Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I would need to take a lot more time to paint the portrait of what the Conservatives have done in this particularly bad bill.
When I was speaking a few days ago, I was particularly incensed and appalled by the lack of knowledge of a number of Conservative members. Even though they were here to speak to Bill C-11, they obviously had not read the bill. The New Democrats on this side of the House always do our homework. We read the bill. We heard repeated comments that the retroactive book burning provisions of Bill C-11 were not in the bill. Many Conservatives have risen in the House and said unabashedly that there were no book burning provisions in the bill. What we were referring to were the retroactive electronic books that would be destroyed by this particular legislation.
It is important that Canadians understand what is in the bad bills that the Conservatives bring in front of the House. I will read directly from page 23 of Bill C-11, clause 30.01. It reads:
(5)...the student shall destroy the reproduction within 30 days after the day on which the students who are enrolled in the course to which the lesson relates have received their final course evaluations.
It could not be clearer than that. It says it in black on white right in the text of Bill C-11. As a result of the government's incredible irresponsibility in drafting this legislation, students across this country who get electronic books will need to destroy their course material. I will read it one more time, “A student shall destroy the reproduction within 30 days”. If not, they contravene the bill. They break the law.
I know the Conservative Party pled guilty to law-breaking just a few days ago. What the government is saying to students in this country, and educational institutions as well, who get their material and go through the course, is that the moment they receive their final course evaluations they must destroy all of the information they accumulated through the course of the lesson.
Having gone to university a number of years ago, I have kept much of my course material. My management and accounting courses still serve me when I do a variety of things in the House. A lot of the things that I learned in university continue to be useful today. The Conservatives are now saying that they will retroactively force students to burn their textbooks, destroy all that information, and they are doing it because lobbyists said that should be put in the bill.
The member for Timmins—James Bay, who is our digital critic, has talked about some of the other aspects of the bill and how they would make criminals out of ordinary Canadians. The government seems obsessed with trying to make everyone a criminal. However, the government has also put anti-circumvention rights on digital locks within the bill. This means that the simple action of copying information for personal use would make those individuals criminals. We are talking about very draconian penalties of up to $1 million that are contained within the bill.
We have spoken out against the digital lock provisions. We have spoken out against the retroactive book burning that the Conservatives now want to force on every student in the country who gets electronic textbooks. We have spoken out about that because Bill C-11 is simply bad legislation.
We are standing up for the rights of students to keep their course material. We are standing up for the rights of Canadians to copy material for personal use. We have said that we need to modernize the Copyright Act but not in this right-wing, ideological, lobbyist-based crusade that the Conservative government has brought about with some of the provisions in the bill.
We have offered to bring forward constructive amendments to change the retroactive book burning provisions and to change the incredible aspects around the digital locks and the criminalization of Canadians. However, the Conservative government, in its incredible arrogance, has said no, that it will not listen to Canadians on this. It will not even listen to Canadians in committee. It will simply try to ram the bill through.
Well, we are speaking out against this legislation and we are speaking out against the bad provisions that the Conservatives have put in it.