Mr. Speaker, to set off my comments I would like to read an article that appeared in today's Ottawa Citizen . It is by Terence Corcoran, the editor of the Financial Post under the headline that the minister's bill kills magazines:
During the next 48 hours, (the minister) will charge about Ottawa executing her duties as Minister of Illegal Protectionism. To meet a world trade deadline Friday, she will formally announce the end of Ottawa's illegal 80 per cent excise tax on advertising in split-run magazines.
Then she will redirect Ottawa's illegal $50 million annual magazine postal subsidy so that it falls right into the hands of Ted Rogers, Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien and other needy Canadian magazine publishers. Simultaneously, (the minister) will be pushing Bill C-55, her illegal ban on Canadian advertising in foreign magazines, through second reading tonight in the Commons.
It's a lot of lawlessness for one minister to handle, but if any minister is up to the challenge of breaking constitutional and trade law, it's (this minister). In the course of making a hash of her stint as environment minister, (the minister) orchestrated Ottawa's illegal ban on the export of PCBs for incineration. The sole purpose of the export ban was to force Canadians to destroy PCBs at high cost in Canada rather than cheaply in the United States.
Another adventure (of the minister) in trade protectionism was an attempt to ban the use of the gasoline additive MMT. In the MMT case, (the minister) was in the pocket of the big auto firms, on whose behalf she parroted the claim that failure to ban MMT would add $3,000 to the price of new cars sold in Canada. No such price increase materialized. In the end, the illegal MMT ban cost Canadian taxpayers $13 million, money Ottawa had to pay in compensation to Ethyl Corp., the U.S. maker of MMT.
The Minister of Illegal Protectionism is in the pocket of Canada's two major magazine publishers, Ted Rogers' Maclean Hunter and Philippe de Gaspé Beaubien's Telemedia. Their magazines— Maclean's , Chatelaine , TV Guide —and the publications of a couple of other companies account for an estimated 50 per cent of the $350 million Canadian magazine advertising market.
The bill (the minister) is pushing through second reading today is the latest in a string of mostly unlawful federal measures to restrict the freedom of Canadian advertisers to use and journalists to produce magazines, and of readers to read more Canadian content. The (minister's) bill, however, is the most Draconian. It gives the minister power to send out magazine police to seize documents and make sure Canadians are not placing ads in foreign publications.
To justify the magazine laws, Heritage Canada spins a contradictory story. On the one hand, it claims the years of protectionism have been hugely successful, with the proportion of Canadian magazines rising from 25 per cent of sales and circulation in the 1950s to 65 per cent today. Then it claims that the industry is still being swamped with foreign magazines and needs more protection and subsidy.
But what the government's own studies actually show is that the Canadian magazine industry has been crippled by the magazine laws. Growth in magazine advertising has been stagnant for years compared with other markets and other countries, mainly because there are not enough Canadian magazines or magazine advertising opportunities. A government-sponsored study conducted by outside consultants concluded that if Ottawa allowed U.S. magazines to develop Canadian versions, or split-runs, the total volume of advertising dollars going to the English magazine market would jump 60 per cent from $212 million to $342 million.
In other words, if Ottawa lifted the ban on split-runs, magazine advertising by Canadian firms would jump 60 per cent. Where would the money go? The government study said most of it would probably go to U.S. magazines, although that's debatable. But even so, the split-runs would generate more Canadian journalism, more work for writers, more Canadian content, and more business for Canadian ad creators.
It is also far from certain that all the money would end up in the hands of U.S. publishers. The real crimp in the Canadian magazine market has been a failure to develop Canadian magazines in key growth fields. The government study (by Harrison Young Pesonen and Newell Inc.) identified four key magazine sectors—men's, sports, fashion and youth—that Canadian publishers have ignored. Why? Because the advertising flow is cut off by Ottawa, and because the existing Canadian giants—Maclean Hunter and Telemedia—have a stranglehold on most of the existing ad market. They and others have no competitive incentive to develop new Canadian magazines. And foreign magazines are banned from actually serving Canadian interests.
Magazine protectionism has killed growth in the Canadian magazine advertising market, and thereby has hampered magazine growth. What is supposed to be saving magazines in Canada is actually crippling the industry. This new law (by the minister) the Commons is expected to vote on tonight will continue to prevent growth in the industry.
So says Mr. Corcoran. Quite frankly it is pretty obvious the reason why I have read the article is that I happen to agree completely with the content of what Mr. Corcoran has said.
I had the privilege of being on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in the last parliament. I was involved in what became the copyright war. I can mention one of the poorly thought out sections of copyright law that was perhaps sold to the Liberal members, although I expect that they would have voted according to the minister's wishes in any event. It was sold to them and sold to Canadians on one level and it turns out that it is totally different.
I refer to the blank tape levy under copyright law. The blank tape levy was designed to say that Canadians who purchase blank tapes will in all likelihood be using them for illegal purposes. Rather than being innocent until proven guilty, a fee is going to be charged on these blank tapes because naughty Canadian people are going to be using them to illegally copy things that are subject to copyright. This goes completely and totally against anything in Canadian law. We should be deemed to be innocent until found guilty.
The minister attempted to sell this on the basis that it was only going to be 25 cents. Perhaps members can help me here. Was it 25 cents or 35 cents? Now it turns out it is going to be dollars per tape, not 25 cents per tape. This is fairly typical for the minister; $1 billion here, $1 billion there might add up, but a dollar here, a dollar there does not really make any difference.
Let us look at this specific legislation. I know in terms of relevance the Speaker would want me to do that. The redefinition of advertising as a service instead of a good is contrived.
