Debates of April 13th, 2010

CONTROLLED DRUGS AND SUBSTANCES ACT

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, April 14, immediately before the time provided for private members' business.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe if you were to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to see the clock at 6:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from March 26 consideration of the motion.

Canadian Heritage

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud tonight to rise in the House as the spokesperson for the New Democratic Party on digital issues, as the spokesperson on issues of culture, and as the representative of the great and massive riding of Timmins--James Bay.

The concurrence motion brought before us tonight is a motion that was adopted by the heritage committee. I have been on the heritage committee for six years. This committee works very well together generally. Bloc members worked with New Democrats and Liberals and the Conservative chair of our committee. We felt that this issue needed to be brought forward to the House to bring awareness to the situation. The motion is very similar to my Bill C-499, which I brought forward in the House two weeks ago. At that time I also brought forward Motion No. 506.

In some ways we are talking about a technical change to the Copyright Act. Some folks might question how much of the minutia of the Copyright Act needs to be discussed. This concurrence motion and my bill would bring forward a discussion about a principle, and that is what I am going to speak to tonight.

Basically, we are discussing the existence of the Canadian private copying levy, which has existed in Canada for a number of years. My Bill C-499 would update the Copyright Act to ensure that this great Canadian success story continues on.

We started to see the changing dynamics of the cultural scene. People had cassettes and were starting to make copies of music for themselves and for their friends. Artists were questioning where the copyright was in this. Copyright refers to the right to make copies. They were questioning who was allowed to make copies.

One hundred years ago it was a very simple thing to make a copy with a printing press. It was the same when records were made. I made a number of albums back in my younger days and to make the lacquer of a record is not an easy thing to do. It was an expensive investment, so controlling copies was very simple. Then technology changed and everyone could make copies. The whole question of where to go with copyright arose.

Canada came up with a compromise at that time. People knew that copying was going on. As a former professional musician, I would say that some of that copying was good because musicians certainly wanted other people to hear their music. Their fans wanted to hear their music. People made cassettes. The question was raised: How were artists going to be remunerated? The private copying levy came into being.

For every cassette that was bought, 5¢, 10¢ or 15¢ was put into a fund and that fund paid the artists for the copies that were being made of their work. When cassettes went the way of the dinosaur and we moved into burnable CDs the levy was extended. A problem came up with the technical gap. People are no longer making burnable CDs. Now everything is on the iPod and it can hold anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 songs.

Supporters of the levy and the artists fully expected the principle of the levy to be continued. This principle was supported by the Liberal government when in power and has been supported by two administrations of the Conservative government. It was felt that this was a fair and reasonable response. However, the Federal Court said the Copyright Act did not specifically identify music players, and we had to have a technical change to the act.

Today's motion for concurrence makes the House aware of the need to update the levy to take into account the technological changes. My Bill C-499 addresses the need to update the levy so that it applies to the iPod so that artists could continue to get paid.

I also brought in at the same time Motion No. 506, which proposes another technical change to the Copyright Act. My motion addresses the ability of students and researchers to access materials in their classroom, and to update the law and make it very clear.

The Copyright Act is so burdensome in some ways because every time there is a new technological change a fight breaks out, and it creates some problems. For example, under the Copyright Act it actually says that it is legal to take an easel and a marker in a classroom and write a quote. That is a very fastidious approach to copyright, so the motion was to say we need, as technological change happens faster and faster, to be able to adapt to the realities and how people are using copyrighted materials so that people have access.

This is the issue we are here to talk about. It is not so much the technological changes, but the principle that if we are to have copyright in the 21st century, it has to maintain the traditional balance of copyright. Copyright has existed since the 1700s. It has been identified in Parliament after Parliament, in the United States, in Canada and in Europe, as a principle that the state accepts that authors have a certain control of their work, but at the same time, there is a public good to this work.

What good is the work if it is kept in a drawer and we cannot access it? The public good has to be allowed to have access to that work. That was the principle on which copyright was founded. We have seen numerous technological changes since the 1700s, but we are in a brand new environment in terms of the speed at which copying is taking place.

The other fundamental change that has happened since the mid-1990s is that, I would argue, almost everyone is in some way involved in copyright because students are copying materials, people are downloading songs, people are making their own projects, things that they technologically would not have been able to do.

