Debates of Nov. 24th, 2011

Copyright Modernization Act

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. This is about an economic interest that comes from abroad. It does not necessarily come from inside this country because if it did, we would reward creators. If we want to drive this economy and actually put some oomph into it, so to speak, we would make sure our creators were rewarded so that they could continue to do what they do and generate economic activity. There is a reason why movie studios in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia are competing north-south as well as east-west. It is because of the large number of dollars. Why would we want to give it away?

My hon. colleague's comments reminded me of the softwood lumber deal. We made a deal with the U.S. on softwood lumber and we have been paying ever since. We thought we got a deal and we got less than crumbs. We seem to get fined all the time. We always seem to be the ones at the bottom.

If we are not going to fight for our own creators, who will? If we are not going to stand up for the creative class in this country, who write for us, perform for us, produce the things we love to see, hear and read, who will? It certainly will not be the Americans. They will be happy to sell their stuff to us. They will not be so happy about us selling to them. The group of Canadian performers and writers will diminish when they end up having to work in other fields because they cannot make a living doing the very things they are passionate about.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about his brother being a creator and making a living. I would like to know how much of a living he makes. He must be making millions and billions of dollars. That is the impression of most Canadians. Every time we see entertainers, all we talk about is how many millions and billions of dollars they make, but we do not talk about the 90% of creators who actually do not make any money. Perhaps he could speak about that.

At the same time what we have to remember is the consumers' interest in all of this. What is the balance? How do we balance between making sure creators continue to create and consumers continue to have products available to them?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, my brother is a graphic designer by profession. The member is absolutely right. He is part of the 90% who cannot make a living creating music, even though he has written hundreds of songs and sent them to production houses to try to get them recorded or recorded them himself.

On the other issue, the member is absolutely correct. There is a balance in protecting consumers. In questioning earlier, the member for Sudbury raised the extended education piece. When I went to university, if I had five days to read a particular article that I had photocopied, I would not get through it. Other things would get in the way. That is what happens.

Clearly there are boundaries and we need to find a way to balance the two. Consumers deserve to have material available to them without feeling under threat that they are breaking a law and that someone is going to knock on their doors to arrest them because they have broken a lock inadvertently. The lock should not have existed. Locks seem to be the answer for everything. Digital locks are the answer, according to this legislation. They are not.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-11 and the good and bad things that would come from this. I am going to focus on the problem with digital locks.

There are some good things that would come from this bill. It does clarify certain things, like using a CD and putting the contents of it on one's iPod. Already owning something and putting it on a different device that is owned by the same person is no longer a grey area. There is also the YouTube clause which means that Canadians can put creative things together for private use.

A lot of what people do with media has been a grey area since 1997 when the Copyright Act was last amended, as it is for private use. As a result, it would be good to update this to international treaty standards. This would soften the blow to consumers. However, the big problem is digital locks. This issue trumps consumer rights and it does not allow people to back up any kind of media, including CDs, DVDs, e-books, et cetera, that people already own.

The problem with this is that all these new lovely things that we would take out of the grey area, making it okay for people to use these things privately, would be trumped by the digital locks. That is the major problem.That seems kind of silly.

Digital locks basically create a blanket ban. A digital lock is a piece of software designed to prevent ordinary consumers from utilizing a piece of technology in any way they see fit. Such locks, for instance, are often used to prevent people from making copies of songs and videos but they are also used to prevent consumers from installing software on their cellphones and even fixing their own cars. Similar digital locks are used on movie and software CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray disks. This is taken from the National Post of October 27.

A company that owns the rights is to be distinguished from the creator of the art, the movie or the song. The artists or creators are not the ones putting on digital locks. It is just too expensive for them to do so. It is the companies that own the copyright, and in many cases the artist produces the work for the company. The companies impose these digital locks in order to prevent stealing.

The problem is that a lot of people are not stealing on purpose. They are simply backing up CDs or DVDs on their computers, perhaps so that their children cannot destroy them, or because they want to keep them or they want to use them on different devices. This is frustrating for the consumer. I am of the generation of people who know how to break digital locks, although I do not personally know how to break digital locks. Most of the time, when there is no digital lock we are able to back material up or copy material for personal use. Thanks to this bill, we would not be able to when there is a digital lock.

This initiative is controlled by companies. It is quite clear that we are not balancing consumer and creator rights here. We are giving a default button or a veto button to the big companies that own the rights.

Again, this does not favour the consumers or creators.

Just because people break a digital lock, it does not mean that they are violating copyright laws. If they have legally purchased a DVD on a computer or something from iTunes, it needs to be decrypted in order to be freely available for their use. It just seems silly to prevent people from using, for their own personal purpose, things that now have this lock on them.

