Debates of May 30th, 2006

Opposition Motion—Cultural Diversity

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I remind the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst to address his comments through the Chair.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I could start again if you want.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

No, that is quite all right. In the interests of timeliness, we will move on to the next speaker.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier has placed a very interesting motion before the House today.

While today's motion touches on a complex issue, it does so in a somewhat imperfect manner. It assumes that the previous government's cultural policy was without fault and there is no need for changes. However, I would suggest something different of the previous government's policies and so would the voters of Canada, who just recently passed judgment on them.

The motion also shows an inability to grasp the magnitude of the changes facing Canada's cultural industries. The government will not be bound to outdated policies. We must have flexibility to address the new demands of changing technology and world realities. While some would disregard these changes and new realities, this government will not be irresponsible. We will be vigilant and creative in protecting our culture. That is why the government backs the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

As the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier accurately infers in his motion, the UNESCO convention is fundamentally important to the sustainability of our cultural policies, but missing is one of the key points about the convention, that it gives Canada the flexibility to protect our distinct cultural voice. It was never intended to bind us to a set of specific policies.

Yes, we will create policies which protect Canadian culture in Canada and which will see that culture takes its rightful place on the world stage. Let me give the House an example of the kind of flexible policies this government supports.

Not long ago the government signed an accord with the government of Quebec on UNESCO. The accord gives Quebec a voice in UNESCO. It recognizes that Quebec has unique cultural interests. It is an example of the federalism of openness this government will practise. We realize that Canada's cultural identity will be best protected by many voices rather than by a single policy enforced from the centre.

But the hon. member might find these ideas somewhat foreign, since the party opposite, when in government, was more often in conflict with the provinces than willing to work cooperatively with them. That is hardly open federalism.

Let me now turn to some other details of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Many members I suspect will not know the central role Canada is taking in bringing the convention into force. It is important for all members to recall that the pursuit of the convention was supported by all sides of the House.

Canada was the first nation to ratify the UNESCO convention. I have spoken about the tools the convention gives the government to defend Canadian culture. I have said that the key to the convention is that it gives the government the flexibility to address new concerns as they arise.

The convention itself is based on two principles. First is the recognition in international law that cultural goods and services have both a social and an economic benefit. Second is that the governments have the right to put in place measures aimed at securing a diversity of cultural expressions. I do not see anything in those positions that suggests, as the motion as it is written does, that the policies Canada has in place are the only ones to be considered.

Let me say again to the House and to the hon. member that the UNESCO convention is about options and tools. Let me mention another of the tools the convention gives to governments. It recognizes in article 6 that governments have a legitimate role in supporting creativity, through measures aimed at facilitating the creation, production, distribution, promotion and conservation of cultural expressions.

It is important for cultural industries and creators because it offers them an international environment that fosters a dynamic exchange of their works.

This will protect the many programs that the government has in place to support our artists and creators. These programs include the Canada Council for the Arts which, I am pleased to remind the House, received $15 million in additional funding in the budget. This is a concrete contribution. This is not an empty promise aimed at little more than for political gain.

As I look at the hon. member's motion, I am somewhat taken aback by how timid it is, how little it thinks of Canadian artistic abilities. The motion seems always to call for restrictions and protection, but nowhere does it rise to a vision of the future, nowhere does it see a place for Canadian cultural to expand in the world.

One of the major principles in the UNESCO convention is that we should share our culture, the conviction that the world's culture will only benefit from diversity. The government will act to strengthen our cultural position in the world. It will not simply bolt the doors and live in darkness.

This motion carries with it a vision of stagnation. The hon. member wants to freeze our cultural policies in the past. By doing that, he will freeze our artists, and one thing that we do know about art is it cannot stand stagnation.

That is why I urge all members to oppose this motion and not deny the government the freedom guaranteed by the UNESCO convention on the protection and promotion of diversity of cultural expressions.

The government has proven its commitment to the arts. The government will continue to act to defend and strengthen Canada's arts community, to do what we need to create new policies where this motion ties us down to the same tired, old ideas of the party opposite.

It is a sad irony that the hon. member should present this backward-looking motion under cover of the UNESCO convention which does so much to free government to act.

