moved that Bill C-288, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act (broadcasting policy), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to be the first person to speak in support of this piece of private member's legislation, Bill C-288, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act. In my allotted time I would like to speak to three basic points or principles.
I should point out this is not a new piece of legislation either to this House or to the Senate. In fact, this is the same piece of legislation which in the last Parliament was called Bill C-216 and which passed this House as amended by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and passed the Senate as amended there and is now back before us as Bill C-288 in the same words. But there is one slight shift. This has not been deemed votable by the committee charged with making such determinations.
To those members of other parties and to new members I have to point out that this bill has been studied by a House committee, it has been studied by a Senate committee and it passed the House, passed the Senate and came back here as amended.
This bill received more press coverage in the last Parliament than any other private member's bill by far. It received editorial endorsements and it taught the Senate of Canada that it cannot sit idly by and ignore private members' legislation passed by this House.
Some members may recall the call a senator campaign which was launched last winter and should know that the Senate of Canada was forced to hire extra telephone operators to deal with the thousands of calls made into that place telling the senators to get on with their business and to pass this bill.
Clearly if thousands of Canadians would pick up the phone to call the toll free line at the Senate, one must conclude that this bill had and continues to have wide scale public support. It is equally important to note that the bill has also been endorsed by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the Consumers Association of Canada, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and was endorsed by the Minister of Canadian Heritage on April 9, 1997 in this House.
Finally, because there were concerns expressed in the other place about the effect of this bill on French language services, when it cleared the other place it was noted in debates there that even the French language specialty service approved of this bill.
Furthermore, the Toronto Star , the Globe and Mail , the Montreal Gazette , the Financial Post and other papers carried editorials calling for the passage of this bill. The Financial Post in an editorial said that despite the cable industry's promise not to employ negative option billing again, it was time to drive a stake through the heart of it so that marketers within the cable industry did not find a new variation.
This evening is perhaps the last chance the House will have to deal with this issue.
The second point I want to make deals with the substance of this bill. What this legislation does for the first time is give Canadian consumers a modicum of control over what they will pay for services offered by cable, telephone and satellite companies on to television screens. It is not a radical idea. It is a pretty simple concept that Canadian consumers should agree to the provision of services and that in agreeing they should know what they are receiving and what the cost will be.
Of course this is the normal practice in most marketplaces save and except, and I say this sadly, in matters of Canadian telecommunication. In this realm we have said that Canadians should not have the right to select what they receive and how much they will pay for it.
This is a pathetic commentary on how specialty television services are provided in this country and goes a long way to say how we as legislators have allowed the exploitation of the Canadian public by large corporate interests all in the name of culture.
Yet this bill affects only specialty channels. It in no way impairs or impedes the ability of the government to declare certain channels to be mandatory and therefore to be carried on basic cable.
This bill simply deals with specialty channels, those specific interest channels that to some are entertaining and to others are of no interest. These channels are simply diversionary entertainment. They are of no consequence to anyone, cultural or otherwise.
The present chair of the CRTC, Madam Bertrand, stated before a Senate committee last spring that this bill really was not necessary because of competition in the marketplace, and additionally that cable companies would not employ deceptive marketing techniques again.
We all remember the declarations of the Canadian Cable Television Association which assured us of its new found, straight up marketing techniques in dealing with Canadian consumers.
Yet is it not interesting that these born again straight shooters of last spring and January 1998 again used manipulative marketing practices to try to trap subscribers to taking additional channels?
We saw a month and a half ago that the public statements of Mr. Richard Stursberg, the spokesperson for that organization, were made with a number of qualifiers which he failed to mention originally, that is that negative option marketing continues to exist across this country. This was noted by the Toronto Star in an editorial on January 30, 1998: “It is time for consumers to raise their voices again”.
The only way consumers can raise their voices is through us in this place who can legislate to give them the protection they want and deserve.
I have asked members present to think about it, to think back to the consumer revolts of 1995 on this subject, to think back to the sanctimonious statements by the industry that it had learned a lesson and would not use manipulative marketing practice, to think about it, to look to the practices of recent weeks.
It is clear that only one conclusion can be drawn, that no lesson was learned by the industry. Once again the consumer is forced to pay. Again the Canadian consumer is the loser while we in this place refuse to do anything. What a pathetic commentary on our ability to help those we allegedly serve here.
The third point deals with the role of the CRTC in all this. As I noted earlier, the CRTC appeared before the House committee on Canadian heritage when this bill was before this House and five months later before the committee in the other place when it was there.
When it was here before the committee Mr. Keith Spicer, the then chair of that commission, stated to members present they ought to go ahead and pass this bill.
Five months later his successor, the present chairman, Madam Bertrand, said it is not necessary. Eight months later the cable industry is back to its old tricks.
There is one party that is extremely culpable in all of this besides the cable industry, the CRTC. It has turned its back on Canadian consumers and has co-operated every step of the way with the industry to the gross detriment of our constituents, Canadian consumers.
How it could, in a period of five months, flip-flop from endorsing and calling for the passage of legislation to a point where it could conclude that it was not necessary is beyond me.
It is evident the CRTC has no policy on this. It is fine for it to tell people to go back to basic cable, but it fails to realize that 90 per cent of Canadian consumers have something greater than basic cable. Telling people to go back to basic cable is really destroying the specialty channels that it says it is there to encourage in growth. What does the CRTC do in this instance? What does it do for Canadians? The answer is still nothing.
In a letter I forwarded to the chair of that commission on January 22, 1998, I asked what action in the name of consumers will the CRTC take to review unacceptable steps taken by Rogers Cable. I should point out that subsequently virtually all cable companies in this country took the same step.
In a reply I received from the chair one month and five days later I was told: “A competitive broadcasting marketplace offering Canadians a greater array of program and cost options is beginning to appear”.
This is the justification apparently for Madam Bertrand and her commissioners to allow their industry to run over consumers. She went on to further note that she is sending a copy of my letter to Rogers and asking that it respond to me directly about my concerns within three weeks and to send a copy of its response to her.
This is clearly ridiculous. The CRTC has become a post office box for people with complaints, Canadian consumers, the people it allegedly serves. We have set up this body to protect Canadians.
I must say I am very comforted by Madam Bertrand's assurance that the commission is now following this issue and that I along with many other Canadians have brought this to her attention. I have to wonder somewhat facetiously if one must bring this issue to the attention of Madam Bertrand with a ball peen hammer to get some action.
While the CRTC hides behind this wall that all is well and the marketplace will take care of any problems, she writes letters talking about how the CRTC works to establish fair and affordable basic monthly rates and programming options for cable subscribers. Clearly she is out of her realm. Clearly she is out of touch. Even the television reporter for the Toronto Star , the person who works full time covering the television and communications beat for the largest newspaper in Canada, on January 23 of this year, less than two months ago, wrote that he hated the monopoly and hated having no choice.
If a person who works and is imbued in this industry is unaware of the competition then where does the chair of the CRTC get off in believing there is competition in the marketplace? It is no wonder or surprise to us here that we continually hear from constituents who have no use for that body known as the CRTC, that the time has arrived for us to seriously look at its continued existence, that the time is now to take action and put an end to this silly charade where Canadians, our constituents, are always ending up being the people who pay. They are the victims in this case.
The time is now. It is the last chance for members in this place to do something for Canadian consumers in the face of an indifferent regulatory body which has no interest in them.
I would therefore seek the unanimous consent of this House for the following motion. I move:
That Bill C-288, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act, be deemed to have been chosen a votable item.