House of Commons Hansard #191 of the 36th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-55.
Foreign Publishers Advertising Services ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
It sounds as though it is a matter for debate. I think the member has not said any slanderous thing that I have heard.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about free trade agreements and fearmongering about the Americans beating us up if we pass Bill C-55. We have not heard very much about the merits of Bill C-55 although the parliamentary secretary has just done a pretty good job to try to outline those in a fairly balanced way. That is the only balance I have heard today in listening to the debate.
Our own critic in this area, the member for Dartmouth, clearly pointed out that the NDP supports Bill C-55. She was quite clear that she would not accept the Reform Party amendments. Her recommendations to us were to reject the Reform Party amendments because they simply dismantle Bill C-55 piece by piece by piece.
If we are proud of our Canadian culture and our Canadian heritage, if we are fiercely proud Canadian nationalists as everybody in this room had better be, then we should be passing Bill C-55 and we should be voting down any amendments to the contrary such as those put forward by the Reform Party.
Sarmite Bulte Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise in the House today in support of Bill C-55. I would encourage all of my colleagues in the House of Commons to support this bill unanimously.
Bill C-55 sustains an important cultural objective that has been in place for three decades: to ensure the availability of information, stories and images in the magazine sector that reflect and inform Canadian society. Bill C-55 delivers on this objective by preventing unfair competition in our advertising services market which, if left unchecked, would put the Canadian publishers that provide Canadian stories to Canadian readers out of business.
If U.S. publishers could enter our advertising market, which they have not had access to for over three decades, they would dump advertising services. This is because they would have virtually no costs in that market, would achieve profit margins of up to 80% and would therefore heavily discount advertising rates in order to capture market share.
Canadian manufacturers of goods, including those in sectors that have been identified as potential targets of U.S. retaliation, have remedies available to them to prevent dumping. Canadian steel producers for example regularly exercise their rights under trade agreements by bringing anti-dumping cases. Magazine publishers do not have that option because so far there are no dumping rules for services. But Canada does have rights under our trade agreements to take measures in support of cultural industries and to regulate access to our advertising market in the magazine sector, the only available means to prevent unfair competition.
In February at a luncheon of the Broadcast Executive Society, Michael McCabe, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, called for support of the foreign publishers advertising services act. Mr. McCabe's comments about the current U.S. assault of this bill merits repeating. Mr. McCabe stated as follows:
The current American assault on the Minister of Canadian Heritage's efforts to sustain a Canadian magazine industry is just the leading edge of a broader assault to come. That's why it's so important.
We have to be able to maintain in this country a set of cultural policies that ensure that we can tell our own stories to our own people, and to others. The American proposition that it's just business and there should be a level playing field is a myth—and a dangerous myth—given their size and market power. We, and other small countries, have to insist on the freedom to make the policies we need, to support our own cultural existence.
Magazines are just the beginning. We can't fail at this. If we do, it will damage not only our businesses, but our country.
The U.S. claims that Bill C-55 is protectionist and precludes its cultural products from entering Canadian markets. That is not the case at all. In fact, foreign competition dominates the Canadian cultural market. According to the report of the Cultural Industries Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade which was released on February 17, 1999, foreign firms and products account for the following: 45% of book sales in Canada; 81% of English language consumer magazines on Canadian newsstands and over 63% of magazine circulation revenue; 79%, or over $910 million, of the retail sales of tapes, CDs, concerts, merchandise and sheet music; 85%, or $165 million, of the revenues from film distribution in Canada; and between 94% and 97% of screen time in Canadian theatres.
While Canada believes its citizens should have access to foreign cultural goods, the government also recognizes that we need space for our own voice. Our culture is an integral part of who we are. Sharing stories and ideas and creating a better understanding among people in Canada is an effective way to build a healthy multicultural society. The government as steward of our national identity has a duty to promote cultural activities that help build a sense of community.
Cultural products are not simply commodities that can be packaged and sold. Cultural goods and services are different from the goods and services of other industries and should be treated differently.
However, Canada is not alone in its efforts to promote culture and cultural industries. Like Canada, many countries provide direct support for their cultural industries.
For example, the European Union's media II program provides grants and loans to promote the development of film production projects aimed at the European market.
The United Kingdom provides subsidies for a wide range of artistic activities through the arts councils which are funded by lotteries, while the British Film Institute provides direct grants for film production and exhibitions.
France's Centre National de la Cinématographie uses special cinema taxes to support film production. Any producer of fiction, animation, cultural shows or documentaries whose programs have been broadcast by French television automatically receives a grant from the country's film and television industry support fund.
The Swedish Film Institute uses a tax on cinema tickets and video rentals as well as state funds to make film production grants.
Interestingly enough, the United States directly supports everything from literature to drama through the National Endowment for the Arts.
We are at a critical juncture in the history of magazine publishing in Canada as we face the choice between caving in to American pressure tactics or maintaining our right to continue the longstanding policy of ensuring that Canadians can choose to read their own magazines as well as other magazines from around the world.
Magazine publishing has never been an easy business in Canada even without the unfair competition of split-run editions of American magazines. The scale of our market, the competition for readers from American magazines, and the negative impact on our advertising revenues of the spillover advertising that Canadians see in American magazines have all meant that Canadian publishers will survive only if they produce quality magazines that Canadians want to read and at the same time operate at peak efficiency.
Canadian magazine publishers have called on this government to provide an environment of fair competition, a level playing field so they can continue to have the incentive to invest. Fair competition cannot exist when our split-run competitors have costs less than half of ours and no Canadian content.
