moved that Bill C-32, an act to amend the Copyright Act be read the second time and sent to committee.
Mr. Speaker, the reform of the Copyright Act, which has been on the agenda for more than ten years, has now become a necessity. It is crucial that our legislation conforms to reality so that we can prepare the way to the future.
The amendments that the government is proposing today will put our cultural industries on the same wavelength as the other industrialized countries of the West and the G7 countries. They will enable us to better meet the challenges presented by the new distribution technologies.
These amendments are the expression of the government's commitment to the cultural sector. We stated that we had two objectives in promoting the cultural industries: to bolster Canadian identity and to encourage job creation.
Let me begin by reminding you how important the cultural sector is to the affirmation of Canadian identity. Culture is expressed through the voices, words and gestures of talented men and women. Their works are the manifestation of that culture. They forge the image that a country creates of itself and offer it to the entire world. They are at the heart of our national identity. They are the creators who shape our world view.
Our culture is the thousand and one signs through which we see ourselves as individuals belonging to a country. Culture is the vital link that unites us all. Culture also provides work for 670,000 people, including creators and producers, who inject $16 billion into our economy and attract foreign capital.
Canada's cultural sector is one of the fastest-growing segments of our economy. Since 1981, it has grown by 32 per cent, compared with 12 per cent for other sectors. There is no doubt that the arts and culture sector-the ninth largest in Canada-must be strengthened if it is to continue to contribute to economic growth and the vitality of our cultural identity. That is precisely what we intend to do with Bill C-32.
The Government of Canada is proud of this series of fair and carefully developed amendments. The new act establishes a fair balance between the rights of creators to be compensated for their work and the need for users to have access to those works. We have taken everybody's interests into consideration and have made sure that everyone gets their due.
Some elements included in the bill are: the rights of performers and producers of sound recordings; a compensation system for private copying; limited exceptions for schools, libraries, museums, archives and people with visual disabilities; protection for exclusive book distributors in Canada; and measures to improve public management and legal recourse. I will now summarize the main features of each of these amendments.
First, let us look at performers' and producers' rights. At present, you can hear singers on the radio anywhere in the country, and they receive no compensation for their performance. As it is currently worded, the Copyright Act entitles only authors-that is, lyricists and composers-to payment for the public use of their works.
From now on, performers and producers will be able to receive a royalty from those who perform their works in public or broadcast them. Thanks to this measure, performers, who often live in impoverished circumstances, will, at least, be able to count on this income. I will remind you that Canadian performers have the right to be remunerated for their work.
One thing is clear, however: it is not a question of correcting the injustices done to artists and producers by penalizing those who use their sound recordings. Of course, the broadcasting industry, which is the primary user of sound recordings, will pay the levy. But the industry's financial situation will be taken into account.
All radio stations will pay a fixed rate of $100 on the first $1.25 million in advertising revenues. Based on the 1994 data, 65 per cent of private broadcasters will pay only this amount. Moreover, as a result of generous transitional measures, the tariff on advertising revenues over $1.25 million will be phased in over a five-year period. The Copyright Board will set the tariff after hearing from the various stakeholders.
Adopting this bill will allow Canada to adhere to the Rome Convention, an international agreement already ratified by 50 countries, including France, Great Britain and Japan. The result of this will be that Convention member states in which the sound recordings of Canadian performers and producers are performed in public will pay them royalties. These will be added to the royalties they receive for the public performance of their works in this country.
The new measures governing private copying are also intended to give due justice to Canadian creators. We all know that consumers make taped copies of sound recordings for their own use. In Canada alone, according to the Report of the Task Force on
the Future of the Canadian Music Industry, almost 40 million blank tapes were used for this purpose last year.
What people seem to forget is that this deprives composers, singers, producers and performers of the royalties to which they are entitled. In the past thirty years, artists and the sound-recording industry have incurred considerable losses because of private copying.
It is impossible to control private copying and pay the rights holders each time their works are reproduced. That is why a levy will be charged on all blank media, such as tapes and cassettes, in order to compensate rights holders for their losses. The Copyright Board will establish the amount of the levy, which will be paid by the importer or manufacturer.
It is important to point out that the government does not receive the royalty. The Copyright Board will establish the mechanism for dividing the royalty among composers, lyricists, performers and producers of sound recordings, and the professional associations or collectives will distribute it.
I want to reiterate one of the main reservations of Bill C-32. In the wording of the proposed amendments, we were careful to protect the interests of both creators and users. I would like to add that we are fully aware that in the public interest, exceptions limiting the enforcement of copyright are sometimes necessary. It is a question, once again, of finding a balance between users' needs and those of copyright owners.
The Act therefore provides that, in some situations, a work can be used without authorization and without any obligation to pay a royalty. Non-profit educational institutions, libraries, archives and museums will benefit from this type of exception.
There are also special measures that apply to individuals with visual disabilities. This improvement to the Copyright Act is proof of the government's desire to make culture accessible to the greatest possible number of people.
It marks a significant step in the legal recognition of the needs of people with perceptual disabilities and the need to guarantee them access to cultural works on substitute media.
The bill focuses on other major components of the cultural sector. Canadian publishers and book distributors spend a great deal of money and energy negotiating with copyright holders and original publishers for the exclusive right to sell their books in Canada. Some institutional buyers however circumvent the exclusive Canadian distributors by ordering directly from foreign suppliers. It is called parallel importation.
When bookstores, wholesalers, universities and libraries order books from distributors outside Canada and thus circumvent the authorized Canadian distributor, new provisions of the Copyright Act will restrict the importation of books to Canada when an exclusive distributor, regardless of nationality, already occupies part of the Canadian market. In return, the distributors and their clients will negotiate tenders of performance which will be included in the regulations.
The final component of the amendments is vital if we are to modernize an act that was established in the 1920s. In order to more effectively halt ongoing infringements of the Copyright Act, the amendments provide civil and criminal remedies, and modernize the wording of the Act. For example, because the extent of infringement is difficult to prove, copyright owners are often prevented from being fully compensated for their losses. As a result, we are proposing a system of statutory damages that would guarantee a minimum award once infringement is proven and serve to deter future infringements.
There are some who will say that the current amendments do not go far enough because they do not include copyright issues related to the information highway and new technologies. We had several good reasons for excluding these issues from the current phase of copyright reform. First, there is the question of internal administration. Our priority was to settle the unfinished business of the previous administration. After almost ten years of neglect by our predecessors, and at the repeated request of Canada's cultural sector, we had to adapt the legislation to the realities of the marketplace and the major international conventions in effect, while responding to the most urgent concerns of the cultural sector. Once these necessary amendments have been adopted, we will be able to move on to the advent of the information highway and the new distribution technologies.
As you can see, this bill is a step forward. It gives those in the cultural sector their due. Culture is the essence of our national identity, the expression of our pride. It allows each and every one of us to participate in the building of our collective history. The amendments to the Copyright Act were drafted with that in mind. Bill C-32 will strengthen the heart and soul of the Canadian cultural sector, as well as providing a more solid economic basis. I urge my colleagues to support the government in this crucial undertaking.