Mr. Speaker, on April 19, I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages a question in this House about royalties on MP3s and copyrights. The minister told me to wait to see his bill in order to discuss it with full knowledge of the facts. I can now discuss it with full knowledge of the facts, for we have seen the bill.
The minister was tweeting again today on Twitter. He said that Bill C-32 was fair and had broad and deep support from across Canada, including from consumers, provincial ministers, the software industry, the music, film and television industries, small businesses, chambers of commerce and photographers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen that creators, artists, cultural organizations and the publishing community do not support this bill. Only businesses support it. I do not know what planet he lives on if he really believes that the bill has broad support across Canada.
Every day we receive press releases, open letters and opinion pieces criticizing this bill. I receive them from people not only from Quebec, but from the rest of Canada.
Today, the Canadian Consumer Initiative wrote to the minister to tell him that he was completely out to lunch on Monday, when, in answer to a question, he told me that this bill had the support of consumers and that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce acts in the best interests of the Conservatives, I mean consumers. That was a Freudian slip. It acts in the best interests of the Conservatives, not consumers.
The Canadian Consumer Initiative set the record straight and again condemned the protection of digital locks and the anti-circumvention provisions in the current bill. The letter goes on to say that, in the opinion of the initiative's members, the bill's provisions undermine Canadian consumer interests. I am not the one saying this; it is the Canadian Consumer Initiative, which is made up of four of Canada's largest consumer associations: the Consumers Council of Canada, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Option consommateurs and the Union des consommateurs.
When the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages confuses a chamber of commerce with a consumer advocacy group, we wonder where we are going with this sort of argument. We wonder whether it is really worthwhile talking to someone who does not know what he is talking about.
Today, the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres, ANEL, weighed in on this issue. It said that its board of directors had voted on a strong resolution against Bill C-32. According to ANEL, which is a Canada-wide association, new exceptions to fair use will deprive copyright holders of income they would normally receive. After examining all the provisions as a whole, in an attempt to anticipate the effects of the marketplace, the ANEL board of directors concluded that the bill would lead to the collapse of educational publishing, create serious difficulties for their collective and represent an obstacle to the development of its digital strategy. ANEL also concluded that it was a direct attack on traditional Quebec values of support for creators.
I would like to take a few moments to talk about AGAMM, which includes almost every big name in the Quebec music industry. This organization proposed that the minister have Internet service providers make a financial contribution consisting of a percentage of their sales revenues to music rights holders.
I do not have time to talk about ADISQ. I will let my colleague answer and come back to that.