Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to the bill, an act to establish the Library and Archives of Canada, to amend the Copyright Act and to amend certain acts in consequence.
The primary purpose of the bill is to create a new federal agency that would combine the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada. In a moment I will outline the positives of this new convergence, but I first want to state for the record the Canadian Alliance position with regard to this initiative and the legislation. We do have a policy, which people are welcome to look at on our website or elsewhere. The policy states: “The Canadian Alliance affirms the federal government's role in the preservation of Canada's natural and historical heritage, such as national parks, museums, archives and so on, and historic sites, for the benefit and enjoyment of all and as an enduring reminder to all Canadians of our common inheritance”.
As such, by the end of my speech I will be advising my Canadian Alliance colleagues to support Bill C-36. There will be many questions that will need to be answered in committee and I am sure we will have a full complement of witnesses before the committee. In general, the drift of the legislation is in the right direction. As to the specifics, of course the devil may be in the details but we do think that it is supportable.
There is a definition of the role of National Archives of Canada:
To preserve the collective memory of the nation and the government of Canada and contribute to the protection of rights and the enhancement of a sense of national identity: by acquiring, conserving and facilitating access to private and public records of national significance, and serving as the permanent repository of records of federal government institutions and ministerial records; by facilitating the management of records of federal government, institutions and ministerial records; and by encouraging archival activities and the archival community.
There are some things I will be saying about the preservation of records and of archiving important government documents, including documents of the cabinet, a little further on in my speech.
Right now the national archives are accessible to all Canadians and that will continue under the amalgamation of the Library of Canada and the archives.
The main role of the National Library of Canada is as follows: “...to preserve and promote...the published heritage of Canada”. The library is recognized as “one of the nation's foremost centres for research in Canadian Studies and as a showcase for Canadian literature and music”. The library is also accessible to all Canadians.
Bill C-36 will merge these two entities. We think that potentially there could be, and should be, some positive results for Canada's recorded and published history and heritage.
On a personal note, I remember that when my brother was doing research for a book he wrote about our family history he came to Ottawa and spent time at the National Archives. He eventually wrote a book and I am sure the National Library has a copy of it. The folks at the archives were most helpful. It is always amazing to me and to amateur historians like my brother how accessible the archives are, how helpful the folks are and how useful the information is when we are writing a book. In that case it was a family history, but it is certainly true for all Canadian history and studies.
The preservation of archival information of course is important. Clause 8 of the bill states, “The Librarian and Archivist may do anything that is conducive to the attainment of the objectives of the Library and Archives of Canada”. The list includes a lot of things: acquire publications; take measures to catalogue, of course; compile and maintain information; provide information, consultation and other lending services to any Canadian; establish programs and organize or encourage any activities, including exhibitions, publications and performances; enter into agreements with other libraries, archives or institutions, inside and outside Canada, to help preserve and encourage the understanding of our historical information; advise government institutions, including on ways to use the Internet to promote and provide information; and provide leadership and direction for library services for all government institutions. It goes on. There is much to do and of course they do a good job, even today under difficult circumstances. In other words, there is a very powerful mandate to assist the preservation of Canadian heritage.
For the purposes of preservation, Bill C-36 also allows the librarian and archivist to take a representative sample of the documentary material of interest to Canada that is accessible to the public without restriction through the Internet or any other similar medium. That also is in clause 8.
Again, increasing numbers of Canadians will take advantage of this service. Even those who cannot get to Ottawa will have new and improved access to documents through the Internet. The hope is that by providing this invaluable information to future historians, both amateur and professional, we will not only preserve but will better understand our past and apply it to today's concerns and issues and our culture.
The management of the combined archive and library should be more efficient by bringing the two organizations together. The collections will be combined and will be comprehensive, thereby increasing the efficiency and feasibility of information management. The convergence of human expertise and knowledge should increase the proficiency of information management. In other words, by bringing them together under one command and control we should be able to benefit from the immense amount of expertise in the two organizations right now.
The merging of these two institutions should provide synergy and efficiency in the delivery of internal human resources, financial, marketing and technology systems and so on. I say it should because it is not entirely clear from the briefing notes that we received from the department whether this will actually take place. In fact, the notes say there may actually be no cost savings from this merger. This should be investigated at committee.
It seems to me that by bringing together management systems under one aegis should provide some financial savings on everything from human resource management to technology systems. We will be looking at ways to do that. We encourage the committee to make sure that is done to the best of its ability.
