Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill S-7, both on behalf of our party and more specifically with the full support of the member for Dartmouth who is responsible for the bill and our position on it, and who is wholeheartedly in support of it.
Other than the argument we have heard that perhaps it is not the best time to be doing this, it seems to me that there is universal support in the House for the need for this type of amendment to the Broadcasting Act.
As a lawyer in private practice and a litigation lawyer, one who has worked on various occasions for groups who needed this type of support to provide themselves with the resources to act as interveners, it is obvious to me that this bill should be approved by all members of the House.
It is particularly important if one looks at what is happening to our media, to our regulation of it and to the overhaul which I think all parties agree is going on at this time and will continue for some time in the future. From a democracy standpoint, we simply and absolutely require the assistance that consumers and other interest groups will bring to the debate around the overhaul of the industry.
There are some changes being suggested that are quite frankly scary. There are some changes that have already occurred. One cannot help but think that, if we had had greater intervention from these groups, we would have had a better system for both public and private broadcasting.
If one is serious about democracy, one must support the bill.
I will raise a couple of issues that already have been addressed. The whole debate continues around the convergence of the print media with the electronic media, and the mergers of those systems, so that in many respects we now are faced with public opinion being formulated through the media by a smaller and smaller group of editors and producers. That cannot be healthy for democracy. It limits debate and the issues raised. As democrats, we must be concerned about that.
The other issue that caused a great deal of anger was the issue of negative billing. One cannot help but think that if the issue had been addressed at an earlier stage by interveners, it never would have got to the point that it did and it would not have caused so many people grief, including the providers of the service. This type of a bill and the resulting support it would provide to the interveners would really help head off that kind of a problem at a much earlier stage.
There are any number of other areas in the processing and enforcing of legislation and regulations. One cannot help but think that the government would be serving the Canadian public much better if it followed the example in the bill.
Again, I reiterate the need for the bill. Senator Finestone is to be commended for her work in the Senate with regard to it. I also want to acknowledge the speech by the member for Charleswood St. James--Assiniboia. His words were particularly forceful and eloquent at times on the need to have this type of legislation in place and to provide that type of support for the intervening groups who want to provide assistance to the democratic process.