Debates of Sept. 25th, 1995

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I wish to present a petition which has been circulating all across Canada. It has been signed by a number of Canadians from Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba.

The petitioners to draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society. They also state the Income Tax Act discriminates against families that make the choice to provide care in the home to preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that decide to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition almost entirely from the city of Duncan in the riding of Nanaimo-Cowichan dealing with the citizens' concern about sexual predators, methods of sentencing, the justice system and the Young Offenders Act. They are asking the House to enact legislation to reform the justice system and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

[Bernie Collins, Liberal, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House a petition signed by 30 individuals from my riding.

The petitioners pray that Parliament ensure present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide being enforced vigorously and that Parliament make no change in this law.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I bring to the attention of the House a petition signed from people in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

They state the Bloc Quebecois is comprised solely of members elected from only some constituents in the province of Quebec; that the Reform Party of Canada having only one less member in the House representing constituencies in five provinces and with constituency associations in every province of Canada more truly represents the interests of Canadians.

Therefore the petitioners call on Parliament to preserve Canadian unity, parliamentary tradition and to protect the rights of all people of Canada by prevailing on the Speaker of the House of Commons to recognize the Reform Party of Canada as the official opposition during the remainder of the 35th Parliament of Canada.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present today 26 petitions containing over 6,500 signatures. Despite the fact that Bill C-68 has passed the House of Commons petitions keep coming into my office. The people who have signed these petitions are reluctant to give up home that the law will be amended or scrapped all together.

The petitioners believe the costs of the measures proposed within Bill C-68 have been severely understated and they feel the already strained resources of law enforcement agencies will be taxed beyond reasonable limits. They are therefore asking Parliament to carefully reconsider the problem of violence in Canadian society and enact legislation to deal with that problem without further burdening those of us as citizens.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I gave a question to the House over 17 months ago and I still have not received an answer. I would like to serve notice that I intend to transfer the question and raise the subject at the adjournment of the House.

[The Speaker]

Question No. 40 so transferred.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-103, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Income Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Excise Tax Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-103. Nominally or technically the bill deals with revenue. It is an instrument to assist in the development of Canadian culture.

I want to take a moment to congratulate the Minister of Canadian Heritage for his foresight in this area, as well as his very able parliamentary secretary for her dedication to this issue and others in the area of heritage.

We heard a little earlier today the minister's eloquent speech about the advantages of this bill for an important component of the Canadian cultural industry.

We also heard the comments by a member from the Reform Party, and I must say that I could hardly believe my ears.

Some years ago I had the opportunity as a member of the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Association to attend a meeting with U.S. legislators, congressmen and senators of the United States. The issue of culture was on the agenda of that meeting.

It was interesting to hear the debate. At the time it was the film industry in the United States that was protesting quite loudly what it perceived to be certain rules in this country which did not allow it, in its view, the opportunity to do the amount of business it felt was the correct amount.

Today we heard a member from the Reform Party refer to some sort of cultural nationalism and cultural patriotism, describing the bill as being some sort of extreme right wing legislation.

Needless to say, those comments are totally unjustified. The purpose of this bill, which comes from the minister and not from some extremist supporter of Canadian nationalism, is to reassure this country's cultural industry that we want to help promote the growth of Canadian periodicals.

Coming back to the meeting with Canadian and U.S. legislators, those legislators at the time were telling us about the film industry. Obviously they had been lobbied very hard by groups in the United States. They explained to us how they had these provisions to deal with and how they were supposedly unfair.

I remember the answer of one of my colleagues at that meeting. It was something like this: "Would you as an American legislator tolerate it if 97 per cent of all the films shown in your country were made elsewhere? Would you tolerate it if you looked at films all day long, every day, all week for the rest of the year and never saw one single building, one single street or one single city located in your country?" They shook their heads and said: "No, we guess we would not".

This situation is similar. The member from the Reform Party who spoke about cultural nationalism and cultural protectionism, and those other adjectives he used, surely would understand that. Canadian cultural industries are not asking to dominate the world. They are asking to be able to operate and to enable us to see in magazines and periodicals the equivalent of what I described a little earlier of the problem in the film industry. It is the same thing. It is the same thing on paper.

I do not want to oversimplify the problem but I believe that is what we are seeing. The issue of magazines is important. Members across say that surely the government is not saying that the magazine industry is so uncompetitive or so derelict that it cannot compete elsewhere. That is not the issue.

There are economies of scale and entrepreneurs, particularly in the United States, are taking advantage of them. I did not invent, nor did the member opposite, the fact that the nation beside ours speaks the same language as the majority of Canadians and is 10 times larger.

