Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have ever seen the parliamentary secretary to a Minister of Canadian Heritage turn his back on artists. So much for his credibility.
Someone else who has lost all credibility is the Minister of Industry. He stated on the CBC on December 3 that he had downloaded 10,000 songs to his iPod. Yet he still refuses to say whether he paid for all 10,000 musical files.
Will the industry minister admit that what is “totally inappropriate”, as he said, is not paying royalties and, instead, stealing the work of artists, whether he does it once or 10,000 times?