Madam Speaker, that is right. The member was not there. He had already gone home because it was after recess.
I know some of my more seasoned colleagues from the opposition and others may not be at all that surprised to see this type of shenanigans, however, I was shocked. I suppose I should have expected it. After all, this is the same gang of Grits who promised Canadians they would be ripping up the free trade agreement and scrapping the GST.
The meeting was one with very few hon. members in attendance. In fact, if I had left the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage there would not have been a quorum. I could have left in disgust, but I suppose I am of the opinion that more good can come from rolling up the sleeves and getting to work than simply taking my marbles and going home.
I have learned a lesson. I have always been of the opinion that we can attract far more bees with honey than with vinegar. But I sure hate when spreading the honey attracts a big bumblebee that stings. I feel stung by the government majority on the committee.
I know a shady deal when I see one. I do not want to say I was not told the truth by the committee, but I was certainly told one thing would happen. When it was time to cash in the chips, another thing entirely occurred. We can call that what we like I suppose, but it is enough from my standpoint to cloud the process sufficiently for me to vote against the bill. However, I will continue to debate.
If the Liberals want to change the Copyright Act, then they should table a bill, have meetings with hon. members and expert witnesses in order to deal strictly with the very complex issue of copyright, in accordance with proper parliamentary tradition. If they want to try to sneak through a couple of clauses to correct a Grit error from a few years ago, then they should be open and honest about it. Perhaps some of their opposition colleagues may actually help them to do so. However trying to slip through a part of a bill that does not belong there without explaining why, is not right.
When government members, who make a deal to remove these clauses, then learn from their political masters in the Prime Minister's office that they need to break their word and keep these clauses in, is very suspicious behaviour. It is very fishy indeed. They forgot they had a deal. They forgot they gave us their word. They told us not to worry and assured us that we could trust them. I found out about that in short order at my first ever committee. That is how long it took me.
Aside from the shady behaviour on the part of the government in trying to railroad through sections 21 and 22 of the bill, much of the work I have done on my own has done nothing to ease my concerns about amending these copyright laws without due diligence.
Through a publisher, the esteemed, maybe most highly esteemed and respected figure among Canadian historians, Dr. Jack Granatstein, informed my office that in his expert opinion:
This bill will interfere with scholarship, complicate the lives of researchers needlessly and cost everyone time and money. It is simply unnecessary.
That does not sound too good.
Don LePan, president of Broadview Press, is on record as saying that these copyright provisions in Bill C-36 represent, in his own words:
...one of several significant threats in the current horizon to the public domain; copyright restrictions in Canada are already more stringent than they need be, and it is crucial that we resist further incursions on the public domain.
The following are points of concern surrounding sections 21 and 22 of Bill C-36.
With a review of copyright law in general about to get underway, there is no good reason to include as an add on to an unrelated bill these provisions regarding copyright.
Who would benefit from these provisions of Bill C-36? It is often claimed that authors as a whole benefit from extending copyright provisions. In practice, however, it is typically only a handful of the best known and most enduringly successful writers whose heirs benefits from such provisions in any significant financial way.
One thing I remember just from my life was a deal I made one time to buy a piece of property. It was owned by an estate. We could never get a clear deed on that estate because the descendants of those people lived all over the world. We could never get anyone to come in to sign the papers that were required. This is what I am talking about on the extended copyright. To try to find some of these people would be very hard.
Indeed, extensions of copyright restrictions can be directly contrary to the interests of many deceased authors, not least of all because publishers who might be interested in making certain works available will frequently be discouraged from doing so if the author's heirs are difficult or impossible to locate.
However I am of the opinion that the joining together of the Library of Parliament and the National Archives is of such importance as to require me to look deeply into the bill, and I will be taking advice from my colleagues.