We have two solutions to this dilemma. We can either continue to find ways to compensate artists and allow access, or we can try to shut it down, litigate and lock down. My Conservatives friends live in a nuance-free zone. They tend to be tough on crime or fight the tax, so they have been in a bit of a schizophrenic, unsure position on where they stand with copyright.

For example, I was rather surprised when we talked about the levy and the fact that two Conservative administrations had supported the levy, which has been a long-standing principle, to see the Minister of Canadian Heritage denounce it as a job killer, one of those socialist schemes, a tax, and that the Conservatives would fight this tax.

He said that this was a real threat. Then he said that they would fight this tax every single step of the way. If one has to say everything one knows about copyright in 140 characters or less, one could say this levy is a real threat, but I was somewhat flabbergasted that a levy, that a principle that has existed and his government supported for two terms, is such a threat that it had to be fought.

There is an attempt to dumb down discussions in Canadian political life, and my colleagues in the Conservative Party have been masters at dumbing everything down. The Conservatives get down on tough on crime things, they send out their ten percenters and they denounce people. I was wondering, how will this attack on the killer tax play out with Joe Average? Here is the National Post response to the Conservative line on the copyright levy. It said, “The government's nonsensical 'Boo! Hiss! No new taxes!' response...is just dumb”.

That is the National Post, a newspaper that does not tend to give the NDP too much of an easy ride on any given day. This is interesting from the Edmonton Journal. It said:

While this mild tweaking of an existing statute seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise, to hear the [Conservative] government tell it, it's the Boston Tea Party circa 2010. [The] Industry Minister, misrepresenting its contents, denounced the bill as "totally nonsensical".

What the Edmonton Journal was referring to was that the Conservatives misrepresented what is involved with the iPod levy. They immediately started throwing numbers around, saying that this is $75 on everything we buy, every computer we buy, every phone we buy. The bill is very clear. It is not that and they would know from meeting with the private copying levy that the last time the levy came before the Federal Court, there was talk about a levy of $2 to $5 to maybe $10 on very large items. That is a fairly reasonable compromise to most Canadians.

It was interesting that the Edmonton Journal pointed out that the industry minister, rather than responding to a levy that the Conservatives already supported, misrepresented it.

However, the heritage minister is singled out as well. The heritage minister, who we might think would defend creators, also distorted the levy. Railing oddly, talking as if it included the levy on BlackBerrys, iPhones and laptops, which it does not and railing “that consumers deserve lower, not higher taxes.

The Edmonton Journal, in the great city of Edmonton, in the beautiful province of Alberta, said, “This is fair and balanced, worthy of support. It continued:

The Tories are clearly playing pandering politics; let's hope the other opposition parties -- and independently-minded Conservatives -- sign on to a thoughtful compromise that upholds basic Canadian values of straight dealing.

That is the larger picture. I am encouraging my colleagues in the Conservative Party not to always pander down to the most dumbed-down response, “It is a killer tax and we are going to fight it”. I am giving them the chance to remember that this is a levy that they have supported.

Interestingly, the heritage minister came before our committee. The Liberals asked him if a fee was a tax because they were trying to get at what is a levy and what is a tax? The heritage minister asked if they were talking about the iPod tax, and they asked again if a fee was a tax?

The minister said that it depends on its purpose and it depends on how it is used, and it depends on who they were talking to. He said, for example, that if people are paying a fee for an ongoing service, like air security charges, which the government has downloaded, that it might not be, but I think people might disagree. He said that if it is dedicated in an envelope and it is transparent for that envelope, it may not be seen that way, as a tax.

That is what the levy is. The levy is transparent, dedicated money. It does not come to the government. The government never touches this money. It goes to artists. Our minister of heritage is maybe feeling a little uncomfortable about having gone out so far on a tax.

We have to talk about where we are going and we have to have an adult conversation about copyright because there are really only two solutions. There is a way that we compensate artists or we start to litigate, and we start to go after the consumers and the users. That approach will not work. We only have to look at the United States where it is suing single mothers, high school students, and an 83-year-old lady in an old folks home for supposedly downloading songs. That is not a coherent cultural policy and it is not a defensible policy.

