinds of jobs for Canadian actors, writers and produc-
ers and all kinds of other people involved in the Canadian cultural community. That is the right approach.
The same applies to CanWest Global which is involved in New Zealand and in Australia. The company I used to work for now has a MuchMusic type operation in Argentina which is doing very well.
The point is that what applies to broadcasting applies to the magazine industry. At the end of the day the cream rises to the top. Ultimately consumers get the best products. They get the most choice at the cheapest possible price.
I fail to understand why we are putting in legislation that impedes the ability of Canadian magazines to not only compete in the world market, but even in their domestic market against all the American and foreign magazines which are coming into Canada. It is ridiculous to have a situation where if you want to establish an operation in New York in addition to the one you have in Canada, you will not be allowed to use split run technology to get back into your own country. That is crazy. It makes absolutely no sense.
Our amendment is designed to get rid of that clause. Canadian magazines would then have an incentive and the government would not be standing in their way penalizing them for trying to expand and provide jobs for Canadians and to ensure that Canadian culture and the Canadian cultural industries, particularly the magazine industry, are strengthened in this country. Why in the world are we doing this? It makes absolutely no sense.
I am not going to belabour this. There are several motions before us and I will not talk for a long time on all of them. However, I really do feel that although the whole principle behind this legislation is flawed, this clause in particular needs to be addressed and this motion would be the ticket to do it.