There are some clauses in the bill on the access provisions. By unifying the two entities we hopefully will increase the visibility of Canada's heritage and history. We believe that the library and archives of Canada will provide integrated access to its collections by offering one stop access.
Again I will use the example of my brother's research. It would have been handy for him to go to one spot and ask for historical information for example on the original ships that brought over our ancestors and at the same time any other books on that subject. Many other people would be looking for different heritage information. In my case it is the Mennonite background and the Swedish background, or the “Swennonite” background, that I cherish. It could be one stop.
The library and archives of Canada would use the latest technology to collect and provide access to its collections. The library and archives of Canada would use web services for some of the following: the Canadian Genealogy Centre; Virtual Reference Canada; the Portrait Gallery of Canada; initiatives to preserve Canada's multicultural documentary heritage; services such as the interlibrary loan of publications and microfilms; programs to promote literacy; support for Canadians with print disabilities; and so on. It would improve access for all Canadians, even those who are unable to get to Ottawa to go through the documents on site.
We have some concerns about Bill C-36. There are things that need to be looked at in committee.
The documents I received from Heritage Canada indicate that the transition will cost $7.5 million over three years. There was also $15 million awarded in the 2003 budget for better short term protection of documents and artifacts. I am not sure if that $7.5 million is part of the $15 million, but regardless, preservation is necessary. We will try to figure out exactly what those costs are and whether there will be potential cost savings down the road. The bill was dropped on us late last week and we have yet to receive a briefing from the department. We are not sure what the $7.5 million includes. Is it just the accounting costs? Is it labour time costs? We are not sure but that will be looked into.
Again I emphasize that the documents from Heritage Canada admit that it is not a cost cutting exercise. While it may not be cost cutting, it does seem to me that there should be savings realized. We will be asking the department heads to explain why that does not take place. I certainly think it should.
There are also greater opportunities to involve more fully the private sector, people who can make use of this in a positive way. Perhaps there are revenue generating opportunities in this as well. Perhaps that will take place under the coalitions built among other libraries, both nationally and internationally.
For anyone who has looked at this file at all, there is a concern not so much with the bill but with the general preservation of our national archives. In the last couple of years taxpayers have spent approximately $4.5 million just to repair items damaged by water leaks and maintenance problems in the current archive buildings. It seems to me that the Department of Public Works and Government Services along with the archives and library when they get their act together have to quit the squabbling and find a solution to the accommodation and preservation of Canada's national archives.
There is no sense saving a copy of everything and putting it in a room where the water leaks into the cardboard box. If we are going to preserve this stuff, go through the expense of cataloguing it, accounting for it, preserving it and so on, then let us make sure it is preserved and not stuck in one of the leakiest buildings in Ottawa. I urge Public Works and Government Services and the archives and library to put the turf wars behind them and get at actually preserving the stuff we are talking about today. It is important information that needs to be preserved. Let us find a way of doing that quickly.
This next point is part of the work of any committee and any bill that comes before it. I would urge the committee, and again I am part of that, to make sure that we are getting value for the dollar under this proposal. At face value everything looks fine, and it always looks fine in a government briefing document. I have never seen one yet that looks as if we are about to waste a pile of money, but on the other hand there are enough examples of cost overruns. The Canadian War Museum is a prime example. Everyone is in favour of the war museum. We think it should go ahead and we are all in favour of it, but we have not even gotten the walls up and it is tens of millions of dollars over budget already.
Understandably there is going to be scrutiny at the committee level, as there should be. It is part of our job on all sides of the House to scrutinize that spending. I would urge all members to do that carefully because these sorts of bills have little surprises hidden in them if we do not do that properly.
It is also important to note that clause 8(g) of the bill says that the combined national archives and library is to “advise government institutions concerning the management of information produced or used by them and provide services for that purpose”. In other words, if there are ways to better manage it--and in the briefing notes it sounds good and the bill reads fine at first blush--we are going to want to know exactly how that management system is going to improve it.
Clause 12(1) of the bill, another important clause which I would urge interested archivists to browse, states:
No government or ministerial record, whether or not it is surplus property of a government institution, shall be disposed of, including by being destroyed, without the written consent of the Librarian and Archivist or of a person to whom the Librarian and Archivist has, in writing, delegated the power to give such consents.
It is tremendously important that people understand what is involved, that government bureaucrats understand what this actually means. It means there is an obligation among departmental employees to make sure that proper record keeping takes place and that archives are preserved not just when it is convenient, not just when they look good or when they have a glowing report, but that all records are to be preserved. In fact it says properly under clause 12 that no government or ministerial record shall be disposed of including by being destroyed.