We see the attack on consumers that the Conservatives railed in the last Bill C-61. They deliberately blurred the distinction between counterfeit and personal use. If people broke the digital lock on their iPhone because they did not like the package they had and wanted to go somewhere else, well they were technically criminals. Or, if they had bought a CD and could not back it up to their iPod and they wanted to break that digital lock, the Conservatives treated them, the average consumers back home, the same as they would treat an international counterfeiting ring.

That is bizarre. That is an attack not just on consumers but it is an attack on artists because artists want to work with their fans. Knowing the Canadian music scene as well as I do, there is a special relationship between artists and fans in Canada because we are small markets and we have to support our artists.

We need to have this discussion about how we are going to compensate because I believe and our party, the New Democratic Party, believes that the Internet has created the opportunity for probably one of the most, if not the most, exciting democratic grassroots cultural exchange that has ever been imagined.

People are able to engage each other. People are sharing ideas. People are actively engaged. There are two threats to what exists on the Internet right now. The first threat is the corporate threat, the lobbyists who do not like citizens deciding what they want to watch and how they want to watch it and what kind of content. That is the approach that we see now with the secret ACTA negotiations that this Conservative government is engaged in.

Now under the ACTA negotiations, the government would make the ISP, the cable provider back home, liable for what consumers download, and the ISP could be sued. What do members think that would do for innovation in this country?

It would shut it down immediately because the cable guy would be too afraid to let people mess around if he was not sure. They would not even need the threat of copyright action. They could shut someone down. This is the three-strikes-and-you-are-out provision.

The Conservatives have not told the consumers back home and all the little people they claim to support that the negotiations that are going on internationally would create provisions that would make it possible for three violations of copyright. Maybe our son or nephew has sent a song for us to listen to. That could be a violation of copyright. Three times and we would be denied access to the Internet, period, without going to court, without going to trial. I think this would be very invasive.

We see this approach and, again, we see the approach of the Recording Industry Association of America that is launching millions of dollars of lawsuits against individuals. That is not a reasonable response.

This is the corporate threat to the Internet, the attempt to lock down, to deny access, to make digital lock sacrosanct. That is a serious threat to the development of the cultural commons that is being created.

However I would say there is another threat, and I think this is a threat that civil society needs to look at. We talk about digital citizens and the rights of the digital citizen, but if citizens do not take the responsibility as a citizen, that is as much a threat to the development of a cultural commons.

If citizens believe, if individuals believe, that the great works that are created, the music, the books, the films that are being created by our wonderful creators, can be just taken anytime we want without anybody ever getting paid, that is a destruction of our cultural heritage.

I have met many of these digital libertarians and many of them I like and I get along with very well, but I would argue that there is nothing countercultural about taking the work that artists create. I have had people say to me that artists are living in a dead business model; they should develop a new business model.

There is nothing new in the business model of having to sell T-shirts to pay for the gas to get to one's next show. Artists have been doing that for years. There is nothing new in the business model of having to hawk buttons, bumper stickers and whatever else. Artists do this anyway, because artists barely make a living at the best of times. However artists put a lot of effort into that music and they put an investment of their future into it.

We can talk to many artists. They do not want to sue their fans. They do not want a war with their fans. They are just saying, “Find a way that we can share our music and we can be compensated”.

This past winter the great U.K. rocker Billy Bragg came here to Parliament Hill. Billy Bragg was speaking for the musicians of England and many musicians all over the world and he said, “When music is played, artists should get paid”. It is a fundamental principle.

Billy Bragg was saying he did not support the corporate attack on fans. He did not support the locking down of his music. He wanted people to be able to share his music and to hear it, but that he wanted to be able to continue doing what he has done so well and that it has to have a remuneration factor to it.

The alternatives we are looking at tonight are these. One model is whether we continue to go down the road with the Conservative government that has no plan, no vision for a true digital economy, who are engaged in secret ACTA negotiations that would penalize and criminalize average citizens, that would lock down content and make it impossible for researchers, for students, music fans to be able to access works without having to worry whether they need to see a lawyer. The other progressive model is to say we know there is sharing going on, we know there is all kinds of trading, and some of this is good because it is creating new business ideas out there and we want to support the new business models that are coming. However, we want to ensure artists are compensated. That is a fair and reasonable solution.