Let me say again as I finish, that the motion, as written by the hon. member, would do nothing to protect Canada's culture and would probably do great damage to it in the future.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the parliamentary secretary. She began by suggesting the motion was too timid, which would suggest also that there was really no reason to oppose it other than it could have been a little stronger. Then she began to suggest that specific components of the motion were restrictive or were going to produce stagnation. I am wondering, as I look at the bottom part of the motion in terms of:

(a) existing Canadian cultural content requirements; (b) current restrictions on foreign ownership in the cultural sector; and (c) financial support for public broadcasting--

Which specific elements does she object to and how would she replace them with words which would be less timid or stagnating or whatever else? Would she give us some specifics?

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear what I meant by stagnation. We cannot be protectionist with borders surrounding our cultural artists and creators. If we begin closing doors, we will not allow them to be free with their artistic and cultural work. We must recognize the realities of the new world and the new technologies that were mentioned earlier, new technologies and new delivery platforms.

We must believe that the Canadian cultural content requirements, as written in this motion, would limit the ability to ensure that the cultural content requirements could be adjusted to meet the changing realities of many sectors. These sectors are changing and they will have to meet the new realities.

I heard members speak earlier about the CBC and I thought that it, too, did have a place in our culture. Then in Saskatchewan in particular, when it did not broadcast the brier properly, it lost that respect. We thought nobody should take the brier away from our Saskatchewan viewers. Who did it? This CBC that we are trying to protect. We might as well have given it to CTV and let CTV show us how to broadcast a brier for the viewers.

So I do not really think that by having this motion to restrict it is the way to go. We have to show some innovative and new ideas. That is what we are all about. We have a vision and that is to cut loose.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat stunned by the words of my colleague from the Conservative Party. I say to myself that there must remain an old Conservative attitude, which for us Quebeckers and for French speakers in Canada means a certain lack of respect.

What the motion proposes is a minimum. We are asking for a minimum of cultural content. We are asking for a struggle against Americanization, against assimilation, against the ethnocultural disappearance of the French language. We are asking for respect for the French fact from anglophones in terms of culture.

In the past, this party abolished French schools at the provincial level: in New Brunswick, for example, in Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan. It was not until 1995 that French schools once again became a reality in Saskatchewan, where I used to live. I am not surprised to see the Conservative Party here refuse something that is so essential to the struggle against assimilation.

What pride is there in criticizing a proposal that is actually looking ahead to make sure that the big American giant behind us, to the south of us, and everywhere, who is omnipresent, does not cause the Quebec identity, the Acadian identity and the identity of Canada’s other nations to disappear?

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I take offence to the member's comments. I happen to do a lot of things in Saskatchewan with the Francophonie communities and I believe strongly in those communities. My daughter is enrolled in a five week class at a university this summer in Quebec. I have a lot of things going on this summer and so does she, but she is taking five weeks out of her time to learn French.

It is not the Conservative government that has been blowing it in Saskatchewan. There is another government in power that has not made sure we have good teachers in French, so that French is universally taught in our province. It is because our province has cut back on teachers and we do not have teachers accessible.

I take real offence to the member's comments and I hope I never hear those again.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to rise in the House today to address the issues raised in the motion now before us.

I sat here through most of the day and listened with interest to the many points the member for Ottawa--Vanier and his colleagues opposite have made. They told interesting stories and raised lots of red herrings, but I would like to get to the key issues that the motion raises.

I think those issues are simple. On one side we have the member for Ottawa-Vanier who believes in the old policy framework: old ideas from a generation of Liberal rule. There is nothing new in this document. In fact, it is all about rejecting the new and the innovative. It seeks to deny the government the tools it needs to build new policy and programs. It seeks to keep Canadian culture safe in its little corner. The member wants our culture to stagnate.

The government rejects those arguments. We are committed to generating new ideas that will allow Canadian culture to compete in the new media order. In the digitally wired world we need new policies and new programs to encourage our artists. The government is committed to making Canada's artistic and cultural sector more successful and more vibrant. We will not be satisfied with the status quo when there is so much more to do. The member's vision is locked in the past.

I listened to the success stories by the members opposite and I applaud our artists for them, but I do not want to stand in the House in five years and hear the same stories being told again. I want to stand in this place and hear stories of bigger successes.

Let me speak for a moment about what the government has already done. In the budget there were two major moves that would affect the arts. The first one is traditional. We provided $50 million in new funding for the Canada Council for the Arts and the money will go to artists and no doubt it will bear fruit. I hope the member opposite will join me in applauding that commitment. The government received very good media for that move.

