Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate on Bill S-7. As has been stated, I believe the bill has come in in an inappropriate way. The heritage minister should have championed this bill if she thought that it should come before the House. Furthermore, although there is some redeeming value to the bill, which I will be reciting in half a second, I also suggest that while the government does review after review, it does not pay any attention to the reviews that are actually taking place.
In this particular instance a review of the state of Canadian broadcasting is currently before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. The members of the committee are undertaking a very long and onerous task. It is probably going to take at least 18 months to get through the review. Within that period of time many pressures will be brought to bear on the Department of Canadian Heritage and on the committee itself to make legislative changes that reflect the requirements of the broadcast industry at that time.
If there is a review under way, will we be getting into a situation where the minister ends up putting more postage stamps, band-aids, chewing gum and baling wire on the problem, or will we get to the end of the Broadcasting Act review and after the work of the committee is completed, then the minister will seriously consider the recommendations of the committee and will come forward with the legislation?
In the case of Bill S-7, I fully recognize that this is a very tiny part of the Broadcasting Act. Nonetheless, there is a principle here. The principle is very simple and straightforward. While the standing committee is undertaking the review of the Broadcasting Act, neither I nor the official opposition want to see the minister or her department come forward with changes to legislation that the committee is undertaking. While this is a very small part of the Broadcasting Act, it nonetheless would set the principle if we did not stand against the passage of this bill at this time, notwithstanding the value that is contained within the bill itself.
The bill has been advocated by consumer groups for consumer groups across Canada. Consumer organizations across Canada had been asking the CRTC to make cost awards available to individual consumers and consumer groups for broadcasting and cable television hearings throughout the 1990s. The CRTC made an honest effort to find a way to cover the costs for individuals and consumer groups. However, it came to the conclusion that the only way to do this was to amend the Broadcasting Act. The power of costs awarded already exists in the Telecommunications Act. The CRTC administers both the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act.
If I could insert a bracket here, this is one of the reasons I and my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance believe that the CRTC should be answering to one ministry, probably the Ministry of Industry under competition, as opposed to it having its feet in two camps at this time.
Bill S-7 has come about because of the efforts of consumer organizations. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre and several other groups have been promoting this amendment on behalf of all Canadian cable and television subscribers for the past three years. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre on behalf of a number of groups approached the Department of Canadian Heritage three years ago to ask that the government amend the Broadcasting Act to permit cost awards.
The department was reluctant to open the act just for this change and suggested the group pursue a private member's bill approach. The groups approached Senator Finestone and asked if she would champion the bill. She consented and in the spring and early summer of this year, the bill was passed in the Senate and a member was asked by Senator Finestone to champion the bill in the House of Commons.
The question is whether anyone is against the bill. We in the Canadian Alliance find ourselves in a rather unusual position because the answer is no. No one is against the principle of the bill. To the question is anyone against the bill, the answer is no. In the Senate hearings on the bill all witnesses, including industry representatives, supported the key principle of the bill that every democratic society should foster active citizen participation in public issues. Modern democratic life requires an active role from the population and needs participation from members of the community. The Department of Canadian Heritage and the CRTC also supported the bill in the Senate.
I go back to the process by which the bill came to the House. There are two problems with it. The first one I have clearly outlined. I wanted to be sure about the second problem and asked the Speaker for a specific ruling on Bill S-7. In looking at this legislation, it required a fee to be taken by the CRTC to be redistributed to the people who were appearing on appeal before the CRTC.
I brought my argument to this Chamber yesterday. It was not an attempt to stop the bill. Because the heritage department and the minister had brought the bill in through the back door by way of the Senate and it did have to do with money, I wanted it to be very clear that we were not setting a precedent that was outside parliamentary precedent that had been established for nigh on 600 years of parliamentary practice in the United Kingdom and Canada.
While we are in favour of the content of the bill, we have those two problems. One is that the minister did not bring it forward. The other one is the crux of the situation. Will the minister and the government continue to ask for a review, to ask committees to do work, to ask citizens and corporations in good faith to prepare and to come before committees and make submissions and travel to Ottawa and engage in all of the expenses that are involved in doing proper work? If so, will the minister and the government commit that the committee work, the review work, will be of some value at the end of the day or will it just be a make work project? The reason I think it could be a make work project is because of Bill S-7, the fact that we are involved in a review process, yet through a backdoor process the government has brought in this bill and says that it is just changing a small part of the act.
What is the next small part of the act the government is going to change while the review is under way? What is the next small part of the act that it is going to review? How is it going to alter, for example, the funding of television production by the finance minister? How is it going to alter, either enhance or decrease the amount of the appropriation of the CBC during this period of time?
The government has asked the committee to do some work and the people on the committee are doing it in good faith. Is the government going to leave enough latitude for the committee to get to the end of its process without having been interfered with by the minister?
With regret, although the bill itself has great merit, if there was not the Broadcasting Act review under way at this time, it would be my recommendation as the heritage critic for the Canadian Alliance that we support the bill. I think it is absolutely commendable. However, the fact that the Broadcasting Act review is under way precludes me from doing that. Therefore I am recommending that we vote against it.