Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to debate Bill C-32. Before I get into my presentation I think it is proper to mention once again that the procedure we are going through today is really an affront to people who like to do a good job of analyzing legislation, who like to go into detail and make detailed amendments. There are obviously several things wrong.
First, the bill is so hopelessly flawed that the Minister of Industry and the minister of neighbouring rights spend time in the papers decrying one another's position. There is not even unanimity in the cabinet on this bill. This bill is not the answer for the broadcasting industry in Canada.
Today we have had phone calls in Reform Party offices from both sides. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters has problems with neighbouring rights and with some of the provisions of the bill as originally tabled. SOCAN, the society of Canadian artists, also has concerns in favour of neighbouring rights. Between the two we find they are both against it for exactly the opposite reasons. One group is against it because it says it gives to much power or too much economic deterrent to playing Canadian content. Canadian artists are saying that this does not give enough power and coinage in the pockets of artists.
What do we take from this? I think we take from this that the government has botched this bill from the beginning to the end. The government does not have support in the broadcasting industry. It does not have support among artists. Who then is the government doing it for? What is the purpose of this bill?
Every time the Canadian heritage minister muses in the press about what she would like to see the broadcasting industry look like, the alarm bells go off from one end of the country to the other, for different reasons. When she muses, as she did a couple of week ago, that perhaps we should double the amount of Canadian content on the radio, what happens then?
I can tell members what happens. The broadcasters in my area tell me that there is a limited amount of Canadian content. What we have is pretty good stuff and people enjoy it. But if broadcasters are asked to play twice as much, they are going to take the songs which are already heavily played and play them every other time.
If we hear Celine Dion-and I like Celine Dion, I have her tapes and her CDs-her songs would have to be played every second time because there is not enough Canadian content to double the amount without causing chaos in the industry.
When you live in an area like I do, or like most Canadians do, within broadcasting distance of the United States, the government can only jack around the listener so much until the listener says: "You know, I do not have to listen to this. I have choices. I can crank my dial".
Advertising dollars are now going down to Bellingham because people are saying: "I just cannot put up with this any more. I do not have any say about what kind of stuff is going on the radio. There is so much government regulation and bureaucracy that I am not sure of the quality of the product. The regulations, the hoop-jumping is so onerous, what is the point?" Therefore, advertisers are not putting their money into Canadian markets, they are putting into neighbouring markets, taking it south of the border and it is being beamed back into Canada.
Our advertising dollars are flowing south when they should, in my case, be staying in Chilliwack and Abbotsford and recirculated there. A lot of the advertisers and broadcasters are losing heart.
When the minister starts musing in the press about doubling the amount of Canadian content it sends a shiver up everybody's spine. They wonder what on earth she is talking about. There is not enough content to do that.
Another musing by the minister is when she talks about Canadian content. The rules are so screwy that with stars like Celine Dion and Bryan Adams, their music cannot be played because it is
not Canadian enough. They are Canadians. They qualify as Canadians and I do not think anybody is going to deny that. However, they are not Canadian enough under the rules.
What happens? Bryan Adams, whose producer may not be Canadian, does not get the Canadian content benefit because he has too many banjo players or whatever who are not Canadians. He cannot meet the rules. That person is cut off and does not qualify as a Canadian artist. Again, that is a shame because a lot of Canadians identify Bryan Adams as a Canadian rock star and think they should be able to listen to him and call him a Canadian artist, as I do.
Furthermore, when the minister went so far as to say that if it was not for the kinds of rules we are debating today, Celine Dion would be picking berries in some backwoods somewhere, never having achieved stardom, well, I do not know. Every time I see Celine Dion or listen to her music, I think this superstar blows the socks off most of the world with some of the best selling CDs, records and tapes of all time. To think that the minister said there was no way she could have made it if we had not had these content rules or this kind of regulation is farcical. It is just not true. No one can possibly believe that Celine Dion would be anything but a superstar regardless. That is my second point.
The first point concerned her musing about doubling the amount of Canadian content that must be played. That is just not possible. I do not know what she is doing. It scares the pants off a lot of broadcasters in Canada and it is something I wish she would refrain from doing because of the sight that would be.
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, there is an inconsistency between what she is demanding and what the industry minister is demanding. The industry minister wants to strengthen the industry without getting into the malarkey that has been proposed in this bill and others. It is one thing to strengthen the industry but it is another to just throw rules in its way so they can neither do business or industry or broadcasting well.
The third thing I would like to mention is a concern of the broadcasters with regard to transferring music from CDs to digital computers. I have been through the Fraser Valley Broadcasting Group facilities a couple of times. It has had a complete technological revolution in the last three years. There has been a complete upheaval in the industry. It is an upheaval that involves the computer and digital recording. It also involves the opening up of a competitiveness between the players and the industry that are trying to play by the rules that this minister seems to dream up on her way to the coffee shop in the morning.
The industry needs stability. It needs to know that when it wants to transfer this stuff from CD to digital it can. It wants to know that it is not going to contravene some rules. It does not want to sort of get away with it when technically it is at fault. That is the problem with this bill. There are so many amendments, so many mistakes and it is so poorly drafted that everyone, from broadcasters to artists to consumers to legislators, are concerned enough that they are saying this bill should be stopped until it is cleaned up and the direction of it clearly given and that has not been done.
The minister should withdraw this bill until she has assured all the players that something proper is going to be done.