However, there was another initiative that did not get as much media ink. We made a tax change which means donations of publicly traded stocks will no longer be subjected to capital gains tax; tax changes that will have a significant impact on theatres like the Thousand Island Playhouse in my home town of Gananoque in my riding of Leeds--Grenville.

I am sure the members opposite are shaking their heads. This is not the sort of move that the hon. member's motion even bothers to mention. Perhaps many are wondering what good some arcane tax change will do. Let me say that one change has already brought in an estimated $60 million to arts organizations. Perhaps I should pause and repeat that figure: $60 million in the few short weeks since the budget. In case some members need to be reminded, that is $10 million more than the investment in the Canada Council for the Arts.

What hon. members may ask is, what is the likely bottom line on this move? In one year it is estimated that this simple tax change will generate between $300 million and $500 million more in donations to worthy organizations and none of it is tax dollars.

The government thinks that leveraging private money is both more innovative and more responsible than just spending. That is what I would call innovation. That is what I would call creating imaginative new policy tools. This is really going to help. That is what I would call responsible stewardship of public money.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of move that the member's motion would tend to discourage. It would tie the government to an old framework, the old status quo. Let me say it again, the old status quo is not good enough. We want to ensure money gets to our artists. We do not want our artists to remain dependent on government handouts. We do not want to support a huge cultural bureaucracy.

Canadians elected this government to deliver more and we will. All of my hon. colleagues would like to see policies in place that guarantee that Canada has a vibrant cultural landscape and that Canadian voices and music are heard and Canadian art is seen.

I say to the House, do not support a motion which seeks to deny the government flexibility in developing policies to support and nurture our cultural industries. The members on this side of the House support UNESCO and the convention on the protection and promotion of diversity of cultural expressions.

In fact, it was this government and this Prime Minister who made the historic move of allowing Quebec a presence at UNESCO. The Bloc and the Liberals both opposed the move to give Quebec an international role and to work cooperatively with the federal government.

This is the sort of imaginative and innovative policy the government has to be free to follow. On this side of the House we support our artistic communities and cultural industries. In fact, we believe in strengthening the opportunities for these sectors both at home and internationally.

In many cases, the existing programs and policies are already out of step with the new realities of the cultural world. Experts tell us that the pace of change will only increase.

For that reason, we will need to develop and implement new policies. I believe the government can make things better. In order to support the artistic and cultural sector in Canada, we need to move forward recognizing the realities of the new world. We can strengthen the confidence of all Canadians giving them more than the old platitudes and rhetoric.

We on this side have always supported and continue to support Canadian content on our airwaves, in our broadcasts and across our cultural and artistic sector. What I cannot support is the suggestion that we need to maintain our roles as is. This is a recipe for Canada's artists to be bypassed by a world when direct downloading, file sharing and other new technologies make the old boundaries unsure.

We are committed to creating policies that will allow Canadians to take the lead in the new technologies and not get left behind. Regulation is only part of the story. We also need to address the programs that support Canadian culture and artists. The government is committed to working with artists and creators to ensure that the money we spend to support them goes to the people who need it.

Our government is implementing solutions, not just talking about them and not simple maintaining the status quo. The government is committed to ensuring we can improve Canadian access to the airwaves in the 21st century. We have to ask ourselves how Canadian content rules are affected by radio, over the Internet, direct downloads of television programming or the many other technical changes that are coming.

As the realities of these industries change we must examine and change our policies. The status quo is not good enough. We will build on our past successes. The government's vision is of a Canadian cultural community that grows and that does not rest on its laurels.

Maintaining current restrictions on foreign ownership in the cultural sector does not allow us the flexibility that may be needed in the new media world to take advantage of the opportunities presented by new technologies.

There have been calls for changes to the existing foreign ownership restrictions in broadcasting, particularly for cable and satellite service providers. The best way to ensure that there is Canadian content on the airwaves is not only through regulation, although regulation has its part, it is through ensuring there is a vital broadcasting system.

The government believes in finding a place for Canadian voices on the airwaves and we believe that those voices must be heard but there is also a place for healthy competition on the airwaves. We do not believe in monopolies. We believe in necessary government regulation but we do not believe all regulation is a good thing.

We want to encourage Canadian talent so that it wins a place on the world's airwaves. We will invest in artists to ensure they can reach a level of excellence that sees the world coming to our doors and to their doors.

