Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his great speech today. I learned something about this issue and he presented it very well. I am glad the NDP has a critic for digital and copyright issues. He has been doing great work.
I am also pleased to support his private member's bill, Bill C-499, extending the private copying levy to music players, because it is a technical adjustment that makes great sense and honours a very Canadian solution to the whole question of how we fairly remunerate artists for the work they do. It is one that has been tried and tested and has proven itself to be true to the principle of making sure artists are paid for their creations.
There have been, as he points out, some very disingenuous attempts to question the direction the committee is proposing and he is proposing in his private member's legislation. The scaremongering about the cost of this is one thing the Conservatives have done, completely misrepresenting what is actually proposed and what would be implemented.
Also, there has been a failure to understand the difference between a levy, which is completed dedicated to a specific purpose, in this case supporting the incomes of artists, and a tax that goes into the general revenue of the government. In the earlier part of the debate, Conservative members constantly came back to that issue and misunderstood the difference.
I wonder if the member might comment a little more about how fans perceive this, fans who appreciate the work of artists and frequently listen to it. How do they perceive the idea of finding a mechanism to ensure that the people who they appreciate by listening to their music are fairly remunerated for the work they have done in creating that music?