Bill C-55 is the only measure that has been identified that is effective in preventing unfair split-run competition and also is consistent with our trade agreements. Bill C-55 does not violate the NAFTA or any other international trade obligation. It has never been challenged before the WTO or any other dispute settlement body. Bill C-55 is entirely consistent with our trade obligations.
Bill C-55 regulates foreign access to the Canadian magazine advertising services market. It is a services measure. It does not apply to or affect imports of magazines. As a services measure, it falls under the GATS. Canada did not offer and the U.S. did not obtain or pay for access to our advertising services market in the negotiation of the GATS. Canada therefore has no obligations and the U.S. has no rights vis-à-vis access to the market.
U.S. threats of retaliation under NAFTA show that it does not have a legal case to make. If it did, it would use the WTO rules, where it started the dispute in the first place, to challenge Bill C-55. Moreover, under NAFTA the United States cannot forum shop. The provision for retaliation under the cultural exemption applies only if the measure would violate an obligation in the FTA, if not for the exemption. No such obligation exists. The level of retaliation the U.S. has threatened is equally illegitimate. The fact that Canada's previous magazine measures were ruled inconsistent with the GATT does not mean the new measure would also be ruled inconsistent. Bill C-55 is completely different from the previous measures.
I would like to conclude with a quote from a recent bulletin of the Canadian Conference of the Arts which reviewed the importance of Bill C-55. “We give the last word to President Bill Clinton: We must enforce our trade laws when imports unlawfully flood our nation”.
Rob Anders Reform Calgary West, AB
Mr. Speaker, with everything I have heard today, I must say that I endorse free trade, not liberalized trade.
I have come to know in my short time here in the House of Commons, and in my time before that, that it is actually liberalized trade, not free trade. Free and liberalized are not the same thing at all. Liberalized means regulated. Liberalized means subsidized. Liberalized means tampered with and that is exactly what we have.
For the folks back home I want to describe what is going on today. We are debating Bill C-55. It is the heritage minister's attempt to try to control freedom of speech, freedom of advertising with relation to freedom of speech, and to invite U.S. retaliation against Canadian industries.
There are 21 clauses in this bill. My Reform colleague has proposed 21 amendments which would delete each one of the clauses with regard to the amendments and the changes and whatnot involved with Bill C-55.
On top of that, there is an amendment that has recently been added by the minister that would give the minister the power to decide when the bill will take effect. We all know that is redundant because the cabinet already decides when a bill will be proclaimed in law. What the heritage minister indeed is doing in this particular example is buying herself time because the government knows this will result in retaliation and it will be bad for other industries in Canada. As a result, the government is putting an eject button into its own legislation because it wants to quickly ram it through the House and then potentially be able to just eject this thing and have the minister stall on it so it is not proclaimed. The government already recognizes that it is bad legislation. I do not know why it is defending it today. I guess it is a face saving measure.
Not only do I believe in free trade as opposed to liberalized trade, but I also believe in free speech as opposed to Liberal speech and talking points, especially those prepared by the minister and what the backbenchers on the Liberal side are reading today. I think that Canadian taxpayers and citizens deserve to know more, and we should have no more Bill C-55.
Let us talk about some of the problems that Bill C-55 can bring to Canada. U.S. retaliation is one of the things that Bill C-55 can bring. I would like to quote a few statistics and articles that have been done on this particular issue.
There is $1 billion of trade that is done every day between Canada and the United States. It is the longest undefended border in the world. We have had a pretty good relationship, aside from the war of 1812, but then they were not really our troops, they were British troops at the time. Canada was formed in 1867, so it was a bit before our time. However, we have a pretty good relationship with the United States in terms of trade.
Bill C-55 would restrict trade. We have already signed an agreement stating that we would not restrict trade. It was called the North American Free Trade Agreement. To boot, there is also the World Trade Organization and some of the agreements we have made under that auspices.
There have been precedents that have already been set within those agreements which Bill C-55 would violate. Just to prove that point, both parties on the two most powerful U.S. congressional committees are backing the U.S. trade representative's threat of retaliation.
Across the border to the south we have the two most powerful committees to deal with, as well as both parties and a representative of the White House all telling us that if Bill C-55 goes through there will be retaliation.
This is what we are talking about in terms of the numbers. It is designed to address about $400 million per year in the magazine advertising market. In the big picture we have $400 million over an entire year concerning magazine advertising. There is $1 billion worth of trade per day between our two countries. Why, hon. members ask, for $400 million and some smaller fraction of that to be affected by Bill C-55 would we look to jeopardize $365 billion worth of trade?
Roughly that means that for one-one-thousandth of the amount of trade we do with the United States we would jeopardize our trading relationship over something that the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement have already laid out for us in precedent. It will not stand in terms of a point of law. It does not make a lot of sense, does it?
What has the U.S. trade representative let us know they would be potentially looking at in terms of retaliation? They are talking about steel. Would that not be an interesting scenario? How fitting it would be for the member from Hamilton who is advocating the changes to Bill C-55 to have steel hit on by the U.S. in terms of trade retaliation. The workers in her own riding, people who are steelworkers in Hamilton, would be affected by that trade retaliation.
I do not want that and neither does our heritage minister. Therefore I ask her today to either substantially change this bill or to get rid of it altogether.
If U.S. representatives decide to retaliate it would only be fitting that they do so in an industry that is directly related as closely as possible to the heritage minister's own riding. I hope that does not happen. That is why I hope she repeals this bill.
Other commodities which are under threat are textiles, plastics, lumber and wheat. Those are all big commodities and Canada is an export nation.