We on this side support long term stable funding for the CBC. We believe that the CBC has to be relevant for Canadians. Our public broadcaster faces some fundamental challenges. I learned a lot about those challenges when I sat on the heritage committee in the 38th Parliament. These challenges have worsened by 13 years of cuts and neglect by the party opposite. The CBC will remain Canada's public broadcaster but it must cease to drift and it must plan ahead. We will ensure that will happen in cooperation with the industry and with the public.

I again thank the member for Ottawa—Vanier for presenting the motion. The debate has been very interesting and informative for all of us and for all Canadians. It has only made me more sure that the motion would lead to stagnation for Canada's arts.

We on this side have a new vision. We support our artists. We want artists to succeed. We will act rather than talk. We will innovate rather than accept that things cannot get better. That is why I cannot support the motion.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a short comment on the importance of the CBC to the north and ask a short question.

The Liberal government provided $1 billion to the CBC. In my area it has been an instrumental public broadcaster. It gives a lot of announcements about NGOs. It has helped to promote many of the charities for which I have worked and it has helped local talent who in no other way would have a forum.

With great broadcasters, such as Les McLaughlin, great stories have been told of our history and culture in the north, stories of the first nations, the steam paddlewheelers, the gold rush and on Robert Service. Sadly, Robert Service's mother died in France in the last couple of weeks. She was a wonderful lady and I pay tribute to her.

My question is related to the extension in the rural areas. Unfortunately, some areas in the north cannot be reached by broadcast signals and, in the harsh climate of the north, this can be very dangerous and critical as it relates to weather, ice breakups and things like that.

Would the member support the efforts of myself and Don Taylor, a former speaker of the Yukon legislature who lives in the bush and who has been trying hard for a number of years to ensure the service is extended around the Watson Lake area and in the rural parts of the north that cannot get the CBC signal at the moment? It would require that investment.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question because it goes to the heart of what the CBC is about, which is the stories in terms of television and radio. It has some excellent programming that otherwise would not be told. Extending the service to some of the more remote parts of Canada would definitely be an important part of that mandate.

I sat on the heritage committee last year and we heard from the president and various vice-presidents of the CBC a number of times. We asked them how much money they would need to improve the service but they could not really tell us. They obviously wanted more money but we needed to review it. That is an important part of where we go with the CBC and this government is committed to reviewing that.

Studies have been undertaken in the past but I do not think the CBC is serving Canadians as well as it might. We should get to the heart of what it should be doing, defining its role and ensuring it can do it well, and doing exactly what the hon. member on the other side is talking about.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my Conservative colleague stated earlier that the Bloc Québécois was against Quebec's presence in UNESCO. Well, he was mistaken. I want him to know that. I would like to ask him the following question.

Why did they not apply the logic of the Belgian model? When the Flemish and the Walloons agree on a point, Belgium votes in favour of a position. When they disagree, Belgium abstains or simply does not take a stand. This is how we viewed Quebec's participation in UNESCO.

I will repeat my question. Why not go the distance to truly give Quebec a clear, distinct and specific voice within UNESCO, and not have it just sit on the sidelines?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that Quebec did not want that power. We heard the Bloc and the Liberals say that they do not support Quebec having a role at UNESCO.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, that comment is not true. The Liberals did support that and the Conservative government essentially officiated what we had started.

In response to the question from my colleague from Yukon, he recognized that CBC does not need less money. The sense of this motion is that in terms of public broadcasting in this country, we are recommending to the House that we do not offer less funding but that it is at least stable.

Since the member has recognized that the CBC does not need less, would he agree that at least that portion of the motion he supports?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not catch all of the question from the hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier but we are in favour of continued support and working with the CBC to ensure that it does serve Canadians.

The fact is that much of this motion will stagnate culture in our country. We cannot support the motion because it does not allow for that innovation. Had it allowed for that, obviously we would have had much more ability to support it.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the debate I was wondering why such a self-evident proposition as has been put forward in our motion would even need debate, but having heard the last two speakers I now realize why we need to do so.

As a former historian I would like to remind the House why we went into the cultural policies we have and then deal with the arguments presented, both by the parliamentary secretary for human resources and the member for Leeds--Grenville.

It is worth considering that the history of Canada was never a total accident. In fact, it was John Ralston Saul who reminds us that it was a “series of great strategic acts which have created Canada”, and those strategic acts extend to things like culture and broadcasting.