Michael Geist stated in the Toronto Star, on October 2, that the digital lock provisions undermine any attempt to strike a balance because they create this loophole. Companies are now basically in charge of whether people can use things freely which they would otherwise be allowed to do. Most people are not breaking digital locks simply to sell millions of copies but are doing it to back material up and use it on other devices.

The digital lock rules go far beyond what is expected by international standards. I do not see why we are doing this, unless the government is simply trying to play into the hands of big companies. There has been a lot of consultation on this issue. It has been shown to be a problem, but no one in the government seems to care. It can be frustrating to see this happen, as we are trying to make good amendments or bring forward solutions and we are consulting the public. The Conservatives are not listening. This legislation does not have to be a partisan issue. We should instead care about the consumers and the creators, because we know that consuming and creating drive the economy. We have thriving artistic communities in Canada and in Quebec and we should be making the balance there, not with the companies.

It is good that the fines have been brought down, but the digital lock takes away consumers' rights. This is silly. I do not understand why the government has not changed the legislation to make it better as the NDP has been arguing.

This bill creates powerful new anti-circumvention rights for content owners. Once again, it is important to distinguish between content owners, companies against copyright and content creators. This prevents access to copyrighted works. These new provisions are supported by fines of over $1 million and five-year prison terms. This will result in a situation where digital locks will practically trump all other rights, including fair dealing for students and journalists. This presents a real threat, because consumers will not be authorized to use content for which they have already paid.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, we are talking about balancing personal use and consumer rights with the artists' rights. When an artist enters into a contract with a company the artist receives royalties and payments. It is similar to an athlete who has a contract with a corporation. The company in some respects pays the artist's wages and purchases the artist's product or provides that contract.

We should not focus just on the selling of the product; there is the utilization of it as well. When I purchase a product, I would like to be free to transfer the music or book that I purchased to other devices. What we are trying to provide, and what the companies need, is protection so that when people download things, it is not that they are going to sell them, but that they are not going to disseminate broadly a huge collection of music or books to all their friends.

How do we go about preventing that dissemination of information not in terms of sales, but in terms of disseminating it to the purchaser's friends?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is an extremely complicated issue. I also want to be able to use what I buy, the media content, et cetera, freely. We can most of the time, but companies can impose digital locks. It is up to the discretion of the company whether the consumer can have it, and even if the artist wants to give it, the artist cannot. That does not seem to be a good solution.

New Democrats have worked hard at bringing forward constructive solutions. I hope that the Conservatives will listen to the amendments and propositions my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay has made.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for the tone and the content of her remarks. She made some insights in the context of this debate that are sometimes overlooked from a personal point of view. I liked her emphasis on consumer rights. I liked the attention to detail that she brought to the House on those issues as they affect the consumer. Ultimately, that is why we are gathered here today, to look after the best interests of those people who gave us their confidence in the last federal election.

I would like the member to expand on a very important point that she raised. She mentioned that the arts, culture and entertainment are an engine for economic growth that perhaps gets the least attention of any economic sector in our society today. As we lose smokestack industries, where are the new jobs going to come from? The answer is right under our noses. I argue this is being dealt with very clumsily by the government and even by the regulators as it exists today. I look forward to her personal reflections on this new engine for economic growth, the creators of arts, and the entertainment and cultural industries.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg Centre for his excellent question.

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, or ACTRA, estimates that Canada's arts and culture industry contributes $85 billion per year to our country's economy. That is huge. We should really be focusing on that. On this side of the House, we in the NDP have great appreciation for Canadian and Quebec artists. The arts and culture industry generates 1.1 million jobs. This industry and these jobs depend on artists' ability to disseminate their work. So, I would like the government to work on that.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to commend the hon. members for Winnipeg Centre and Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for their excellent remarks about Bill C-11.

I have the opportunity to once again speak specifically about Bill C-11, which was introduced to amend the Copyright Act. The Conservatives named it the Copyright Modernization Act.

In summary, the Conservative caucus once again introduced this bill, which proposes amendments that have been needed for a very long time. These amendments would adapt the act to take into account new technologies and to make it consistent with current international standards. However, this is a very complex issue because it involves the conflicting demands of stakeholders in artistic communities, universities, the technology sector, business and consumer protection groups.

Bill C-11 is identical to Bill C-32, which was introduced previously. It had the same name, the Copyright Modernization Act. Specifically, the bill creates powerful new anti-circumvention rights for content owners, preventing access to copyrighted works. In addition, these new provisions are supported by fines and prison terms.