It is not an enormous amount of money when we divide up how many songs are being put on iPods. It is a fairly reasonable amount.

We have an opportunity in the House to say that, as various members, we can agree to some fundamental principles. One of those principles is that artists have a right to be remunerated for their works.

I will say in closing I was speaking with Cory Doctorow, who is another great digital activist. He was talking about the levy. He said that what Parliament needs to do is to find a way to end the cold war between the music industry, the corporate lobbyists, the musicians and the fans, because we all benefit from great music and we all benefit from building the relationship between our artists and the consumers.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I know this does not pertain directly to this bill, but my question does pertain to this particular vote and motion as well as this bill. Every year it seems that smaller and smaller platforms are converging into one.

To take one particular device, which the member identified as the MP3, from certain applications, whether it be through a BlackBerry or basic telephony devices, how does he propose doing that by just extending the levy? In other words, if we are going to extend the levy from what it currently is into other domains, where does he draw the line?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the bill is very specific. It says the levy is applied to devices that are marketed and sold as music-playing devices. There are a lot of devices. A laptop, for instance, is a fully functional stereo if one wants it to be. However, it does not market itself as a stereo. It is marketed as a laptop. That is the difference.

The other question we have to raise, as an extension of the member's point, is what happens if this technology becomes redundant. It might, but if we stop the levy now and it is ended, we are not going to find anything that will help us in the transition to where we are going to be. We have to maintain the levy until we do not know when. Maybe music will be in a technical cloud at some point and we will have to deal with it then, but this is the difference between the two points.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member who just spoke.

Tomorrow we will be voting on the motion we are discussing today. The vote is on the principle. We agree that it is not a vote on the words as they are set out one after another. This vote is on the idea that creators should be paid and remunerated for their work.

Obviously the Bloc, which has always defended Quebec's artists and interests, will vote in favour of this motion. We are the ones who moved it. The NDP moved a similar motion on the same day. I have no problem with the New Democrats. As for the Liberals, we will see shortly who they are going to side with.

The member for Perth—Wellington, who is the chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, voted in favour of this motion. He wrote a letter in which he used the same words as those in the motion. He sent a letter to the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to ask them to do just that.

How does the NDP member feel that the member for Perth—Wellington will vote? Will he apply his own logic and join the vote in favour of this motion in the House?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is an excellent question because it is about the principle. The member is absolutely right. It is not about the technicalities; it is about whether we believe that artists should be remunerated for their work. The Bloc has made its position clear. We have made our position clear.

However, the Conservatives have said, and this was in the minister's statement last week, that because the government supports the Canada Council and the Canadian music fund, this levy is unfair. Even the most libertarian pirate party in Sweden would never take the position that, because there is an arts council in a country, no artists should ever be paid for their work and anyone should be able to come and take what they want.

That is the Conservative position. They are trying to divide artists from their fans. I am shocked that it is their position, because it would be outrageous if they went into international negotiations and said they did not need to respect international copyright because the Canada Council gives out money for touring grants.

We know where the Conservatives are going on this. The question is whether our colleagues in the Liberal Party will stand with us on the principle that artists have a right at some point to be remunerated for their works. I am hoping we are going to see all the Liberals and I will be counting heads, but it is always a question whether a few of them are going to get sick or lose their way. Maybe a couple of them will have sore backs and have to sit down.

We will see. It will be an important vote and artists will be watching. They will be watching to see if the Parliament of Canada stands with artists and creators or says they have no right to be paid for the great work they do.

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

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?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, what is very interesting in this discussion is that, if we look at the statistics, we will find that artists have a special relationship with their fan base and fans want to buy music.

In fact, there was a study done in the U.K. on downloading, on kids who download music and who download music for free, and the vast majority of them said they did not have a problem paying for music. They had a problem with not having easy access to music. If they can get it easily, they will get it easily, but they were not fundamentally opposed. They were not libertarians on this. They would support it.

I have been speaking on talk radio and to various groups about this motion. Once people get the idea that it is not a tax, as the Conservatives have misrepresented, but a levy that is dedicated to artists, they ask, for example, after what has been negotiated at ACTA, that if they get stopped at the border, whether the U.S. border officials will not be able to take their iPods and say they are illegal. They ask if they have some protection as fans for what they buy and they will not be sued. That is part of what it is.