Why would we want to risk our reputation internationally as an advocate of rules based trade in order to satisfy the whims of our heritage minister? I do not know why we would want to do that.
I hope those people in the Liberal caucus will stand up so this does not happen. I hope that when they ram this bill through they will make sure that the eject button they are putting into clause 22 is used and this thing gets shelved so that steelworkers in Hamilton do not lose their jobs because of the whims of their own representative in the House of Commons. That is what I hope happens. I wish they would repeal it altogether. As a stopgap measure, because they are not willing to admit their own abuses of trade practices and rules based trade, I hope they have the decency at least to do that.
Fifty per cent of the magazines purchased in Canada are foreign. That is another statistic I will throw into the debate. It is important to temper this whole thing with an understanding of what is going to be affected.
This is all about an unreasonable limit on fundamental freedoms, on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It is also a violation of property rights and freedom of contract.
I am going to touch on some other things that this government has been going along with in terms of violation of freedom of speech, violation of property rights and violation of freedom of contract.
The press has not been in love with the Liberal government of late because of the whole idea of freedom of speech. It goes back further than this, but let me list a few examples.
We had APEC. When the Prime Minister and his crew were going after Terry Milewski and the CBC, the press were not impressed. That is only fair because the Prime Minister was trying to stifle freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
We also have the CRTC which suppresses the Canadian identity from coast to coast to coast in terms of its finagling and shutting down competition in the cable industry. I could go on to name a few others.
One of the most egregious violations this government has thought of yet with regard to the violation of freedom of speech has been the election gag laws. If there were third parties who wanted to advocate a position or publish polls during an election, this government would impose fines or jail them. That is another way this Liberal government does not like freedom of speech.
The government also uses taxpayers' money on propaganda. It loves spending money in places where it should not be spent to advocate how good the government is. This goes to show how out of touch and elitist this government is when it comes to freedom of speech. It allows it only when it serves its own ends. Shame on it. It should repeal Bill C-55.
Steve Mahoney Liberal Mississauga West, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear some of the justification that members opposite seem to be trying to put forward to justify why they are actually voting against an industry that, by the member's own admission, generates $400 million in revenue. They trivialize that. They do not seem to think that is important.
As well, the industry employs over 7,000 people.
We have also heard the argument that somehow Bill C-55 is against freedom of speech.
I will deal with the first issue, the accusations and comments about closure, that somehow this government in a heavy-handed way is shutting down debate.
The previous speaker stated that there are 21 clauses in this bill and then went on to say that his critic had put forward 21 amendments which would basically cancel out each one of the clauses.
Does that sound like an attempt to be constructive? Does that sound like they are putting forward alternative suggestions? There are 21 clauses and 21 amendments which are contrary to the entire intent of the bill. It is clearly nothing more than an attempt by the Reform Party to filibuster, to try to stall instead of allowing for debate to take place.
I will give the House an example. This is a quote directly from the government House leader in talking about Reform: “Do they think this is serious debate or is it stalling?” He went on to say: “I think most Canadians would agree that 50 speeches and to still be on clause 1 constitutes stalling”.
Quite clearly they are not interested in getting into why the Canadian parliament is at the point where it is actually passing a law that would restrict the open flow of advertising. Why would we want to do that?
They throw up the threat that the United States is going to retaliate, as if we should just tuck our nationalistic tails between our legs and go home. In fact, they make the comment in a press clipping, saying that Liberals want Reform to roll over in its opposition to this bill. What in essence we are hearing from the opposition is that they want the Canadian government, and by extension the Canadian nation, to roll over to the Americans.
The member said one thing that is accurate. We have the longest undefended border in the world. It is a free border, with free crossings. We have a relationship in trade, to the tune of a billion dollars a day. We have a relationship in terms of tourism. How many Canadians own property in the United States? We have an excellent relationship with them. But are we just to turn around and say that we do not care that what they are doing is in our opinion illegal activity that is damaging an industry? Would we tolerate it for any other industry?
I would suggest that if the fear that is being promulgated by the Reform Party were to come true and the United States were to put a tariff or some kind of a sanction on steel products, clearly that would be against the North American Free Trade Agreement.
There are mechanisms, solutions and ways of dealing with the situation. They cannot simply violate that agreement. This bill does not violate the NAFTA. I do not know how many times we have to say it.
It is somewhat disturbing to me to hear the false impressions that are put forward in question period and in debate. They are impressions that when researched are simply not backed up by the facts.
I can give an example. If a foreign publication is operating in this country for over one year it will not be impacted by the bill. Canadian advertisers are not impacted by the bill. A case in point would be Reader's Digest , which is currently about 75% Canadian owned. There is no negative impact on Reader's Digest . Time Magazine is grandfathered by the bill.
Steve Mahoney Liberal Mississauga West, ON
Grandparented, I stand corrected by the member for Peterborough. I thank him very much. The point of the matter is the minister, the committee and the staff have taken care to make sure that the actions taken do not reflect negatively on the industry. For every action the government takes clearly there is reaction.
Let us assume that the split-run magazines come in. It is very confusing for my constituents who have called. There have not been a lot, but basically they have called to say that we cannot let the Americans put us out of business. I have had none of the types of calls the Reform Party has referred to in this area.
I want to refer to a hypothetical scenario. If we do not act and there is no Bill C-55 and all of a sudden I see the critic standing in his place during question period demanding to know what the heritage minister will do to protect the $400 million in trade and to protect the 7,000 jobs, I can just hear the outrage.