Some people have called these national projects the deliberate creation of a project that could not be done without all of society pulling together. Confederation would be such a national project. Other national projects would be the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the creation of the CBC in the 1930s, and the way in which the country came together to fight in World War I and again in World War II to defeat the enemy. A series of great projects existed after the war, the great infrastructure projects of the 1950s, with the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the building of the Trans-Canada Highway, the microwave system, medicare and, in recent times, the great national project of building a human rights regime in this country.

The great national cultural project after the second world war had several components to it. First there was what happened to public broadcasting with the coming of television in the 1950s and the way in which the government initially responded by creating a televised component on the CBC. We then had the Massey-Levesque report in the early 1950s in which the whole nature of Canadian culture was surveyed and two challenges were identified: first, how to preserve a Canadian culture in the face of American competition so close to us; and second, how to recognize the diversity of that culture, le caractère bilingue et biculturel?

Out of that came deliberate government policy in the late 1950s, specifically the creation of the Canada Council itself which helped to shape the cultural landscape we have today. It was not done by accident. It was not done by the marketplace. It recognized the market failures of both of those.

I was going to add two other components. There was the creation of the CRTC to regulate all broadcasting in this country and telephony. Then I would add 1967 as a year in which we deliberately as provinces and as a national government created many of the theatres and cultural spaces that we still enjoy today, including of course the National Arts Centre here in Ottawa.

Looking back on those heroic days we can say it has been a huge national success. Canadian content has flourished. Our popular music is flourishing, which was precisely possible because we created a space for Canadian artists on Canadian airwaves. It comes down now to such celebrations as the east coast music festival which will be known to many.

At the same time, it was important for serious music to be supported by the state, whether it was the creative act which the parliamentary secretary referred to as part of the UNESCO definition, which led to the support of composers like the late Harry Freedman, the late Harry Somers, John Weinsweig, and Alexina Louie, for example, but also the great artists who have been supported by the Canada Council over the years. I think of pianists like Louis Lortie and the tremendous singers who have been sponsored and supported by state sponsored organizations and cultural institutions, such as the great generation of singers we are enjoying these days from Isabel Bayrakdarian to Ben Heppner to Richard Marginson.

Theatre in this country has been enriched by the fact that there is a theatre section of the Canada Council. Theatres which exist in the ridings of most members present are not there by accident; they are there by an act of support. The symphony orchestras, the festivals, the ballets, the dance companies, the novelists who 40 years ago were not making their way internationally but now through support by the Canada Council are doing so. We are seeing the flourishing of the Cirque du Soleil which spawned its own theatre school.

There have been failures of course. We have had real challenges in the feature film industry outside of Quebec.

Here is the question: Do we need, as we propose, to continue to support Canadian culture and Canadian content as the motion suggests and do we need to continue to support public broadcasting and ownership rules and content rules for all the other broadcasters, or has the landscape sufficiently changed?

I would argue if I may divide that question in two that the great Canadian cultural institutions do need to continue. What does the Government of Canada do? It sponsors the great training facilities in this country like the National Theatre School in Montreal, the National Ballet School whose new building I happened to tour last Friday in Toronto, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Banff School of Fine Arts. All of these are supported by the Government of Canada and without which we will not have the creativity called for in the UNESCO convention.

We need to support our other major cultural institutions, whether it is the theatre, the symphony, the opera, the ballet, the art galleries, the museums, the libraries because that is what civilized countries do. That is what happens in places like Europe which gives us the tremendous density of culture and the tremendous richness of urban life in those places. This is the price we pay, our taxation for civilization.

Canadian broadcasting is also something which will continue to need support in the face of the technological challenges which the members opposite have referred to. It is true that the Internet will be challenging, but I did not hear any answer about how that challenge would be met by the people opposite. We need to allow Canadians to find themselves wherever they are and in whatever medium. If we allow the law of private broadcasting to dominate, the law of the marketplace, we cannot guarantee that success.

We need not only a place for Canadian content but also a place for unusual, challenging, experimental, and indeed, unpopular broadcasting. That is why we have a public broadcaster. In short, we need a space for Canadians to breathe.

Canada is a country which was created on purpose and which needs to continue to be created deliberately. If we are going to continue to protect cultural diversity, to protect Canadian culture, we have to support this motion.

When I consider the arguments of the parliamentary secretary, which I find passing strange, the notion that somehow or other freedom is limited by this motion, I ask, which parts of this motion limit the freedom of Canadian artists to be supported by their government, limit the freedom to have air time on Canadian radio stations? I do not understand how it limits in any way the ability of those artists to perform their art outside the country.

