Madam Speaker, this bill, seconded by me, is a learning experience in Parliament and parliamentary procedure. This bill is one that passed this House of Commons, went to the Senate and after a rocky ride arrived back in the House of Commons. Indeed it was the Bloc Quebecois at the time that also took parliamentary procedure to make sure that the prior bill did not ever get through the House of Commons.
It is really regrettable because I have in my hand a news release from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Ottawa dated Wednesday, March 11, today. I would like to read the news release:
MPs urged to support negative option bill.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre today urged MPs to support Bill C-288, which will outlaw negative option marketing by the cable industry. This bill is, word for word, identical to Bill C-216 which was introduced in the last Parliament, but killed after being passed by the Senate.
“Contrary to promises by the industry, consumers are not only still faced with negative option billing, but, in addition, negative reaction marketing”, said Michael Janigan, Executive Director of PIAC. “Now they're using a variation of this same old trick for the introduction of new services”, he continued. The practice of negative option marketing occurs when a subscriber automatically receives a service for which they are billed, unless the cable company is notified to the contrary. Negative reaction marketing has developed with the introduction of new specialty channels. Consumers who subscribe to existing packages (beyond basic cable) face a massive rate hike unless they agree to take the new specialty package.
The news release goes on.
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre is interested in this as an advocate for the ordinary consumer. The position I am taking as the Reform Party heritage critic and the reason I seconded this bill is that I too have the interest of the Canadian consumer at heart. It is not just the Bloc Quebecois members who for reasons best known to themselves, and perhaps they will describe to us later, have refused to give unanimous consent that this bill be votable. It is the heritage minister in particular and the CRTC that have come out against this and have been working against it underground in the background behind the scenes. The Canadian public should really understand this.
I said that this was a learning experience and it truly was. In the last Parliament when the sponsoring member brought this bill forward, it went through the House with only 25 members voting against it at second reading. The heritage minister at that point said that she was in favour of this bill and its passage. Someone over at the CRTC took the time to read the bill and came to the false conclusion that this would limit specialty channels in the French language. It is a totally false conclusion. It has been proven to be a false conclusion in the Senate hearings that took place.
All sorts of things took place between the first and second reading stages. The bill went to committee. It was examined in committee. It was refined in committee. When it came back to the House for third reading, some very interesting things took place. By then the heritage minister became aware of the fact that her officials at the CRTC had arrived at this false conclusion and therefore was bending arms behind the scenes with the Liberal backbenchers.
We know the Prime Minister has said that Liberal backbenchers may vote how they wish on a private member's bill. Therefore the heritage minister was faced with a problem. She started some arm twisting. We have actual documentation still on file of her recommendations to the members aggressively recommending that they vote against it.
On Monday, the day of the vote, the minister chose to absent herself from the House of Commons when the vote would be taking place. My office followed the procedure. The minister actually chose to go to a public event that was taking place at the convention centre in Toronto. She thereby had an excuse not to come to the House. She previously said that she was going to vote in favour of the bill but all of a sudden—