If we were to do nothing in this area, I suspect Reformers would simply, as they often do, switch principles and go at it from the other side. What do we hear but cries of outrage when we hear about the potential for or the fear of selling water to the United States. We hear all kinds of people getting upset and saying tell them it is not so, that we have to protect Canadian resources, that we cannot cave in to the Americans, and let them solve their own problems. On the other hand they say the Americans will beat us up, punch us in the nose with some trade sanctions and we will have to bow down to them.
I tried to come up with an analogy that made some sense in relation to protecting our cultural industries. I think people will understand that we see the tremendous success in the entertainment and the media industries of Canadians around the world.
In the recent music awards something like seven of the top ten nominations were Canadians, people like Shania Twain and Céline Dion. How did that happen? How is it that all of a sudden we have names like those ones, as well as Michael J. Fox and the late John Candy. One of the great successful music groups in Europe right now happens to be a group called the Bare Naked Ladies. I was talking to my brother-in-law the other day. He said they were playing to packed houses. Other Canadian talent is the Tragically Hip and James Cameron, the director of Titanic . The list goes on and on.
Gone are the days when the only two internationally known Canadian stars were Paul Anka and Robert Goulet, singing a medley of his hits. Why is it that we see Canadians succeeding? I think it is because they are tremendously talented people, but I also think it is because the nation through successive governments over the years has recognized the need to protect and ensure Canadian content in print, on the airwaves and in all aspects of entertainment and media.
A country of 30 million people is producing some of the top talent in the entire world and is exporting our cultural capabilities around the world. It truly is an amazing success story. This is frankly no different. We are ensuring the protection of this industry with the bill.
Reform is simply opposing it to be obstreperous. I guarantee if we did not do this it would take the other approach entirely.
Howard Hilstrom Reform Selkirk—Interlake, MB
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I thought we had moved on to the second group of motions. I could certainly continue and address the first group but I have already spoken. Is it still within the rules that I can speak?
Foreign Publishers Advertising Services ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
No, I am afraid the hon. member can only speak once to a grouping. I know he is looking forward to moving to Group No. 2.
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Oak Ridges, ON
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.
John Bryden Liberal Wentworth—Burlington, ON
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot in the debate about Bill C-55 serving to protect Canada's culture. I suggest the more correct term is to protect Canadian values.
When we think of culture we think in terms of the entertainment industry and we think in terms of the arts. What we are really dealing with is something far more prosaic. It is magazines that may deal with issues that are very much every day in Canadian life. It is the very fact that they are every day in Canadian life that makes it so important to preserve them as Canadian voices rather than American voices.
I will give a simple illustration. When we think of sports magazines and we consider the Canadian coverage of sports, be it sports occurring in Canada or sports occurring in the United States, we are liable to get a very different view from a Canadian on something like the use of drugs in sports than we might get in the United States. I am thinking of using certain performance enhancing drugs in baseball which has been the subject of a great many articles in both Canada and the United States. American society has a much more broad minded approach to this kind of cheating than does Canadian society. Americans would not consider it cheating at all but in Canadian society we might.
When we talk about the magazine publishing industry we are not necessarily talking about music magazines or arts magazines. We are talking about magazines dealing with home decorating, social issues, anything imaginable. Canadian values are reflected in this type of venue.
I will give another example. It is very important in Canadian society that we believe as Canadians that fundamental human rights pertain to the individual. In our charter of rights we do not even mention the issue of property. In the United States property rights are very much an issue. Americans are very conscious of the need to protect property. This has created a huge division in attitude between Americans and Canadians.
In magazine articles, even indirectly, this difference in values will be expressed. When a Canadian writer deals with issues at home, issues of safety, the safety of Canadian cities, that person will look in terms of the protection of human rights, of individual rights, not in terms of property rights.
I remember a vivid example of a National Geographic article that dealt with a tornado that struck the community of Homestead, Florida. It devastated that community. The article had illustrations of the various damage of the tornado. One illustration showed an individual property owner standing amid the wreckage of his property with his furniture and everything all smashed, including his home. He had a small silver plated gun to the head of a looter. The caption simply said something like Florida homeowner protects his property from looters.
That illustration is an example of the gulf in value that exists between American attitudes toward property, the protection of property and the use of force to protect property and Canadian values which would say that under no circumstances would anyone every have the right to hold a gun to the head of a person merely trying to steal something or looking at the rubble after a tornado. That would never happen in Canadian society. What is really at issue here is not just the protection of Canadian culture but the protection of Canadian values.
I note the Bloc Quebecois is very much in support of the principles of Bill C-55, and well it should be. It is well established that Americans feel very strongly that there should be only one official language. They cannot understand a society that actually has a whole bureaucracy, all our engines set up to accommodate two official languages operating in a society. That has made us into an exceptionally tolerant people.
That is not what we get when we read American publications. When we read the language and the stories of a society, underneath are that society's values. It is the same in television. Unfortunately we cannot do much about the airwaves but we can do something about the publishing industry. Bill C-55 tries to do this precise thing.
How is it doing it? As someone who comes from the publishing industry, I am impressed that the drafters of this law have recognized some realities of the publishing industry. One is that companies have fixed advertising budgets. The more advertising venues one has for a company that wishes to advertise, the more that money will be spread around and less will go to any individual organization. I will give the example that is occurring right now.
The National Post is trying to enter the newspaper marketplace and it is up against the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail . What we really see here is a conflict over trying to obtain what is essentially a limited amount of advertising revenue.
A story in the Sunday Star this past weekend claims that the National Post is making no progress. All we have to do is look at the National Post 's pages and we will see very few advertisements.