Artists are going to get some remuneration, and they are not phenomenal amounts of money. From having toured this country I can tell members that, if artists were getting $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 from the levy, that is sometimes the difference between being able to continue as musicians and having to stop. Our artists are living on pitifully small amounts of money and they create the music we love.

The message that should be coming out of Parliament is that we as Canadians and as the Government of Canada recognize the importance of building that relationship rather than doing what the Conservatives always do, which is to try to pit one group against another. They are desperate for wedge issues. They are trying to drive a wedge between music fans and the creators, but I hope the wedge-issue politics will stop as Conservatives realize, just as fans and artists realize, that this is a compromise and people benefit.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, the motion of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage before the House today arrives at an opportune moment. These issues raised are important to Canadians and we welcome this debate.

As my hon. colleagues will remember, our government announced in the Speech from the Throne earlier last month that it would take steps to strengthen laws governing intellectual property in copyright. The committee's motion presents a valuable and timely opportunity for us to begin our discussions in this area.

I would like to remind the House that our government has pledged its commitment to helping Canadians succeed and meet the emerging challenges of the global and digital economy. We believe that innovation, collaboration and creativity must be the foundation of any such efforts. Let us celebrate and build on the fact that through the efforts of individuals and businesses from across our great country we are bringing innovative ideas, products and processes to the world stage.

Our country's work should and is recognized as effective, powerful, innovative and of the highest quality. It is for this reason that our government has made the unprecedented investments in business innovation and creativity through Canada's economic action plan. These investments will help Canadians build an economy that will provide prosperity and jobs for both today and tomorrow. However, to do this, Canadians must be able to develop the knowledge and skills they need to create and take advantage of economic opportunities. Of these, one of our government's priorities is to capitalize on the opportunities offered by the digital economy.

As we all know, technological change is occurring at an unprecedented speed and intensity. We cannot afford to simply be reactive as we are presented with both the opportunities and the challenges posed by increasingly rapid technological change. The question becomes: How do we secure our place as a world leader in an ever increasingly competitive marketplace?

Canada needs to be at the forefront of these new markets, ready and equipped to benefit from the opportunities it creates. That is why our Conservative government is working to ensure that our legislative and regulatory approach is conducive to supporting these businesses. We want to ensure that Canadian businesses are equipped to deal with the challenges posed and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital revolution with strong intellectual property laws that encourage new ideas and protect the rights of Canadians.

Our government recognizes that updated copyright legislation will strengthen Canada's ability to compete in the global digital economy and contribute to our cultural and civic life. As such, we are committed to modifying the laws governing intellectual property and copyright with the ultimate goal of creating an environment that encourages the creation of new ideas and contributes to economic prosperity overall.

I will take a moment here to remind the House that industries touched by copyright account for 4.5% of our gross domestic product and employ 5.5% of our workforce. These are industries that are creating wealth and value where none existed before. This is why our government is committed to helping ensure our copyright laws are designed in a way that the ingenuity of Canada's best and brightest can continue to flourish. We will foster creativity, innovation and economic growth by giving Canadian creators and consumers the tools they need to keep Canada competitive internationally.

The field of copyright is very complex and there are many players who have a wide variety of views and interests. Our government must consider and balance these interests as we move forward to a modernized copyright law.

Our government wanted to take the opportunity to listen to what Canadians had to say about why copyright is important to them. In the summer of 2009, we took the initiative and demonstrated leadership within the current copyright debate by holding eight weeks of public consultations on copyright reform. Our process allowed interested Canadians to have their say in discussions of Canada's copyright law. We hosted events right across our great country.

Furthermore, we leveraged new technologies to reach out and consult with a greater number of Canadians as effectively as possible through our interactive website.

The participation was unprecedented and we welcomed the comments of rights holders, users, intermediaries and everyday Canadians.

We know that Canadians are concerned with copyright and its implications in our increasingly digital environment. This was demonstrated by the thousands of Canadians who took the time to participate in one way or another.

I will remind my colleagues of the scope of participation in this process. In total, we received more than 8,000 formal written submissions from organizations and individuals across the country, while over 1,000 Canadians attended live events, which included both public town halls and stakeholder round tables, across the country, in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Peterborough, Gatineau, Montreal, City of Quebec and Halifax, at which they were able to offer their views.

