Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-288 introduced by my Liberal colleague for Sarnia—Lambton and entitled an act to amend the Broadcasting Act (broadcasting policy).
The bill is motivated by the member's legitimate concerns about the controversial business practice of negative option billing followed by certain cable companies, primarily in English Canada.
My colleague introduced Bill C-216 in the last Parliament, and the Bloc opposed it because it went well beyond the member's intentions and could have had a negative impact on the broadcasting system, in part by threatening the availability of francophone specialty channels in Quebec and in francophone and Acadian communities outside Quebec.
Furthermore, we cannot support a bill that represents an intrusion into areas of billing and consumer protection, both of which are under provincial jurisdiction.
The bill before us would establish federal regulations on the billing for cable services, when business relations between a consumer and a vendor are a provincial matter. I would invite my federalist colleague to look at section 92(3) of the Constitution in this regard. I also point out that, in 1995, the heritage minister recognized this areas as an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec.
In fact, in Quebec we have an organization looking after this: the consumer protection bureau. Jurisprudence confirms that the Quebec consumer protection legislation applies to all businesses, even those under federal jurisdiction, such as broadcasting corporations, as far as the consumer, commercial practices and advertising are concerned.
The Quebec consumer protection legislation outlaws negative option billing. Paragraph 230( a ) of this act provides that no merchant can demand any money for goods or services provided to a consumer, when the consumer has not agreed to receive such goods or services.
The 1995 consumer revolt in English Canada was sparked when Rogers Communications took advantage of the introduction of six new specialty channels, English speaking channels, on cable television to take out of its basic service package channels that subscribers liked, asking them to pay extra to get them back.
In Quebec, the situation was different. Vidéotron simply added new specialty channels to its basic service at no extra cost. COGECO and CF Cable, on the other hand, reached with the consumer protection bureau an agreement providing for the maintenance of certain practices, as long as flexible arrangements were in place to avoid penalizing consumers who may not have understood that it was up to them to cancel or opt out.
In addition, one of the reasons the Quebec consumers association opposed this bill was the fact that the CRTC and the consumer protection bureau already had appropriate powers to correct abuse.
The Association gave four reasons it was opposed to this bill. First, it would prevent the broadcasting of new services and would reduce francophones' access to a wider range of programming in their own language. Second, it would reduce the number of francophone listeners with access to these services because the cost would allow only the more affluent to subscribe. Third, in the absence of affordable French language services, francophone consumers would have to fall back on English language specialty services. Fourth, in the absence of reasonably priced viable services in Quebec, it would be impossible to extend these services to francophone and Acadian communities in the country.
The Association des consommateurs du Québec summed up the other major reason for which we are opposing this bill very well: it would very likely hamper the development of new French language services in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.
The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada spoke out strongly against the bill, because it would prevent francophones living in a minority situation from having access to specialty services in their own language.
Bill C-288 of the 36th Parliament is identical to Bill C-216 of the 35th Parliament. If this bill were passed, cable companies would have to obtain the agreement of each subscriber before adding a specialized service to the basic service and then raising the price. The odds are that, where francophones were in the minority, the anglophone majority would not agree to a rate hike in return for a French language service, thus preventing broadcasting of this service.
In addition, this bill would make it possible to choose which specialty services would be optional. It would not be surprising if anglophones did not wish to pay for French language specialty services and did not order them. These services would therefore no longer make money for cable companies and would rapidly disappear.
The objections and fears of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne with respect to this bill were entirely justified, and we share its view that it is up to lawmakers to ensure that the statutes of Canada make it possible to preserve a space in which francophone and Acadian communities can identify themselves and flourish. Unfortunately, the Liberal government has a history of appearing not to be very sensitive to the francophone fact.
In conclusion, I wish to say that, from the point of view of consumers, the ideal situation would be to be able to select the specific channels they wished and to pay for those alone. Unfortunately, current technology does not yet allow cable companies to provide that option. Pay per view television allows consumers to pay for one program at a time by decoding the signal, but this system is still costly.
Moreover, in a small market such as Quebec, few specialized French language channels would have enough listeners to survive in a pay per view system. The current system allows people to have specialty services in their own language, and these services reflect what goes on in their community, as well as their preferences and interests.
I can only conclude that the member who introduced this bill, and those who support it, show once again that they care little about the cultural reality of Quebec and of French speaking communities outside our province. By trying to regulate at the national level an area of provincial jurisdiction—this in an attempt to solve a problem that is not very serious in Quebec—they are showing that there are two different realities: the Canadian reality and the Quebec reality.
This bill would probably be useful to the rest of Canada, but it would be harmful to Quebec and to francophones outside Quebec. This bill is yet another example of how our two realities, our two ways of living, the Canadian way and the Quebec way, would thrive a lot more if we had two different countries united in a new partnership.
Members will understand that the Bloc Quebecois absolutely cannot support such a bill.