It is the same kind of thing we are talking about now. If the government does not act in this area there is no doubt that Canadian advertisers will be attracted to split-run publications coming out of the United States because there is no doubt they have more bucks behind them, they have more resources in producing the glossy finished product to get those topic interviews that are so expensive. There is no doubt that money would be streamed to some of these American split-run publications at the expense of Canadian publications which may be doing essentially the same story but that story will always have an undercurrent of Canadian values as opposed to American values.
At that level this legislation acknowledges that there is a problem here that must be addressed because if it is not addressed, there will be less of a voice for Canadian articles, indeed on the same subject, reflecting Canadian values.
One might say that if the government feels that way why does it not just give all these Canadian magazines a direct grant. Why does the government not give a direct grant to Canadian writers in these magazines? This would encourage Canadian content.
I suggest the problem with that is when government interferes with culture or a freedom of expression or function in Canadian society or any society, it becomes the government's values or the bureaucratic values that begin to operate what is actually happening with that publication or cultural expression, be it music or print or whatever.
The only measure of whether something is worth saying is whether people will pay their own money for it or go to the trouble to hear what is being said. That is why it is so important to have this cultural responsibility in the hands of free enterprise. We do that by doing exactly what this legislation does, encouraging Canadian advertisers to invest those dollars in Canadian publications so that we can have Canadian stories about Canadians and about Canadian values.
Ken Epp Reform Elk Island, AB
Mr. Speaker, I feel constrained to try to stop this Liberal filibuster. The Liberals invoked closure on this bill. We are ready to go on to the next group and see if we can get some debate going on the next group of amendments.
The Liberals are filibustering us, which is appropriate from a government that does not like to debate the issues but rather likes to just ram things through with its pulling of the strings of its backbenchers who vote the way they are told. There is no democracy. There is no debate. There is no consultation with Canadians across the country to see whether they support this.
One of the very interesting movies I saw not many years ago is called The Mouse That Roared . It is an old movie. I have discovered that if one sees any movies that are newer than about the last 20 years they will probably tend to corrupt one's morals.
It was about a small country that had interminable financial difficulties. In order to solve this problem, the prime minister or the president of this small country decided to declare war on the United States on the thinking that after it had lost the war, which undoubtedly it would, then the United States would, in its true fashion, pour millions and millions of dollars into the country to rebuild it which would restore its economy.
I was just wondering if that is what Canada is now trying to do. Is it declaring war on the United States fully expecting to lose so that our economy will be restored? I really do not think so.
This whole bill is based on a couple of totally wrong premises. One premise is that Canadian magazines cannot survive unless they are protected. I reject that. We have the same thinking from the heritage department when it comes to Canadian artists. It thinks that poor Canadian artists are so mediocre that they cannot make it unless the government prevents radio stations from playing other artists. They must play Canadian artists. I reject that.
If we look at some of the award shows these days we will see a fair representation from Canadian artists. They seem to be making it fine. There is no law in the United States which says they must play a certain amount by Canadian artists. However, those Canadian artists on their own and because of their merits are able to do this.
I contend it is the same for magazines. Canadian magazines appeal to Canadian readers in their particular niche of interests and they can make it very well, thank you, without government interference.
There is another premise which I roundly reject in this bill, that culture will somehow be either destroyed or made less vibrant if the government does not protect it. That is fuzzy thinking, Liberal thinking, thinking that says unless the government regulates, promotes, taxes and sends a whole bunch of investigators and supervisors into it, it will not happen. This is a totally wrong premise.
I grew up in a culture which is not one of the ones on the protected list, which is another problem. If we turn over the promotion of culture to government then we get a list of culture, A culture, B culture. We get all these different lists and anybody who is not on the list unfortunately has to make it on their own, which they will. Meanwhile their tax dollars are siphoned off in order to support other people's cultures.
I am quite convinced, from my own experience, that culture is something which we need to let the people control. It should not be handed over to a government bureaucracy. All this crying from the Liberal side about needing to do this in order to preserve our culture is just a bunch of hogwash. It just does not fly. It is a false premise, fuzzy thinking and wrong thinking.
I am quite convinced this bill is very ill advised. We are not fearmongering but strictly being realistic when we say that it puts at risk a lot of Canadian trade with the Americans because they have already given notice that they will do this.
I know members over there are saying let us not just fold every time somebody makes a threat. Of course not. We have our own sovereignty but let us choose the issues we will fight for. Let us make sure they are worth fighting for. Let us not pick a fight on something that is unnecessary, ineffective and that will only take us into a huge amount of trade disputes with the Americans.
I am ready to dispute with them anytime but does this government do this? Does it do it when it comes to our farmers and trade? No. The government puts up its own barriers. It says it will not let Canadian farmers send their wheat to the United States. It puts up its own barriers and prevents farmers from doing that.
Here it is saying it will put up a barrier to protect Canadian industry. That is just garbage because at every other turn it does just the opposite.
My contention and my statement in my short intervention unplanned as it is, is simply to appeal to the government backbenchers to think, just good old plain put the brain in gear. They should think for themselves. I know I cannot address them directly.
They should not simply vote for this because the Minister of Canadian Heritage has her political life on the line and there is a big move to try to save her face. I have no interest in having her lose face, but she could gain face by backing off on this legislation. I would like to see her come into the House today and say “I am withdrawing this bill until we do more study on it and find out whether or not it is really needed, and whether or not it is effective, and whether or not it is based on right premises and right thinking”.
It is unconscionable that the Liberals are ramming this bill through. They have put in closure and are filibustering on the amendments in Group No. l so we cannot discuss the amendment in Group No. 2 which is the minister's motion. I cannot understand this. It is absolutely frustrating.