The parliamentary secretary said that we cannot be protectionist, that we cannot protect. Again I ask her, how are Canadian artists hindered by this motion? What gets in their way because we happen to protect them and nurture them until they are in a position to strike out perhaps in a commercial fashion? What are the restrictions that she can allude to in detail and precision that really are hampering our Canadian artists?

She suggested and I quote, I think, “this motion will limit our ability to meet new realities”. How does that work? How does the nurturing and protection of Canadian artists limit their abilities in Canada or anywhere else?

The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville suggested that there was an incompatibility between the motion as presented and the new tax changes which have been brought in, in the latest budget, to encourage Canadian donors to be more generous with their stocks and be given favourable tax treatment in return. I would remind the hon. member that this was a policy which began with the Liberal government and which is not in any way inconsistent with the thrust of this motion.

I challenge the member for Leeds—Grenville to outline in detail how it is that this tax policy which encourages greater generosity on the part of Canadian donors is in any way constrained or restricted by Canadian content rules or foreign ownership rules. It simply encourages greater philanthropy. There is no connection. There is no decline of flexibility as he suggested.

The hon. member said that we cannot support things as they are, that we have to take a lead in new technologies. I would ask the hon. member to get precise information before we throw out the content rules and the ownership rules which deal with existing technologies. Before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, what exactly would we have to change? Until we know what that is, why would we not leave in place those things which have worked so successfully for us?

I would raise the same point when he talked about Canadian content on the Internet. He said that we need to change policy. Fine, we will change policy, but until we change policy why would we fail to protect the existing instruments which have served us so well over the last 40 or 50 years?

The motion in no way limits the ability to change in the future, but we do not wish to change without knowing exactly what we are changing to.

The same is true of the remarks he made on foreign ownership. He said that there is no flexibility. Once again, why would we not leave in place foreign ownership restrictions until we know exactly what the import of changes would be? What is it we would lose and what is it we would gain? No flexibility is impaired by this until those changes are proposed.

What I see in this motion is quite simply the fact that it is a rather, dare I say, conservative motion. It is a motion which says that before the government does something radical and before it changes things, it should tell us what those things are. Do not simply ask us to take it on faith and throw away the very policies which have nurtured both Canadian culture and Canadian broadcasting for the past 50 years and simply trust the government. No, we will not.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for taking us on a stroll down memory lane. Some of the comments and some of the questions he brought up are not even addressed in the motion. There is so much missing from this motion.

Having said that and putting that aside, there are a couple of things, item (a) and item (c), which I could probably go along with in the motion. Item (c) is a particular concern of mine, being from a rural riding in New Brunswick, where the CBC has a significant impact on the rural programming as well as in the francophone area of the riding.

This is very important for the Acadians and the Brayons in the northwest region.

For my riding, that is a very important deal.

When it comes to item (b), does the hon. member really believe that we can guarantee success? Does he also believe that item (b) is really the only way to ensure access to capital that will allow our cultural sector to grow?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, of course nobody can guarantee success, that is true. What we can do is guarantee failure.

If we do not have some regime which says there is something more than the marketplace and something more than the American marketplace which will be reflected in our public broadcasting, and in our broadcasting system taken together, both public and private, I am not sure that the provision of capital by foreign investors will in any way guarantee Canadian content. Why should it? The people who would be investing, who would take a majority ownership position, would do so not for our sake, but for their sake. They would do so to maximize profit as that is their job, not to serve us in any way, not to have any sense of the public commitment which is implied under the CRTC and the Broadcasting Act.

I cannot guarantee success but I sure can guarantee failure if we take the line suggested by the hon. member. I am glad he is on side for items (a) and (c). That is two-thirds of it and I am looking forward to his support.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear our Liberal colleague speak further about the importance of today's subject and the reason why we should absolutely not listen to what the Conservatives are saying, particularly the last item calling for guarantees. To ask for guarantees is to admit a certain weakness. It leads me to believe that action will never be taken on the pretext that—and it is indeed a pretext—we have no guarantees. Our main function is to act without necessarily having these guarantees. Otherwise, this could prevent us from taking action that would improve the situation of the French fact in North America in particular.

I would like to give my colleague the opportunity to further develop his arguments so that the Conservatives opposite will listen to reason and understand the real reason why we must support the motion put forward today.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we seem to have two opposing philosophies before us. I must say that the Conservative philosophy remains rather obscure for now, yet we can nevertheless make out certain aspects or hints in the comments made so far.

