Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise to support Bill C-509. I want to congratulate the member for sticking with it, so to speak, having introduced this bill evidently three times over four and a half years. I have known the member for Brandon—Souris now for quite a number of years. He is certainly a very hard worker and is looking out for the interests of his constituents in this case.
I see an interesting opportunity here for us to simply let this bill go to committee at the end of the first hour. I personally see no reason why we would want to use up House time for a second hour of debate on this particular bill when we are all in agreement. We are 100% in agreement on what he is trying to accomplish here.
I also find a slight contradiction, perhaps, in the member's party. On the one hand, the member is presenting a bill supporting a continued reduction in a subsidy for the delivery of library books, but on the other hand, his government is supporting hiving off remailers to the private sector and doing it through the budget implementation bill, Bill C-9.
I know there are people in his caucus who have an ideological problem with this because they would see a role here for the private sector. This would be a prime opportunity to have the private sector do private deliveries of library books. I am sure that there is a huge divergence of opinion in his caucus about this. We happen to align ourselves with him against the neanderthals in his caucus who would want to privatize this service, assuming that they are there. I am assuming that the argument has been made or would be made in that caucus.
Having said that, we are 100% behind him in his efforts to make certain that we stop the decline in rural areas, the decline in the north and the decline in the inner cities because of closures of not only bank branches, which have certainly happened over the last number of years, but certainly libraries as well. The member knows that, in the city of Winnipeg, we have had the closure of some branches in the poorer areas of our city, which has caused a huge public backlash.
People have organized and tried to stop the closure of the libraries. There has been a move toward large recreation centres in urban environments and then perhaps in rural environments as well. When there is a move to these larger centres, then there is a closing of the smaller centres. That disadvantages poorer people because the richer people can afford to get in the car and drive to the recreation centre in the next town or a few blocks down, or they can afford to drive to the library in the next town or suburb.
However, if one is living on a fixed income or social assistance and does not have a car to get around, then basically one is disenfranchised from the recreation centres or library facilities. That is not something we want to do. We want to try to reverse that. This has been an ongoing problem for the last 20, 30 or 40 years. Provincial governments have been trying to deal with it to keep people in the small towns, on the land, in the rural areas, and in the north.
I see this as just another battle that we have to engage in to stop or slow down the closure of small facilities and the driving out of business of these small libraries.
I have a question about the costs and the member knows that.
The member has mentioned that the Ottawa Regional Library would perhaps save $70,000 per year on its mailing costs. He has also indicated that currently it is paying a factor of say $3 and the new rate, if Canada Post had its way, would be to jump it to $12. It would be multiplied by a factor of four, and I think the member would agree with that calculation.
If we take the Ottawa Regional Library, we would be looking at an increase of $70,000. If we multiply that for the 2,000 libraries across the country, we are talking about a huge increase. Perhaps the Ottawa Regional Library can come up with the difference, but the small libraries in the small towns across the country will be unable to do that.
What the member has proposed is something with which we can all agree. However, it is a much bigger picture that he is addressing. This goes far beyond the whole issue of subsidizing the transfer of library books back and forth from the libraries to the people who use the books.
The library book rate is a Canada Post service has been around since 1939, as the member indicated. It has provided a reduced rate for mailing library books between libraries and from libraries to their users. Canada Post recently has announced that the current library book rates will remain unchanged to 2010.
What we are seeing is the libraries are going one year at a time, so the member is left hanging not knowing what is going to happen. This system has worked well since 1939. The issue is if “it ain't broke, why fix it?” What is to fix? I am amazed the member cannot get the financial information that he needs.
Canada Post is not privatized yet. Surely, there is a way to get some freedom of information from it to determine just how big the numbers are. However, after four years, he still has to surmise as to what sort of effect this will have on each and every library, which is why he has said that the cost for the Ottawa Regional Library is plus $70,000 a year. However, he really does not know what the total effect will be. It may be even worse than what he thinks.
We are talking about over 2,000 libraries actively using the library book rate and over one million Canadians benefiting from it annually. It is an indispensable part of the service delivered by Canada's not-for-profit academic school and special libraries.
The library book rate is not a government program and it is not currently financially supported by the federal government. The members of the library community in all constituencies continue to be concerned about its sustainability.
Given that Canada Post is a crown corporation with a mandate to generate a dividend for its shareholder, which is the government, the rate contributes to the public policy goals of literacy, lifelong learning and inclusion of vibrant rural and remote communities.
This is where we get into the intangibles. We start looking at parallels like the closure of the prison farms. The government is looking at it as a dollars and cents question, but not looking at the total effect of the prisoner getting up at 6 a.m., milking cows and communicating with nature and with the animals and taking care of the animals.
The government takes that out of the equation, as with this. It takes the fact out of the equation, that this is a much bigger issue than just dollars and cents. It is the effect that we have when people cannot get library books, when people have disabilities, visual impairments and cannot get facilities from their library. The member has also expanded this list to include DVDs and other things.
This is a good bill and we support it.