Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-55 today.
Who makes policy in Canada? Is it parliament or the U.S. congress? Shall we as a parliament govern our actions and our policies based on threats or perceived threats from political leaders south of the border?
The official opposition would have us move or not move based on the whims of Americans. Canadians have elected us to do the job. They have asked us to protect Canada's vital interests. Bill C-55 is about the survival of our magazine industry. The issue is about cultural differences.
Americans view culture as a commodity. Certainly our culture needs support from the entrepreneurial excesses of American capitalists. Canadian culture is something that needs to be promoted and enhanced.
Eighty per cent of our population lives within 150 kilometres of the U.S. border. We are subject to a barrage of American entertainment through films, magazines and television. American entertainment has become what the English language has become around the world. It has become universal. It has become the mode by which people listen and take American values.
Our culture is what defines us as a nation, but it is difficult being so close to a population which is 25 times our size. The Americans see culture simply as an entertainment commodity with a bottom line. Clearly they are trying to expand that bottom line in terms of their share of the international market.
Canada must and needs to create policies which maintain our cultural existence and in this regard the bill will assist in maintaining that objective.
We have over 1,000 publishers producing over 1,400 Canadian titles in Canada and 561 consumer magazines with a total circulation of over 47 million. We have 826 Canadian business publications with a total circulation of over 11 million. Twenty-four million Canadians over the age of 12 read one or more major Canadian consumer magazines annually. The industry employs 5,200 full time and 1,700 part time people. Twenty thousand additional jobs are dependent on magazine publishers. We are looking at a total annual revenue of over $1 billion.
Canada has maintained policy measures designed to provide Canadians with distinctive vehicles for cultural expression. Although we welcome foreign publications, we have maintained a policy to promote our own cultural industries. With the adoption of Bill C-55, U.S. magazines will continue to be welcomed into this country. They account for 80% of newsstand sales presently.
Bill C-55 is about regulating foreign access to the Canadian advertising services market. This issue is very different from wheat or coal or steel. It is about being Canadian. It is about providing a sustainable and visibly Canadian periodical industry by ensuring the advertising revenues needed to create content is available. One page of advertising equals one page of content.
Some would argue that the bill would cause a trade war. Canada is obliged by trade treaties to allow free trade in goods, but we have never agreed and will never agree to give foreigners free access to the Canadian advertising services market. As Canadians we must and will defend our rights as an independent and sovereign state to develop policies which support our domestic cultural expression. We will and are defending those rights.
Bill C-55 maintains a Canadian policy that has been in place for three decades. It aims to ensure the environment in which our Canadian identity can be maintained. What is at stake is the future of over 450 or so smaller and more specialized Canadian periodicals that fill an essential niche in the country's culture. So-called editions would kill the prospect for young publishers, for young editors who might want to set up their own magazine.
Fundamental to this policy has been the belief that Canadians must continue to have the opportunity to read about their own stories, their values and their interests. In order for this to continue Canadian publishers must be able to operate in a fair and competitive environment. The bill will ensure that Canadian magazine publishers have fair access to Canadian advertising services revenues. Without those revenues they would be unable to provide readers with the broad range of Canadian publications currently available.
This is not a NAFTA issue. The bill does not violate NAFTA or other international trade obligations. It has never been challenged before the World Trade Organization or any other dispute settlement body, for that matter. Comments about trade war are not well founded. Canada and the United States have the most successful trading relationship with more than 95% of our goods and services moving freely across the border. If the Americans do not like the provisions of the bill, they can always turn to international dispute settlement provisions.
Early this year the Prime Minister stated:
It is very important to maintain a Canadian identity. We have a good case and we will win it.
I certainly concur with that view. We should not be surprised with the American sabre rattling. Again the Americans are reacting, trying to have us back down. Back down we will not do. Americans claim that U.S. companies will loose by being excluded from the Canadian market. There have been claims that they would loose up to $300 million, a figure based on the improbable scenario of every U.S. magazine launching a Canadian split-run edition. This type of sabre rattling is what we are hearing.
It seems clear that despite the success of Canadian publishers in meeting the demands of Canadians for stories about themselves, the loss of advertising revenues to unfair competition in the advertising services market would have a very negative impact on the industry. Canadian content would be lost but not replaced by split-run advertising editions of U.S. magazines.
Canadians would loose the choice of reading their own stories. Canadians could not expect American publishers to incur the cost of adding Canadian stories to their split-run advertising editions. Nor should they. We need to promote our own stories written by and for Canadians.
The bill does not limit competition in the Canadian magazine industry. In fact, Bill C-55 ensures the economic viability of the Canadian magazine industry and the preservation of thousands of jobs of Canadian writers, artists, editors, photographers and art directors. Canadians need to be able to express themselves through their own medium. The legislation ensures that Canadians continue to have that freedom.
I urge all members of the House to support the legislation to send a message that our Canadian cultural institutions are worth preserving. We will not be swayed from doing the right thing to ensure that the values, interests and stories that make our country so unique are heard now and in the future. We must stand up for our own interests.