In other words, just because it is a negative report or it is something someone does not like or hopes does not come up for his or her grandchildren to read, it is too bad. In the government, archives are archives. We preserve the good, the bad and the ugly. We take it all, preserve it all, so future historians will be able to learn from it and hopefully steer clear of some of the problems we have had, and even have currently, by making sure that record keeping is done properly.
I point out that we are once again embroiled in a controversy here in Parliament, in this case with the records kept by the business development bank, a semi arm's length corporation mandated by this House. What is interesting is the lack of proper record keeping and missing documents. Key documents that may or may not implicate the Prime Minister or others in business dealings or loan approvals, or whatever it might be, are suddenly missing from its archives.
The government is involved. It is getting and giving advice and doing studies and all the things that governments are involved in. Again, clause 12 says to keep the records, the good and the bad and understand that it is the law that they be maintained and given to the archives. Increasingly it will be electronic records and they too need to be preserved.
The Government of Canada needs to improve its information and record keeping practices. I am afraid the way the government will avoid this clause is it will just not create a record at all in the first place. That is one way around it.
On March 24 of this year, Canada's Information Commissioner said the following as reported in the Ottawa Citizen :
The most significant threat to open, accountable government is a crisis in information management in the federal Government of Canada.
The article went on to say:
Despite warnings to public servants that they must improve in such areas, federal officials are avoiding creating records, Mr. Reid said. Under the spectre of financial penalty or imprisonment for destroying or falsifying records, he added, officials are encouraged to make oral briefings or exchange information by e-mail to avoid creating permanent written records.
That is not the intent of clause 12 as I understand it. The clause says that the records are not to be destroyed. They are to be kept intact. They are to be passed along and archived so that all of us will have a chance to see them one day. In essence, although it is not in the bill, as a tangent of this, it is important to know that whistle-blowing legislation will be critical to solving this problem, where people actually have the gumption to stand up and be counted, make written proposals and written briefings for ministers, instead of just an oral chat around the coffee machine knowing that that cannot be archived, but on the other hand neither can we learn from mistakes.
There are many acts that are amended in consequence to this bill. Each one of them in and of itself is also important. For example, there are changes to the Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act, to which the member for Yukon will no doubt want to pay attention. There are changes to the National Archives Act. There are also changes to the Yukon First Nations Self-Government Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the proceeds of crime act, and the Public Sector Compensation Act. There is an important consequential change to the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act. The Financial Administration Act is another one. All of these will have to be looked at.
There is an important consequential change to the Copyright Act. This has been somewhat controversial. The issue of copyright protection is an important one and Canada has been less aggressive than most of its international competitors in linking information innovation to intellectual property or in protecting and promoting intellectual property rights. In fact, the Canadian Alliance member for Yorkton—Melville presented a private member's motion requesting the House of Commons to create a parliamentary committee to examine property rights, including copyright. Copyright is a section of property rights. It is important to do that.
The tricky issue raised by the bill concerning copyright is the need to balance the incentives created by copyright and patent protection with the public nature of the work of the authors and the artists. Since the government has recently undertaken quite an extensive review of copyright issues, I will look forward to the testimony of witnesses in committee on this issue.
I believe the industry committee as well will want to look at this, if not to study the entire bill, at least to look at the consequential amendments to the Copyright Act. We need to strike the balance between the rights of artists and the rights of their heirs to preserve their creations for the purposes of the heirs and the right of the public to have access after a certain amount of time to unpublished works.
It seems to me we have to balance that. This bill extends that by 15 years, which is a goodly length of time, considering we only reviewed this and made changes to the Copyright Act only four years ago. The expiration of that copyright protection is supposed to come up this following year. For unpublished works this extends it considerably. It has been quite controversial and that too will have to be looked at in committee, whether the 15 years is necessary or whether there is something in between next year and 15 that would be more appropriate.
It seems to me that eventually there will come a time when unpublished works of deceased artists will no longer be protected under this copyright legislation. We need to delve into that and the industry committee will have its part in ensuring it is of the right balance.
Overall, I will be encouraging my colleagues to support this at second reading in principle. It is sound management to bring the archives and the library together. I have the concerns, as I mentioned earlier, about cost savings and some of the other issues, and consequential amendments. It should be an easy bill to approve in committee, although once we are in there and the witnesses start telling us what those consequential amendments are, perhaps something will come up.
At this stage, we will be supporting the bill and look forward to the committee work to get into the nitty-gritty.