This is one of the things that brings this parliament into disrepute across the country. The people of Canada are not being heard. They are not being consulted. They are not being informed correctly. They always receive all sorts of different messages which are meant to give them the message the government wants them to believe.
This example is way off topic but it shows what I am talking about. When it comes to health care funding the government wants us to have $2 billion, $2 billion, $2.5 billion. When it is all added up it is $11.5 billion. The fact is that the health care funding is going up this year by $2 billion and next year it will be zero because it is $2 billion more than it was last year, next year as well. Yet the Liberals want Canadians to think it is going up another $2 billion. It is not. That is the type of message the Liberals give. It is not a fair way of communicating with Canadian voters, Canadian taxpayers.
That is exactly what is happening with this bill. The government is giving out its message. I am going to say it, Mr. Speaker, and you can call me on it if you want to, but it is totally false information. The government is deceiving the people of Canada with this misinformation. It is time that the Liberals withdrew the bill and said to Canadians that they are going to look at it again because they want to do it correctly.
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate and especially to follow the member for Elk Island. I can honestly say that the member represents for me probably 90% of the reason I could never ever be associated with the Reform Party. I am a passionate interventionist.
The member talked about how we are ramming this bill through. The bill is not being rammed through.
Today the Government of Canada and the people of Canada are receiving the MAD treatment from the Reform Party. Many years ago, when I had the great privilege and pleasure of working for the then Prime Minister Trudeau, we would refer to the MAD treatment, maximum administrative delay. That is what the people of Canada are experiencing today. Whenever an opposition party essentially wants to delete every clause of a bill and thereby delete the bill, that is the MAD treatment.
Passionate interventionism is what I believe in. There is not a riding or a sector of this country's economy that would be alive and well today if we had not had some form of government intervention.
The member talked about tragedies. One of the real tragedies of the House of Commons has been the impact that that opposition party has had on so many other issues where we have watered down the Government of Canada activism, the Government of Canada presence in this country. That is part of the reason we have separatism, but fortunately that party is on the way out now. We can see that party has been so distracted lately because the economy is coming back. It is starting to lose its separatist foundation in that province.
I want to quote one of our national treasures. There was an article in the Globe and Mail on Saturday, March 6. I want to quote one of our great Canadian hockey treasures, Frank Mahovlich. The article is by Graham Fraser. It states:
But Mahovlich has a bleak view of the game he once mastered and charmed.
“The head office is now in New York,” he said in his radio interview. “We have lost this game. The game is not what it used to be. I mean, we've always changed the rules to suit everybody else. When we played the Russians, back in 1972, we weren't playing our rules, we were playing the Russian rules, the Olympic rules. So the game is not Canadian any more. We've lost it. Whether we can get it back or not, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see”.
The members of the Reform Party have tried in so many areas to diminish the Canadian content, to diminish the Canadian presence, to diminish the Canadian activism. If there was ever an area where Canada's House of Commons should be standing on guard, it is in the area of culture.
I consider that Bill C-55 is really not an overly aggressive attempt to keep this country's magazine industry alive. I cannot understand for the life of me why the Reform Party is trying to put a spike in the spirit and the heart of this bill.
The member said to us that we think Canadian magazines cannot survive on their own. The bottom line is, I believe that. I believe they cannot survive on their own.
Have the Reform Party members ever competed against the American muscle with all its money and influence? When was the last time? Let us ask any Canadians who are listening to this debate. Do not listen to me. Walk down to the local grocery store, walk down to the local variety store or go into the local bookstore and look at those magazine racks. Better than 50% of the magazines—
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage has just corrected me and I appreciate that. Almost 80% of the magazines on the racks in this country are American magazines. Is the Reform Party that satisfied with the Americans having 80%? Does it want us to roll over and give them 90% or 95%? When will it stop? The Reform Party is going to want us to erase the 49th parallel next.
I dread the day when we have to have a debate about water with the Reform Party sitting in the House. My goodness, that will be the day when we really will be put to the test because that is something the Americans want a heck of a lot more than more shelf space on a magazine rack. We should all be united and I can see the Reform Party running away from the water debate saying to just roll over and give it to the Americans.
We should respect and work with our neighbours, but at the same time we have a duty and a responsibility to make sure that our magazine industry is vibrant and viable. If it means the Minister of Canadian Heritage has to stand up and say enough, that this is what we are going to do, then we should be a fist in this House of Commons, especially when the Americans have access to our community by selling magazines like no other country in the world.
The Americans ship them across the 49th parallel. There are hardly any shipping costs when they move magazines into this country. Let us think about that.
Members have to understand that many of the craftsmen and craftswomen who design, write and organize our magazine industry are the same artists who help other sectors of the cultural industry, the motion picture industry and the television industry. Unless those artists are given an opportunity to maximize and test their potential and have others give them feedback and critique the quality of their work, this is going to have an adverse impact on other business components of our cultural industry. It is a huge, huge industry. We are talking job numbers here that are very serious to our gross domestic product.
To the members of the Reform Party, let us not diminish the Canadian cultural activity. The Reform Party members said when they came to this House of Commons that when they saw something good for the nation, they would work with us and make change.
If there was ever a case for government intervention, this is it. This bill should be supported because the American magazine industry currently has almost 80% of the magazines on the racks in this country. I say to the member for Elk Island that is quite enough for our neighbours and it is time that all of us in the House stood up for our own.
Foreign Publishers Advertising Services ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Justice; the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, Airbus; the hon. member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Devco.
Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill today. Of course, this will be our last opportunity.
It was rather interesting to listen to the member for Broadview—Greenwood. He thought that if there ever was a time when the government needed to intervene in this nation's cultural industry, this was the bill to do it, unless of course it happened to be professional hockey teams, in which case that would be a good idea too, unless it happened to be an artist back home, or who knows what. There never seems to be an end to the list of people.
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member just said that this would be the last chance the House would have to address this issue. I would like to point out to the member that we are at report stage and there is still third reading.
Foreign Publishers Advertising Services ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
I do not think that is a point of order. I think really it is a point of debate.
Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Liberals seem to be so sensitive about the issue of time allocation.
Let us go back to 1956. Mr. Speaker, you were but a young lad I am sure. The Liberal government of the day decided that a crucial parliamentary debate, a debate such as we had today, on the trans-Canada pipeline had tarried too long. It implemented a powerful but rarely used standing order of the day and invoked closure, shut down debate to force a controversial bill through the House of Commons. The hue and cry from the opposition parties, the media and ordinary Canadians was staggering. In the election that followed the travesty of democracy became a scourge of the Liberal Party and the government of the day slipped into the government of the past.
How times have changed. This week another Liberal government has invoked a form of closure. This is number 49, the 49th time the government has invoked closure. I think it will hit the golden anniversary of 50 some time this week. That will be 50 times that it has invoked time allocation and closure since it has come to power. That is the fastest 50 uses of closure in Canadian history.
Pipeline debates are passé nowadays, but debate on this bill, a very important bill to Canadians as the Liberal member prior to me mentioned, will be shut down. Debate will be silenced and the government will push it through and push it through again at the next stage because it has decided it is the easiest way to manage time in the House.
It is a vitally important bill. It involves not only a social principle. It could involve hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars, worth of trade which could be at risk because of the bill. It is hugely important to Canadians and they want to see it properly debated in the House.
As I mentioned it is all over but the crying. The government has decided that there is very little political price to pay, so for the 49th time it will invoke closure or restriction on debate. We will be forced to vote on it tonight and it will pass into the annals of history as another time when democracy took short shrift.
The closure problem did not happen overnight. I do not want to point fingers at just one political party. The party that was in government before the Liberals also had this problem, although it took it eight years to reach 50 time allocation motions. This government has done it in five.
The political masters across the way have acted so consistently undemocratic over the past several years that in fact I would argue we have become callous to democracy's decline. The use of iron fisted party discipline means that MPs often vote to represent the party before constituents. The lack of electoral reform ensures that a majority government, in this case with only 38% of the national vote, has absolute dictatorial powers in the House of Commons, in the appointment process and in a hundred or a thousand different ways.
Unfortunately successive majority governments over the last number of years also meant that power sharing was no longer necessary, or they felt it was not. As a result Canadians increasingly tune out the democratic process between elections. The Liberals interpret this inattentiveness as a licence to ignore everything, from unanimous all party committee reports that are tabled in this place, to the Auditor General of Canada who says he will not sign off on the books of the government because they routinely transgress standard accounting practices.
Yet government members say “Who cares? We have 100% of the power. We do not have to share it. We do not have to do what is considered routine or ordinary or normal or accepted in any other practice. We will just do as we please”. This is the 49th time they have taken that tact.
I recently attended a briefing on the current democratic reforms occurring in the United Kingdom. Although I do not claim that is the perfect democracy either, I listened to an interesting discussion at the high commission. Members of the mother parliament, as we like to call it, are forging ahead with what they would consider to be radical changes. They are talking about devolution of powers to local governments in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. As they do that strange things happen. Not only are they restoring peace and tranquillity to those regions, but they are also instilling a sense of pride in those regions.
Power sharing under this new proposal through either a coalition government or proportional representation will be routine.
For example, the chairs of the committees will be allocated not on the percentage of who holds absolute power but on the percentage of the seats that are held in the House. Imagine chairs being allocated in a fair manner.
The use of referendum to determine broad public policy and even constitutional matters will be commonplace. Those on the Liberal side say that is a radical proposal, actually giving power to constituents, but in Britain they say that would be okay. In fact they have already done it in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and with miraculous results.
Guess what. When people have a say in the legislation and in the constitution they buy into it. They say “I have been part of the process. I will live with the results”.
Britain is one of the last holdouts for this unelected upper chamber in the world. The only other one in the free world is the Canadian Senate. It is the only other one that is unelected. Over there they are even toying with the idea of electing members. What a radical thought. What has got into those Brits? Have they gone completely over the edge? Imagine all this democracy at one time. How will they stand it? At the very least, the hereditary peers will be gone. It is unstoppable. The move toward democratization in that upper house is now inevitable and just a matter of time.
We are approaching the golden anniversary on time allocation, this black mark on the Liberal record. In the last parliament many high profile Liberals in government, esteemed people with perhaps as much procedural expertise as yourself, Mr. Speaker, were quoted as talking about the dictatorial Tory attitude on closure, about the fact that it was an affront to democracy. Now they seem to think it is routine business.
Within a few days we will see No. 50. Within a few more days we will see No. 51. I look forward to the day when they table the closure motion with the bill in the House of Commons just because it will be much simpler.
Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I agree with my colleague with respect to your knowledge of procedure and so on, but it seems to me that we are discussing Bill C-55 which has something to do with magazines. Are we discussing procedure or the Senate? I would be grateful if you would rule whether these arguments are relevant.
Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Speaker, further to that point, we on the other side of the House have a right to address this bill or any other bill in the way we see fit. The fact is in conjunction with this bill the government invoked time allocation and it is very relevant to the bill.