To answer my colleague, I would say that it is precisely because of this vagueness. We hear talk of new technologies and flexibility. We are told that it is old fashioned, as though it were outdated, although what we are not being told is what will serve to replace this system of protecting Canadian culture and French culture in Canada.

This is particularly important to Quebec. Quebec's situation is the same as Canada's, only even more so, I would say. It is precisely to protect the French language in Quebec and throughout Canada that such rules exist.

When I hear all of this rhetoric on flexibility and new technologies, I tell myself that these are only details. I have absolutely no faith in our future. For now, I remain conservative, as it were, in terms of the regulation and protection of culture, whether in Quebec or Canada.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the past week a very prominent Canadian passed away. He would have been very interested in the debate this afternoon. Bernard Ostry was a public servant for a long time in Ottawa and in Toronto. He specialized in cultural policy. He was well known for his work in the areas of telecommunications policy and communications, culture and multiculturalism policy. National museums was also an area in which he worked. For a long time he was the head of TV Ontario. If he were still with us today, he would have been very interested in the discussion today.

I want to pass on my condolences to his wife Dr. Sylvia Ostry and to his children Adam and Jonathan.

Given the outstanding contribution of Mr. Ostry to communications and cultural policy in Canada, could the hon. member reflect for a moment on the contributions of public servants to the development of that policy over many years?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to do that and I would be pleased to do so with specific reference to Bernard Ostry, whose funeral I attended in Toronto on Friday. It was an extraordinary manifestation of a great life.

Here was a person who had done many things in the Public Service of Canada. He covered many dossiers, but culture and broadcasting were really his forte. His far-seeing vision of the impact of new technologies on public broadcasting in our country goes back to the 1960s and 1970s. Things that he wrote in 1975 have a prophetic air to them.

It is precisely because we have great public servants like Bernard Ostry, who served both the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario when he was head of TVO, and his wife Sylvia, who is the leading trade expert in the country and his children, particularly Adam Ostry, who works in the cultural field, that we have been able to have these deliberate policies. These policies have taken us forward. They have anticipated the changes which have come across in the multi-channel universe of over the air broadcasting in the early fifties. At that time, the United States had three channels and Canada had a couple.

We have gone through a total revolution. It is precisely because we have been well served by people like Bernard Ostry and the rest of his family that we have been able to anticipate change and introduce, in a thoughtful and intelligent way, the kinds of regulations which have allowed us to keep up and demonstrate the flexibility, which has been asked of us by the Conservative government. I ask the government to once again demonstrate flexibility and support this motion.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, during my colleague's speech, he mentioned a few ideas in relation to how current subsidies could not have a negative impact on any cultural sector. I want to point out one specific sector that I feel subsidies could impact in a negative way.

My colleague might be familiar with Telefilm Canada, which grew to some prominence under his regime. It has many requirements for filmmakers to receive subsidies. Many forms need to be filled out to get funding for a film. However, one requirement that is not asked for is quality of script. Almost any 100 pages could be submitted and funding would be received. This points out that if we want to simply push support in a certain area, there are times when that support will lose sight of the end goal.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take the hon. member's point. In my historical overview, while saying we had huge success in some areas, and I outlined everything from classical music to pop music to art galleries and the rest, I did say that one of the areas which we have been less successful in is precisely the one the parliamentary secretary referred to, which is the feature film business.

Why do we not have more Canadian feature films of quality? I totally accept the premise that quality is important. Why is there so little screen time? This has been a subject of a lot of consideration. Is it the distribution system? Is there some kind of monopoly which is organized by those who screen the films? Is it a plot or is it the nature of the film business, which is an increasingly international one? It is pretty hard sometimes to tell what a film is in terms of content.

I certainly accept the criticism because it is one I have made myself. This is an area where the nature of filmmaking has changed. It is worthy of those who happen to be lucky enough to be on the heritage committee to spend some time thinking about that.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today, even though the debate is coming to an end.

As industry critic, I have attended meetings of both the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage over the past few years. I realized there was significant concern that the government, Liberal at the time, now Conservative, might dismiss rules about foreign ownership in telecommunications, and in all cultural industries.

I think that the motion before us today is a heartfelt appeal from Parliament and from people who feel that danger is on our doorstep. The threat is related to the report on telecommunications released a month or two ago that suggested we do away with all of the rules governing foreign ownership controls in telecommunications. This would be very dangerous for Canada's cultural industry.