The most easily accessible way to participate was an interactive website that received more than 30,000 unique visits. More than 2,200 visitors registered as users and they collectively left more than 2,500 comments on the site through an online forum. The online forum allowed site visitors to create their own threads of discussion and views and comment on what others had to say. I am pleased to tell members that this was quite a lively discussion that explored the issues associated with copyright.

Participants were asked questions to determine their personal interest in copyright law and how they believed the law should be strengthened in light of that interest. They were asked how copyright laws should reflect Canadian values and interests. They were asked how these laws might better foster innovation and creativity. They were asked what sorts of copyright changes would best foster competition and investment. They also were asked what kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global digital economy.

Let me emphasize that this open and transparent process will help us to deliver new legislation that is forward-looking and reflects Canadian values.

The feedback we have received on the consultations has been very positive and the level of debate is one of which we are very proud. Much as the standing committee's motion suggests, the Canadian private copying regime is an issue of interest which was discussed during the consultations. The motion before us bears directly on that regime's future. I will take a moment to expand upon it here.

The Canadian private copying regime was created 13 years ago through the 1997 copyright reforms. It was designed to deal with the challenges stemming from new technology. With better technology, Canadians could easily make and use copies of music in their possession. Making such copies without the copyright holder's explicit consent was illegal.

This created a situation in which individuals regularly flouted the law, even if they were not aware of this. This also meant that rights holders were not being compensated for the use of the work to which they held the copyright. The solution was to place a levy on the blank media consumers use to make copies and then distribute this money to copyright holders. This solution was known as the Canadian private copying regime and its legal basis was set forth in the Copyright Act.

Under the private copying regime, the copyright holders of sound recordings are entitled to receive compensation drawn out of the moneys collected against blank media. The regime also allows Canadians to make copies of audio works for their personal use without infringing copyright law.

To manage the operation of the regime, the Copyright Board of Canada authorized a body known as the Canadian Private Copying Collective. Based out of Toronto, this non-profit agency is an umbrella organization that represents songwriters, recording artists, music publishers and record companies. The Canadian Private Copying Collective receives moneys arising from the levies and distributes these to copyright holders. To date, the Canadian Private Copying Collective states that it has distributed over $180 million to copyright holders in the music sector.

As with many other elements of the Copyright Act, the Canadian private copying regime has always been the subject of debate. It is important to note that technological changes that occurred since the creation of the regime 13 years ago had added new elements to the debate. Various technological developments mean that one does not necessarily need to purchase blank media to make copies anymore.

Needless to say, there are many views around how this might be addressed. Our government believes it is important that we consider all these views when contemplating possible solutions. In our consultations in the summer of 2009, the views we heard on the future of Canadian private copying regime were many and varied. Issues such as compensation for copyright holders, flexibility, reasonableness and clarity were all discussed.

There were some who would like to see the act amended, as indeed the committee report proposes, such that a tax may also be charged on digital recording devices, such as MP3 players and other media recorders, computers, cell phones, et cetera. The opposition coalition's proposed tax would equal up to $80 per iPod and MP3 player for Canadian consumers.

The viability of the regime in light of the new technological developments needs to be revisited and re-examined. We need to develop changes that can encourage new business models. Many of those who were consulted were eager to defend their right to continue to use electronic files in their possession and to transfer these files to new media, such as MP3 players, without paying additional fees.

In short, some have come to expect that the market will give consumers a wider variety of material in formats that are both more convenient and less expensive than what is currently available.

We need to examine how we can maintain protection of artists' rights and their ability to receive payments for use of their work while avoiding an additional tax on consumers. Canadians also expect that our copyright laws will continue to foster economic growth by providing incentives to our best and brightest to continue to create.

As we go forward in our consideration of this legislation, I encourage this House to keep all these points in mind, particularly how the proposed amendment fits into the larger copyright domain. We need to keep our eye on the bigger picture and the work our government has already begun well before the adoption of the motion.

We look forward to discussing these issues during this debate. Thanks to the consultations, we are now equipped with a wide variety of points of view as we turn our attention to preparing copyright legislation. This is essential because we know that technology will continue to develop. It will not be enough to simply amend the act to respond to each new challenge presented to us by technology.