That is the reality with which we live. We live beside a giant. It is not good, it is not bad, but it is there. Surely all of us understand that. I am sure the member opposite can. We should not pretend that we can compete-for specialty magazines particularly but for magazines over all-that we can lose the little bit of advertising revenue which we have, to people elsewhere and still be able to survive. I hope the hon. member is right in saying that we can do that everywhere. The reality is that the economies of scale make it very difficult for that to happen.

Last year I subscribed to a magazine about skiing. They sent me about eight monthly publications. I did not know it at the time, but the magazine in question, even though it had a post office box in Canada, was produced in the United States. Not one picture of a Canadian ski slope was in those magazines. Not one advertisement

was for a hotel room or anything else that I could recognize. I did not subscribe again. I had absolutely no use for it. However I did not know that at the time I subscribed to the magazine. These things are not obvious when we subscribe to those magazines. How are we supposed to know?

As communication develops more and more, the sophistication of the methods of advertising for some of these products also develops, such as the technique I have just described of periodicals using post office boxes. For some reason they always seem to be in the same town in southwestern Ontario. Now that I have subscribed to that particular magazine, I recognize the coincidence of so many businesses being located in a small village. Obviously they are not located there. A variety of methods are available to those businesses, such as using a post office box in Canada. An application is faxed by one person, probably on the Canadian side, to heaven knows where south of the border and then the people are put on a mailing list and the goods are shipped back this way.

We are facing these things in this industry and in a variety of others as well. It is not a matter of Canadians not being smart, which the hon. member of the Reform Party said underlined the position of the government. It has nothing to do with that at all.

That is why we must recognize the problem inherent in a legislative loophole that allows some magazines to publish a Canadian edition by inserting a number of pages or articles with so-called Canadian content in what is otherwise a totally foreign publication and then trying to pass it off as a Canadian product.

The split runs, as they are referred to, with components of a particular periodical being Canadian or perhaps nominally Canadian, do not constitute Canadian publications per se.

It is disconcerting that this bill is not receiving the support of all members of the House. We should be speaking with one voice about our Canadian cultural industry and about our Canadian cultural identity. That is the very least we could do on a bill which is perhaps to a degree housekeeping but to a larger extent is symbolic of what we must do as Canadians.

And I am disappointed by the position expressed by our colleagues from the Reform Party.

I will support this bill later when it is voted on in the House of Commons. In the few minutes we have left, I hope that the members opposite-that is to say, the members from the Reform Party-will think long and hard, examine their consciences and tell the Canadian people that we must act together in a concerted effort to protect Canadian cultural industries.

We have a rich history and a strong cultural heritage. As Canadians we have not waved the flag very much. I am not an historian. I would love to say that I am, but I am a fan of history. If I was anything else but the MP for Glengarry I would probably have been kicked out of office if I was not a fan of history because the area I represent I like to say is the birthplace of Ontario.

Glengarry is an area familiar to the minister. A few months ago he was nice enough to come and dedicate the Sir John Johnson House, the building where, one could argue, Upper Canada was founded in 1784. I thank the minister for his visit. I wish all members could see this very important, historical village in my riding where great Canadians such as Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, John Thompson and many other northwest explorers all lived. This one community was the birthplace of the province of Ontario.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Williamstown.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Williamstown was named in honour of Sir William Johnson who was the leader in the Mohawk valley of the United States. The town was named by his son Sir John Johnson when he came to Canada as the leader of the United Empire Loyalist refugees, as they were known then, and the Mohawks. He was the leader of both. He came with them to Canada and named the town in honour of his father.

This is just one example of a strong, important cultural and historical site in the constituency that I represent. I have always thought that if Williamstown had been in the United States, not that I wished it were there, it probably would have been the equivalent of Gettysburg, a very important site. My point is that it is virtually unknown to many Canadians.

As Canadians we have not recognized the importance of many of the sites such as that, the artefacts and knowledge that is historical and cultural in its content.

Today we are discussing a bill which is not necessarily related to history, although I suppose it could be in the case of publications of that nature. However in a general sense it speaks to an issue which we should all stand up for today as Canadians, to the extent that we can in the House. I am speaking of the protection, preservation and enhancement of our culture and our heritage. I hope we will all do that later today when we vote on this bill.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that our party stands up in favour of a strong Canadian culture. What we disagree with is how to get there.

I would like to pose a question to the hon. member. First, the hon. member talked about economies of scale. I think he would

acknowledge that other industries over the last several years have utilized economies of scale but this has not meant the complete collapse of various Canadian industries. In fact what has happened, which I think he would acknowledge, is that many of those industries have grown stronger and have gone on to compete around the world.