In this bill, the Conservatives have deliberately avoided addressing the issue of a possible extension of the private copying exception, a measure proposed by the NDP several times and supported by a number of experts.

In this regard, the NDP believes that it is high time to modernize copyright rules, but that this bill has too many major problems. The NDP believes that Canada's copyright rules could balance the right of creators to appropriate compensation for their work and the right of consumers to have reasonable access to content.

We will study every possible amendment, including those mentioned by the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, that could be made to the bill in order to create a fair system of royalties for artists.

It seems that all Canadian efforts to modernize the Copyright Act have really been attempts to meet the demands of big U.S. content owners. That is the situation. When will Canadians finally have a law that meets their needs?

We want to amend the bill so that it better reflects the interests of Canadians. Many organizations, individuals, lawyers and legislators share our position.

The list includes Michael Geist and more than 80 organizations working in the arts and culture, in Quebec and throughout Canada, such as the Writers Guild of Canada, the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. It also includes eminent lawyer Howard Knopf, the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada, Jeremy F. de Beer and Cory Doctorow. I wanted to mention just a few of the people who have something to say about the NDP's proposals and support them.

Once again, I would like to point out that we should perhaps listen again to the excellent speech by my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. She was very explicit in her speech, which clearly captures the need to make these changes to Bill C-11 introduced by the Conservative caucus.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, there is one rather obvious point about copyright that I would like my colleague to elaborate on a little. It is an extremely complex issue, so we need to really think carefully about this. It requires a lot of work, because it involves a variety of factors and a number of different technologies. In addition to the existing technology, there is also emerging technology, so the issue will become even more complex.

In politics, as in all other sectors, the same is true: society is becoming increasingly complex and technology is having more and more of an impact on our lives. Demagogues are always tempted to find simple solutions, which usually do not work, and when they are confronted with a problem they really cannot solve, they put it off to deal with later.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. It is very obvious. He is quite right to be worried about the complexity of the technology involved in copyright. For instance, large corporations in the artistic sector want to take advantage of it in order to impose certain rules and make more money at the expense of artists and creators.

My colleague just explained one of the most important points of this bill. Technology is constantly changing and there was a time when, in my own experience, I really had to deal with that. Indeed, I once published a little local newspaper in Montreal. Thus, I perfectly understand all the intricacies involved in publishing photos and text that are copyrighted materials. It is very technical.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the intelligent and thoughtful perspective that he brings to a very complex debate. The real gift in the analysis of such a complex bill is to render these complex situations down to the practical reality of enforcement in the modern age of regulatory regimes that seek to make sense of a constantly evolving spectrum of very detailed and complex situations.

I too would like my colleague to dwell on the question that we have for academic material, library material or journalistic material that is generously shared on a non-profit basis for the elevation of the standards of information and knowledge instead of for profit. This is the complexity we are dealing with. It is not just the industrial application of a copyright of profitable material, but the sharing and distribution of knowledge as we move forward as a species. It is the control and the ownership of knowledge--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. The hon. member for Laval has 30 seconds to respond.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, 30 seconds is a very short time to talk about all these complexities. As our hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, our distinguished colleague from Winnipeg Centre and my colleague from the north shore of Laval have said, this is very technical and complex and there are specific criteria. I would like to ask the Conservative caucus to consider our amendments.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning to speak to Bill C-11. I think this may be one of the most important bills I have seen in the time I have been a member of Parliament. Why do I say this? Because we are starting to build the future here. Up to now, there have been many bills that dealt with the present or the immediate future, but with this bill we are really talking about the future of our society, the way that young people in our society will live and will grow old.

Talking about copyright is one way to start building the digital society of tomorrow. We can talk about copyright and the digital economy strategy, as the government is doing, but to start with, we have to look at the big picture and talk about the digital society. We have to decide how, in the age of the Internet, globalization and planetary connectivity, we should be organizing our behaviour so that everyone has what they need to do what they want to do freely.

We often talk about balance between creators and consumers, but we tend to forget the distributors. With the Internet, some creators have started to distribute their own works, while under the physical model that has existed for decades, works go through a distributor as intermediary. Several of my colleagues have talked about digital locks, which are obviously intended to satisfy the appetite of distributors more than anything else.