Let us proceed together to update and strengthen our copyright law in a way that will strengthen Canadians' ability to compete in the global digital economy. Moreover, let us work to enhance their ability to continue to make their significant contribution to our cultural and civic life.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I need to get this straight in my own mind; I am not sure as there are several angles to this.

First of all, I take issue with the fact that the hon. member said that the government is happy to further this debate, when all of her colleagues, with the exception of one, voted against bringing this to the House.

I need two specific answers. She talked about a tax that is going to be a punitive measure towards people to support artists, but yet in her speech she praised the original copyright regime. The original levy is fine, but really it is an extension of the same thing. Is that too a tax that the government likes?

And because I too am into fair dealing, I will ask her the same question that I asked her colleague. The fee that was imposed on travellers the week before the budget, is that too a tax?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, adhering to the issue at hand, during my speech I provided a background on how the current levies came to be. In the face of new and developing technology, we must work together in a comprehensive fashion rather than simply react by involving a new or additional tax. We must work together with creators as well as innovators to find a solution that will meet all of our needs.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, it seems to me that the member does not understand the Liberal member's question. I do not know if she understood what he said.

I would like her to answer with a simple yes or no. Is the member in favour of the exemption for private copying?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am responding on behalf of the government. Personal views aside, our goal at this point in time is to look at the entire copyright legislation as a whole and to take into consideration Canada's place in the global digital economy as opposed to just looking at a microcosm of the copyright law.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not think it would be unfair to say that the government is probably the greatest group of underachievers we have seen in some time. I do not know how many times we heard that the Conservatives discovered an interactive website and got consultations. That would not have been bad five years ago, but if that is as good as it gets five years on, that is pretty pitiful.

I remember the very first Conservative heritage minister coming before our committee on the very first day. That minister made one really clear promise. She said that we would have new copyright legislation by Christmas. We all grew long beards waiting and it never happened. Then Bill C-61 came along. Bill C-61 was the government's response. I have never seen a piece of legislation brought forward with such great fanfare that was then pulled so quickly because it was ridiculed as a dog's breakfast.

Now we are in “consultations”. I am concerned about the consultations because the member does not have her facts right. She keeps calling the levy a tax and saying that it would impose an $80 fee. Who is writing her notes? I want to know, because when the Federal Court looked at the issue of the iPod levy in 2005, that $80 figure was not anywhere to be seen. We were talking $2 to $5 to $10.

Maybe the government's consultations have gotten mixed up, or maybe it is a case of what the Edmonton Journal said about how the industry minister misrepresented facts and the heritage minister misrepresented facts.

I would like to ask a simple question. What was wrong with Bill C-61 that the government felt it had to go back and engage in thousands and thousands of hours of consultation? What was it specifically about Bill C-61 that the government was so embarrassed it had to pull it off the table?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, when copyright legislation was originally introduced, many of my colleagues and I received considerable feedback on what was being proposed. This Conservative government listens. We began the consultation process again. In addition to interactive websites, we did go across the country, but it was just not feasible for public consultations to occur in every community throughout Canada. It was more feasible for everyday Canadians to consult through the interactive media.

In the public consultations, the issue arose that Canadians, by being exposed to a levy or automatic iPod tax, were being blanketed with the assumption that what they were purchasing was going to be used for the purposes of piracy.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The iPod levy was not in Bill C-61, so again I think she is mistaking it. She needs to explain what the complaints were because it was not in the bill.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member is presenting I believe a point for debate that he may want to raise later on.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, one has to be very careful in the wording of a bill because the way it is worded could lead to the imposing of levies on yet undiscovered technologies. This is the sort of fear that was relayed to other MPs as well during the consultations. Businesses which do not use CDs or DVDs for recording music and use them specifically for backing up data were being charged a levy for music and creators even though their use of the media was strictly for business. They were being automatically accused, in their perception, of being pirates.

What I find most interesting is the proposer of the bill relating to the motion at hand says that fans want to pay for music and that is sort of contradictory to this proposed iTax. Why would we automatically treat them as though they were pirates by levying a tax on the assumption that they would pirate the music when they are so willing to pay for it in the first place?