Bill C-103 actually prevents that from happening for the Canadian magazine industry. I will give the member a perfect example of that. Télémédia, a Canadian company, which actually publishes Harrowsmith magazine out of the United States, had to be grandfathered into the bill so that it could continue to publish in Canada as well.

When this legislation is put in place, assuming it will be, in the future Canadian companies will not be allowed to publish out of the United States and then have it come back into Canada. In effect, it stops Canadian companies from expanding. To me, that is absolutely ludicrous. It shows how provincial and inward looking this legislation is.

I challenge the hon. member to defend that particular aspect of this legislation and ask him how that is going to promote Canadian culture around the world.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member is wrong. He says that the economies of scale that exist in other industries have not hampered Canadian businesses from operating. Perhaps there are industries where that is true. Obviously such is the case. However, I challenge the member to find people in the printing business who would not agree with the proposition I am going to make and say that when we are talking about printing and distribution of documents, periodicals and otherwise, economies of scale are not important.

The small book publishers in Canada would agree that the economy of scale that exists south of the border has been very difficult for their industry as well. I have a company in my riding called Cormorant Books, which has published works from very famous Canadian authors. It always has this difficulty because of the huge size of the runs south of the border whereby one can publish books, perhaps not of the same quality. I think our authors are better. Maybe I am just a little biased in that regard. Notwithstanding, the fact remains that the cost of publishing per unit when we get into those absolutely large sizes south of the border is such that it makes it very difficult for the Canadian industry.

All this bill hopes to do is to provide the small incentive that will make it such that we can help our Canadian industry a little bit in the area of periodicals and magazines. It is not a sinister plot. It is not cultural nationalism or cultural whatever it was the hon. member referred to a while ago. It is simply a reflection of the reality that we can and we should as a society have this kind of an industry based in Canada for the benefit of Canadians.

Surely the hon. member would understand that. If he does not, perhaps his constituents or others can remind him of the benefits of what I have just referred to.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that many of us in this House have been struggling since we first went to school and then university and participated in Canadian society about the way in which we define ourselves as a country, as a society, and ultimately how we survive in a world that is becoming in some ways a globalized world. You can put it as you like, but it would be unrealistic for us as Canadians not to recognize that we have a unique culture in this country. We must work hard to preserve the existence of that culture.

Our magazine industry is an essential component to the preservation of our culture because our magazine industry determines in some respect the news our citizens read. It determines the way in which our citizens perceive events. It determines our ability to reflect ourselves.

We have a very rich cultural expression in our magazine industry. There are many magazines published in this country, and many of them provide extraordinarily beneficial insights into where we are going as a country and where, if I may say from my own perspective as chairman of the foreign affairs committee, Canada should place itself in the world. Those are very important voices, which we must maintain. Those are voices we must encourage. Those are flowers that must be nourished if we are to survive.

We must recognize that if we allow our magazine industry to fail and after that our film industry and after that other industries, we as a country will be left without a voice, without an ability to express ourselves, without an ability to affirm ourselves here in this House, to affirm ourselves in our scholarly institutions, to affirm ourselves in our civic institutions.

I do not wish to overemphasize this, but the richness and diversity of our magazine industry is an important component to the existence of our cultural identity. We can be proud of the richness and diversity of that magazine industry and some of the magazines we are able to read.

The unfortunate fact is that our industry is not on a sound financial footing. The fact of the matter is that it does depend on advertising revenues. I have the figures here. It depends about 85 per cent on its advertising revenues. Our magazine industry publishes for a much smaller population base than its competitors from the United States.

This is where this bill seeks to do something. It seeks to redress a delicate balance with an enormous industry in the United States

with tremendous export potential, with volumes against which we cannot compete in any way. I am sympathetic to the point raised by my colleague from the Reform Party that we have to recognize that there is an export component to this as well. However, there will be no export component to this if the industry does not survive here domestically first. We have to preserve the basics.

This bill does not seek to in any way give an unfair advantage to our domestic industry. It merely seeks to make sure that from a tax perspective American publications that come here are not taking advantage of that enormous market they have and in fact what is the equivalent of dumping in this country. They are dumping not only their product, but they are dumping ideas. They are dumping their civilization. I use dumping in the term of an international trade lawyer. It is coming in here in huge quantities, at a very cheap price and in a way we are not able to compete with.