Foreign Publishers Advertising Services ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
The hon. member who was speaking certainly took a flight of fancy when he described a lot of the changes that were happening in the U.K., which is very interesting, but I must say I was having a little trouble detecting its relevance to the bill before the House.
On the other hand, discussion about time allocation is entirely appropriate given we are operating under time allocation on the bill. I noted before the parliamentary secretary intervened that the official opposition whip had come back to earth and was back on the bill or something relevant to the bill and so I was reluctant to intervene in any way. I know that he will want to conclude his remarks.
Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, the flights of fancy are obviously not restricted to either side of the House, and the Chair has his say as well. Since we are talking about Britain—I was talking about it as were you—when the awards are handed out, whether Juno awards, Academy awards or other internationally recognized awards, it is always nice to see the long list of Canadians who have made it to the top on their ability, not on the fact that they have been protected. That is how to do it. One becomes good at art or good at magazines or at whatever one happens to be doing and the world will beat a pathway to one's door.
I would hope that on this 49th occasion of the use of time allocation, which is unfortunately restricting the debate on the magazine bill, we would take stock and take note of what is happening here. As we consider changes for the future, I would hope our legacy to the world would be one that demonstrates dissenting voices and opinions are not only listened to but are listened to at length in the House of Commons and in Canada. We do not mind dissenting opinions. We think it is okay in a democracy to develop parliamentary procedures that empower people, not empower governments.
We realize that efficiency and control of the debate should not come at the expense of our freedom of expression and our time in the House. As we debate the bill, I hope we realize we are discussing both the future of our cultural industries, which are important, and the future of the democratic process and the changes the government seems reluctant to entertain.
Jean Augustine Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member across the way said we may speak according to the way we see fit. I want to address the bill according to the way I see fit this afternoon because many of my constituents who are watching and listening to the debate have asked us questions and I would like to answer a few of them on Bill C-55, the magazine bill or the advertising by foreign periodical publishers bill, and freedom of expression.
I received a couple of calls today asking how Bill C-55 would ensure that Canadian magazine publishers have clear access to Canadian advertising services and the revenues accruing from them. The answer to my constituents was that without those revenues we would not have a viable Canadian magazine industry. Without those revenues we would be unable to provide Canadian readers with the broad range of Canadian publications we currently have.
Many of us as members of parliament were present at a display in one of the rooms on the parliamentary precincts a while ago where several hundred Canadian magazines were on the shelves. Men and women who were cultural artists, photographers, graphic artists, writers, publishers, et cetera, were also there. They were very proud of the work they were doing. They see this as a viable way of making a living for themselves and see any move in the direction of where there is no support for Bill C-55 as being a threat to them, to their future and to Canadian cultural activities.
After reading several articles in the press this weekend, we know that the Reform Party will not be supporting the bill. It is not unreasonable to hear what we heard today in debate. It is part of the plan of action wherein there is little support.
I want to speak specifically to my constituents who have some concerns and have addressed them to me. In discussions with several of them there was a sense that Bill C-55 would stop U.S. magazines from entering Canada. I think other members addressed this earlier, but I want to make sure they understand that U.S. magazines will continue to be welcomed in Canada and that U.S. magazines account for 80% of newsstand sales in Canada.
Bill C-55 is about regulating access to advertising services. Foreign publishers seek access to revenues from selling Canadian advertising services without producing original editorial content for the Canadian market. That revenue is then not available to Canadian publishers that actually produce original content for the Canadian market.
The important point is the fact that foreign publishers cannot come in and use our Canadian advertising services and walk away with our Canadian dollars, denying Canadians the opportunity to benefit from the Canadian market.
We hear a good deal about the trade war that will result between Canada and the United States. My constituents are concerned about this when they hear from the Reform members what could possibly happen to us as a result, what industries could be put at risk, the fact that at this point in time what we will be really doing is letting the American anger and the American feelings over this issue somehow come down on us like a ton of bricks.
I want to say to my constituents that this is not a trade war. Canada and the U.S. have the world's most successful trading relationship with about 95% of all goods going back and forth across the border. We have ways we could settle disputes and that dispute settlements are there to be used. This is precisely why Bill C-55 has provisions that if the U.S. dislikes the provision it can then turn to international dispute settlement.
One other item that is also important is something I jotted down from a conversation with a constituent who spoke about the fact that the bill does not place restrictions on the content of magazines or on individual advertisements or limits Canadians' access to foreign magazines. This is someone who is supportive of Bill C-55 and who wanted to make sure that I made that point today. This bill does not place restrictions on the contents of magazines.
Another constituent addressed the issue of freedom of expression to enjoy a diversity of Canadian ideas. I think this is what Bill C-55 is ensuring, that Canadians continue to have the freedom to express, the freedom to enjoy a diversity of ideas as seen in Canadian magazines.
I encourage my colleagues in the Reform Party to take a second look at their position at this point to recognize the importance of Canadian advertisers to invest in Canadian publications and to again take another look at the fact that this is not draconian and unprecedented legislation. We have at least 100 pieces of legislation that contain similar legal provisions as we see in Bill C-55.
This is not the last time to debate this bill. Other opportunities will be presented. This is not the last opportunity, as one member across the way states. Other opportunities will be provided.
We need to stand up for our cultural artists. As we head into the new millennium it is important that Canadian cultural activities be affirmed and that we go into the millennium strengthened.
Bill C-55 supports longstanding Canadian cultural policies. It is consistent with our international trade obligations and it is the Canadian thing to do.