Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand here in this House to talk about the library book rate bill that my colleague from Brandon—Souris has put forward.
I was actually just on the phone with my son, Easton. He hopes that the member has a bit more luck getting this through than he had in committee the other day. My son also has some concerns about the NDP member's approach during private members' business, bringing up these topics of neanderthals in western Canada.
I really take umbrage with that because, to be honest, this government has always stood on the side of rural Canadians. This bill is something that is very important to rural Canada, to western Canada, and to my communities. To hear a member of the former NDP government in Manitoba complain about bank branches and libraries being shut down in Manitoba, it was that member who did not do anything about it for the last who knows how many years in the provincial government and who is just as ineffective today in this Parliament.
This really is a non-partisan piece of legislation. This really is something that we should all be able to gather around and talk about, and be able to pass this at the utmost speed because this is something that is critically important to rural Canada.
I want to congratulate the member for Brandon—Souris once again for four and a half years of dedication to this legislation. He has introduced the bill three times and at the end of the day, it is as determined, as stubborn and as practical as he is.
I also want to mention and thank the member for Brandon—Souris for all the numerous phone calls and petitions that I have received from my constituents and librarians around my constituency. I have come to know more of my librarians a lot better after they have called me and explained to me the benefits of the library book rate to them and how critical it is that they have some consistency in this form of payment.
It is like when we talk about municipal government. When I was in municipal government, it was great when politicians came in and cut a ribbon with us, but it really was tough to balance the books year after year when we were not sure how many grants we were going to get the following year.
What this bill would do is help stabilize for our libraries the rate going forward and it would, I believe, bring the responsibility back to Parliament for changing that rate. I think we as elected officials should be the ones who have a say in this because it does affect all of our local communities so very much.
This bill is critically important to communities in my riding, such as, Mallaig, Barrhead, Westlock, Neerlandia, Elk Point, and St. Paul, that rely on interlibrary loans and rely on that rate staying at a discount and staying competitive.
The library is something that I utilized first as a young child in rural Alberta. There is not a bookstore around every corner. We go to the local library. I have to confess I was a Hardy Boys fan myself. I know the Speaker was a big fan of Nancy Drew. This library book rate helps us access not only these kinds of book but books by Tolstoy and other books that help expand the minds of rural Canadians and help educate the minds of rural Canadians.
It is critically important now, not only after we have been through the system but for my children, such as Ayden, who is now starting to go to the library and is reading ferociously, and who does not want to be limited in her local library as to how many books she can get. She should be able to access books from around the world. Thankfully, due to things like the library book rate and interlibrary loans, we have that ability.
I first learned about the importance of this when I was a municipal politician. I was elected at the municipal level and in one of the first committees that I was assigned to, I was to proud to represent our local library as the municipal leader there. I was then off to the regional library system to represent our local libraries there. We find the difficulties that our libraries have in staying competitive and keeping the bottom line at a reasonable rate, while still maintaining an excellent service to our constituents and to their clients, who are the youth of our generation.
I must admit I was somewhat of a fiscal conservative. I know some people call those neanderthals, but I believed that we needed to hold the bottom line. It was there that I realized the library book rate was essential to keep our libraries effective. It was essential to keep them growing and expanding for the customers. They moved into DVDs and CDs, long before this bill was ever put forward.
The local libraries tell me how important it is and what a cost savings it will be to them to have DVDs and CDs included. Now big books of Braille and with block letters that are harder to read can be transcribed onto CDs and DVDs. There will be a much reduced cost to the government and to the taxpayers to move these books around.
I had an interesting discussion this morning with the Minister of Agriculture. We talked about how important this bill was. He talked about the Internet. As a forward-thinking rural Canadian, he is always looking after rural Canadians. He brought up how important it was that libraries had access to the Internet. In my communities, oftentimes this is one of the only places rural Canadians, young boys or girls, can go and access free Internet services outside of their own homes.
This shows that libraries are moving forward, but we have to keep the libraries as an essential piece of our communities. In rural Canada the library is not just a place to go to pick up books or to access the Internet. It is also the place where moms and tots gather and where small groups bring their kids and meet new people who have moved into the community. I know when my family first moved to St. Paul, the library was the place where my wife took our children to meet other kids their age, to learn to read and to do different exercises.
Without things like the interlibrary loans and the library book rate, our libraries would be less effective and have fewer hours. This is very important legislation for us.
Once again, I thank the member for Brandon—Souris for putting forward this bill and for having the ingenuity and the determination to stick with it. It is important that we all gather around and do the right thing on this. As I said in the beginning of my speech, it is important that this is a non-partisan bill. This really does benefit rural Canadians and rural youth. I wish him the best of luck and thank him.