[Translation]

We must give ourselves the weapons we need to protect ourselves if we want our civilization, our culture, our country to survive in an increasingly globalized world. This is what Parliament, what all parliamentarians should try to achieve.

This is a modest measure to try to achieve that important goal. It fits very well within what our government has said in respect of our trading measures. We have said clearly whenever we have sought to develop trade policy in this country that the cultural industries of this country and our cultural existence are not up for negotiation. We will insist we have a right to adopt laws and measures that protect our cultural existence.

The magazine policy we are looking at here goes back over 30 years. I can remember as a young man being at university and reading about the dispute over Time magazine and the tax policy. Many of the members of the House will remember the same thing. We have grown up on this. It is not an issue that is going to go away. It is not an issue we can afford to let go away. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that we create the sound financial basis in our country for the survival of our own cultural institutions and then deal with it from a trade perspective.

This measure manages to achieve that balance. It gives our industry that breathing room, that sense that we can survive, that we are not going to be completely submerged in the weight and the volume of imports of American magazines that naturally come here. Nobody is saying we will not let magazines in. Nobody is saying we are going to stop anything. All we are saying is that we must ensure the financial viability of our industry, which depends on its advertising revenues for that viability and that vitality.

I come from the community of Rosedale, which is proud of the vitality of the cultural industry in the city of Toronto and feeds on it. Toronto is becoming a cultural centre of international acclaim. Americans come in high numbers to go to our plays, to our musical festivals, to participate in the rich cultural life we have in the city of Toronto.

Part of that rich cultural life is there because we have publications that feed it, fit into it, amalgamate with it and create a sort of a whole of a sense of a vibrant cultural existence that is a part of this country. We owe it to ourselves to continue always to encourage that, to build on that, which is what the minister is trying to do in the bill. It is commendable.

These are extremely complex and difficult issues, particularly in the modern trade climate, which requires that we must recognize there is a balance to be achieved. Overall, what we get with this legislation is a recognition of a problem. The problem is a lack of funding for an important industry. We get a recognition that the way to deal with overwhelmingly powerful competition is to tell our local producers here is something that will give them some marginal ability to guarantee that their bottom line will allow them to survive.

As such, the bill balances these and gives us the ability, when we get down to it, to preserve what is an essential industry in our country if we are to have a country where we know what our ideas are, are able to express them, get those ideas into print, share them with one another, and continue to make as a result a contribution to our country and ultimately to the world as a whole. For that reason, I support wholeheartedly the measure. I hope that other members in the House will support it as well.

I look forward to working with the minister in other areas where we can ensure that the cultural dimension of our domestic and foreign policy will ensure that Canadian values and interests are not only dealt with here but actually have access to the world as a whole. To do that, we must first ensure we are on a sound footing at home. This is where we start. The bill is a modest but important contribution to that start.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

I listened to the hon. member's speech with interest. I do not know what his background is prior to being an MP, but I was in small business. I owned a small business and I employed 10 people. As I listen to this talk about giving special consideration to certain industries, whether it be through subsidies or tax concessions or grants or whatever, as a small business person who created jobs without any subsidies, without any help or special consideration from government, it really starts to irk me. And I know that it irks all the other small business people out there who are also creating jobs without this special treatment from government.

I realize we are talking about culture here and that this gets everybody very upset. However, why should there be any more protection for a magazine than for any other small business, simply because it is cultural?

I have sold my business now, but were the 10 jobs I created not worth just as much as the jobs that are created by some magazine that is subsidized? Does it mean it was not important because I did not get a subsidy and it was not cultural? I had to compete with Office Depot and huge companies like B.C. Tel, which had millions of dollars to compete with me. Did I start whining and moaning, asking for the government to help me? No. I got out there and did what I did well and I made sure I concentrated on products and services that people wanted.

What is wrong with the magazine industry looking around and taking a few surveys to find out what its customers want and putting it in a format people are prepared to buy, without needing a subsidy here and a subsidy there? They would do well to build a niche for themselves.

For example, in New Zealand, where I am from, the film industry was subsidized forever by the government. When they had their debt crisis down there they pulled the subsidies for the film industry.

For a change, instead of making a lot of rubbish the film industry started making worthwhile quality films which it could sell internationally which now win awards. I am sure some members here have seen those films.

What possible excuse could the member have to denigrate all small businesses that fight to create jobs without these subsidies? How does he justify giving special conditions to these other industries?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's observation is to some extent legitimate in the sense that we are struggling now to get away from the world of subsidization and special treatment for certain industries or certain products.

However I do not think it is fair for him to suggest to the House or to members of the public that there is an exact parallel between an industry which manufactures a product which then goes out into the marketplace and a cultural industry.