We must understand—and this is the part of the motion that I find most interesting—that if we want to throw out foreign ownership rules, we can only apply these arguments to physical aspects of the business. Telecommunications companies transmit and broadcast signals. In this sector, we cannot differentiate between the people who deal with medium and those who deal with the message. There is no difference between the medium and the message.

The best examples of this are American companies, which produce a lot of cable television and radio. For these companies, Quebec and Canada are small markets onto which they can dump their products at minimal cost. Our own companies cannot compete.

We must therefore make sure that we do not adopt the recommendations on abolishing the rules governing foreign ownership in the telecommunications sector. The motion before us is a step in this direction. This pleases me and seems appropriate, especially since the motion begins with a reminder that Canada ratified the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. If that has any meaning, if Canada ratified a convention in order to put forward logical policies, then this motion must be passed today.

Throughout Quebec and Canada, people who do not share the government's views are making themselves heard. They realize that this is a minority government and that its positions on some issues do not enjoy a broad consensus or even majority support. The Kyoto protocol is one example, and today we have another example. The result of this evening's vote will be one of the decisions that people will have to answer for during the next election.

If the government decides to vote against a motion such as this one, if it decides to lift the rules on foreign ownership of telecommunications companies, if it ensures that our cultural industry is likened to any other sector where shoes or other products are sold, without considering the uniqueness of culture, it will have made a serious error.

I would like to talk more specifically about film, the subject raised earlier. A number of questions were raised regarding Quebec cinema. Why is cinema flourishing in Quebec? Why have we managed to develop a star system? Why do our films appear in the theatres and compete with American films? Why do our films attract as many if not more people than American films? It is because, in Quebec, we have developed a way to help the industry. We have not abandoned it. We did not consider it competition or just like any other sector. We did not say that people had to be left to produce films and the public would go to see Quebec films if they liked them, but if the public preferred English Canadian or American films they would go to see those. Instead, we created a structure and a means of support that took the situation and Quebec culture into account. In the end, it paid off.

In terms of Canada and the other provinces, they do speak the same language as the United States, but if the restrictions were lifted, things would be even worse. I think no more films would be produced in English Canada if a total invasion of this industrial sector were permitted.

When we have a motion like this one telling us that we have to protect current requirements for Canadian cultural content, maintain current restrictions on foreign ownership in culture, and continue to fund radio and television in both official languages, it is clear that these are essential elements of a cultural policy.

Obviously, Quebec has some huge advantages here and has taken on the responsibility of protecting Quebeckers, the nation of Quebec, in North America and around the world. But as long as Quebec is part of Canada, we must ensure that Canada's policies recognize this culture.

We cannot go through two, five or ten years of deregulation, then realize what a devastating effect it has had on our production and try to go back and reinstitute adequate regulations.

Here is the best example I can give: for a very long time, when rules concerning French-language music content were proposed, there was a considerable uproar in Quebec. However, it was soon realized that, when music gets airtime and people hear it, they buy records. That also encourages people to make records, which then produces results for Quebec. The Cowboys Fringants, a band with roots in Quebec culture, received considerable support, which has led to results in terms of popularity and records sales. They would not be as popular without this obligation to include francophone content in music.

If it had been decided to promote only the listeners' favourite music, before gradually conducting surveys on the impact of what is happening outside of Quebec or Canada, we would have seen an anglicization of the air waves.

We see this in the danger presented by satellite radio. Regulation is inadequate in this sector and we can foresee the difficulty facing the market at the end of the day.

Therefore, the Bloc Québécois supports this motion. It seems to us, however, that Quebec will be much better equipped to defend Quebec culture.

The regulation of broadcasting and telecommunications is deemed essential, and it is believed that the most serious harm to Canadian content was caused by the Liberals when they approved satellite radio. It is quite paradoxical that the Liberal party is tabling today a motion that forces the defence and protection of cultural content given that, when in power, the Liberals had adopted measures having the opposite effect. However, if their move to the other side of the House has given them the opportunity to get back in touch with the people and to realize that such actions are necessary, such is the effect of democracy, which can lead to interesting results.

I hope that this evening, in this House, a vast majority will vote in favour of this motion. I hope that it will be reflected in the government's actions. Otherwise, this will be yet another instance where the people give the government a clear message that it has failed to respect the will of the majority represented here by the opposition parties.