My background is in sales and marketing. I am very well aware of the fact that one may purchase some plastic and put some lights behind it and that is called an illuminated sign. One may go to a magazine or a newspaper publisher and purchase a certain amount of blank space and then go to an advertising agency which will perform the service of actually creating what is going to be going on that piece of paper. To suggest that it is a service to provide a piece of blank paper that will appear with whatever one chooses to put on it is such a stretch, that the bill falls on its nose right there.
Most onerous though in this bill is the fact that it creates a new class of investigator. The province of Quebec has language police. I guess the minister has learned something from the province of Quebec because now under this legislation we are going to have a magazine police force. This is really beyond the pale.
As I mentioned with respect to the blank tape levy, the legislation the minister managed to push through did say that all Canadians who purchased blank tapes obviously were going to be doing something illegal and therefore they were guilty and should pay a fee. In this particular case the minister goes one step further and actually creates a magazine police force.
Into the hands of this minister, providing she does not get her UNESCO appointment before this comes through, we find that the minister will also be able to make trade law by order in council. That is a direction the Liberals absolutely love. The Liberals do not like the inconvenience of the democratic process which takes place in this House. The Liberals like to pass legislation so that they will be able to go behind cabinet doors, behind closed doors, with advice from nameless bureaucrats and concoct whatever laws they want without having to come back to this place where the people of Canada through their elected representatives such as myself and the other 300 members in this House, have a say in the democratic process.
In addition this bill puts print media under federal jurisdiction. It is ultra vires of parliament. We cannot just simply say that in 1867 we happened to forget that what we wanted to do was to put print media under the control of parliament so therefore we are going to arbitrarily do that with this particular law.
This law, if it was not so serious, would be funny. This law is ultra vires of the fundamental freedoms of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, sections 2, 7 and 8 and the Canadian Bill of Rights 1960, section 1. This law violates especially the freedoms of expression, the press and association provided for in both statutes and the enjoyment of property provisions in the Canadian Bill of Rights 1960 and common law.
It also violates charter security rights under sections 7 and 8. The freeze on business in clause 21 deprives affected corporations of future property and the effect of the entire bill is to hobble publishers' ability to enter into contracts.
The minister really enjoys her version of Canadiana. She certainly comes across as a very sincere and earnest person. With a feeling of generosity I am prepared to give that the minister actually believes in what she is doing. I think she really does believe in what she is doing.
The difficulty is that we are not in 1867. The last time I looked the date on the calendar was 1998. This government and its predecessor the Conservatives have entered into international trading agreements that impact my friend's wheat, the auto pact and the entire trade we do around the world.
It should be noted that we trade on a daily basis with the United States alone over $1 billion a day back and forth. What is the size of the cultural trade? The size of the cultural export in Canada is slightly under $1 billion. I am not talking about only magazines. I am talking about television, recordings, publishings, our authors and everything in the entire cultural component. By taking this one tiny section, $350 million of revenue, what this minister is doing is throwing it to the wind.
As I understand it, not if but when this bill is trashed by the World Trade Organization because it is so flawed, we will end up with the situation that we will have punitive action against us by our most significant trading partner. It will be able to take that punitive action in whatever field it so chooses. It could be against steel from Hamilton. It could be against computers from Kanata. It could be against wheat from the west. It could be against softwood lumber from British Columbia. It could be against nickel in Newfoundland if it every gets going.
The point is that this bill is so egregiously flawed. There can be no question that this bill will be struck down. What we are doing is inviting retaliation against the entire package of imports and exports that Canada is involved in. For what? For a misguided attempt on the part of the heritage minister to protect something that cannot be protected in this way.
I reflect back on Mr. Corcoran's column. If we take a look at what has happened historically in Canada, when we have permitted true free trade we have ended up seeing what Canadians are capable of doing which is to rise to the top to become the best in the world.
As an example, the revenue minister might recall that in the Okanagan Valley there was subsidy on subsidy and protection for the wine industry. Some of our friends from Niagara will also remember that. At that time under the North American Free Trade Agreement or the FTA we ended up with having to trash those subsidies. The sky was going to fall. Everything was going to fall apart. Canadians are so good at anything we set our mind, hand and resources to that we now have quality wine in Canada that will compete with any wine anywhere in the world.
Why? Because we were forced away from the subsidies. We were forced away from the protection and we gave Canadians the opportunity to rise to the occasion and create the very best in the world.
It is this kind of protectionism by the Liberals who say my goodness, if we are not protecting, if we are not making sure there are subsidies or the government can have some control because after all the government knows best, it is this kind of smother love that creates mediocrity.
We have a very fundamental difference. The Reform Party of Canada believes in the excellence and the superiority of Canadians in anything they set their hands to. Just get the government out of their face. Get the government out of trying to smother, control and protect them.
Given the document the minister has brought forward, how in the world can that happen? First, she has come forward with legislation that is fundamentally flawed because she calls advertising a service instead of a good. The bill should fail on that one right off the bat. Second, she is coming forward with a magazine police force. I cannot imagine anything worse than having a bunch of cops around.
The minister may make trade law by order in council. She can go behind closed doors and make those laws. I hope she does get her UNESCO appointment before that happens. It is ultra vires of parliament. Nothing in section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867 or case law puts print media under federal jurisdiction. She is reaching beyond the power of parliament. She is reaching beyond the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I cannot imagine any right thinking person who would come to this House, unless they happened to be taking lessons from the animals that were grazing in the front yard of this building yesterday, who would end up voting in favour of this legislation.