The member asked me my background. I taught international trade law at university and I am involved in a small business and I have some business interests in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Europe. I have had the opportunity of working through a lot of business problems.

I do not think the member would be wise if he said all businesses were the same and we treat them all the same.

Why is it important to preserve or give special treatment to a threatened industry such as the magazine industry where for example we might not choose to do that in the textiles industry, in the shoe industry or some other industry?

The answer is that when we are talking about trade and when we are talking about competition it is one thing to speak of competition in normal products and goods but another when we are talking about competition in ideas, through which the hon. member's children will determine their view of the world, we have talked a lot about violence in the House. We have talked a lot about the need to preserve our society from violence. Members of the Reform Party continually day after day speak in the House about the need for better criminal legislation to deal with the issue of violence but the member now wants magazines which come across the border espousing and pushing violence on the same footing as everything else.

The reason we need special treatment for this industry is we need a Canadian view of life. We need a way of being able to express ourselves. That is why it is different. It is ideas. It is the future of our generations that we are talking about here. We are not talking about a pair of shoes. We are not talking about a shirt or a tie. That is why we are desperately determined to preserve something that is the way in which we will be able to express ourselves. That is why when we look at radio, television, magazine publishing or newspaper publishing we always consider it with a special provision.

The United States is no different. It pushes its industries in that area extraordinarily hard. Everywhere we go in the world, if we talk to French politicians, to Australian politicians, if we talk to anyone, we are all concerned about the preservation of our cultural values and identity. Why? Because we do not wish to have them submerged in somebody else's concept about what we are about and what we are trying to do.

That is what this bill is directed toward. That is why it is really worth an exception from the general principle.

I subscribe entirely to the member's point that we must get away from a system where government is involved in subsidizing average industries. I strongly urge him to consider that there must be a difference always between industries making ordinary products and those products of the mind which represent our ability to be stable, to be civil, to be tolerant and exist in a world which is becoming more complex, more violent and more difficult to survive in.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of the member for Rosedale.

If we truly had a protectionist attitude maybe we would not have ABC television or CBS television. Maybe we would not be exposed to any television programs come from the United States or elsewhere. Maybe the NHL would never be in the United States and maybe we would not have t he NBA coming to Canada now.

There is a contradiction the member is espousing but obviously does not see when he talks about protectionism and in the same sentence talks about the global economy and how we must compete. I am wondering if the member could again try to explain to the House the reconciliation of what he is saying.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is an American conservative philosopher we may have seen on television, George Will. He has often said that free trade ranks somewhere between Christianity and jogging as an item which is much talked about but little practised.

I suggest to the hon. member that if he looks at other nations and at other countries he will find they too seek to protect their cultural industries for the very reason which I urged on him today. Please do not take me as being a protectionist. I am not some sort of Luddite who says we should build up a wall and not let in U.S. television programs. We know technology will make all of that totally and utterly irrelevant. It would be ridiculous to try to do that.

Given that technology is driving more open borders and more access, we should not shut other things out. It is all the more reason to ensure that at least our local industries are operating on a level playing field. That is all we are asking. That is all this measure seeks to do. This measure is not trying to erect some enormous wall. All the other things will still come in. What this measure is seeking to do is to ensure that this frail industry we have in Canada has sufficient financial means that when the bottom line is there it will continue to survive. The bottom line for it is finance, but the bottom line for us as a country is survival. That is why I am in favour of the bill.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his answer. However there is still a contradiction and I was wondering if he could clarify it further.

The government is planning on introducing legislation regarding neighbouring rights. Here is legislation which will affect an industry in Canada, the broadcast industry, which is in severe trouble. It is losing millions of dollars a year and yet the government has plans to tax that industry. How can it justify that when it will look after another industry? There is a protectionist attitude toward one industry and yet there is a failing industry in Canada, the radio broadcasting industry, and the government will do nothing except increase its taxes.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the short time remaining I am not able to give an extensive answer to the hon. member's question. However, the member well knows that what seems on the surface a contradiction in public policy often reflects that different situations call for different measures.

To suggest the magazine industry is in all respects exactly the same as the broadcasting industry would be wrong. We have learned through watching what takes place at the heritage committee that with the new information highway the print media, books, film, radio and television all require quite different solutions. However, ultimately it is the same principle, to guarantee a healthy industry in Canada. That is the principle by which the government operates. We want a healthy industry, whether broadcasting, books or magazines. To get that healthy industry we will have to adopt different measures in different fields. That is the reason for the difference.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.