We are trying to promote a balance. Everyone is trying to strike a balance between ease of access and creators’ right to remuneration. Here again, when we talk about creators in the world of the Internet, we are taking a completely different perspective. Because of the ease with which content can now be obtained, everyone can become a creator and distribute what they create on the Internet. I am pleased to see, for example, changes to photographers’ copyright. This is quite a trivial and simple example, but everyone has a digital camera. Anyone can be in the right place at the right time and take a photograph that impresses the entire world, and they too would like to be able to earn income from it. We can see that the concept of creator is being extended. There are those who do it as their occupation, who want to earn a living from it. I think we have to protect that and find a way of balancing use and remuneration. And I am not certain that this is going to be done.

I am very curious about the fact that for consumers, the bill essentially just legalizes certain existing practices. Yes, we have no choice, because everyone can do it. But there seems to be a lack of thought about the future. We are quite simply just transposing our practices in relation to a book or a cassette onto digital formats, when the reality is very different. That is why I am pleased that there are a lot of young members in the House. Young people have experience in the digital world. We are going to have to listen carefully to our young members in this debate because they use these devices day to day more than we do. They manipulate information, and there are tonnes of information being published. For example, every minute, 2,000 pages of scientific content are published. That means that if one of us wanted to read only the scientific content published today, there would be enough for five years. It is enormous.

It cannot be managed the same way that books are managed.

There is also another interesting statistic: we currently have 2 billion Internet users. With that in mind, I would like to address the global nature of the phenomenon. In the material world as we know it, there are borders. However, in the digital world the lines are a little more blurred. Scant attention is paid to this fact; we look at the Internet as if it were a in physical country when, in fact, the world of the immaterial, the world of the Internet, is global. We saw this, for example, with the Arab spring. It illustrates what can happen given the fluidity of information and how it is transmitted. These realities cannot be denied.

To begin with, treaties must have a more international aspect concerning jurisdictions and protection, and this is starting to happen. Given the speed at which information and tools evolve in the digital world, it is not possible to just take a bill that was introduced last year and reintroduce it as is, because it is already outdated, and quite substantially so. It is hard to imagine how anyone could keep up to date with this kind of legislation by simply looking at the work that is being done.

Building the digital society is a work in progress. It is unstoppable. We are starting to build something. We must look beyond our perceptions of the material world and begin to look little more at how this new world can be built. I know that there are a lot of consultations going on, however it is imperative that we continue to listen on this subject, especially to young people. Otherwise, in two years there will be another new bill dealing with copyright with still more major changes because all we will have done is codify existing practices. We should instead be thinking of how to build the digital society for all Canadians who, in fact, are part of this global movement.

A number of countries are starting to put legislation in place. We are going to have to keep a close eye, strategically speaking, on that legislation in order to determine what works and what does not. It is not enough to just listen to certain lobby groups wishing to defend their own interests. In that respect, it is not just about business, it is about use, it is about life. All of these factors must be taken into consideration.

Incidentally, the bill refers to students, but I prefer to talk of youth in general. With today's software tools, it is possible to piece together content from multiple sources and create something new. This is not science fiction; it is something that has been going on for some years now. It is important, therefore, to do more than just protect these works. For instance, when a work is reconstituted, how can the person responsible be compensated for the value of the work that they have done, work that may be different from what goes into reproducing a film or reading a book?

Another example would be a presentation on any subject that a student wishes to use in making an argument. It cannot be stressed enough that there are artistic and literary creations that are, first and foremost, educational. The point of these works is essentially to advance knowledge and culture, as well as to be disseminated. A balance needs to be struck, in my opinion, that is still is not evident in this bill.

I shall close with an example. I had a talk with the director of the Laval University library about the use of books and digital books. Digital books are still being managed just like printed books, one by one. Evidently, there is still much to be done.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague has certainly done his homework on the youth involvement in all of this and on how the technology has changed.

We strive to be technologically neutral, so we give the legislation the flexibility it needs to be nimble enough to deal with the technology as it develops. The problem is that it is not black or white, yes or no. We have to deal with infusing elements such as a three-step or six-step process into it to judge whether copyright has actually been infringed. An example is the education exemption; we like to use the step test to see that it is not being used for copyright infringement.

The NDP brought up the situation of the lessons that would have to be destroyed after 30 days upon completion of a course. That too is a very important element, but the digital lock provision is troubling for all of us simply because it is an overwhelming way of dealing with the technology. Any rights that are inherent in the bill for fair dealing have been trumped by the digital lock process.

I wonder if my colleague has any comment on that aspect.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his observations and comments.

I said at the start that a fair balance has not yet been achieved and we should continue to strive for it. This is a very clear illustration that a lot of work remains to be done. I understand the intent. However, we have to recognize that there is still a lot of work to do to achieve this balance in education for this digital world.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague for both the tone and the content of his remarks. He has clearly taken this issue very seriously, he has done his research and he raises important and legitimate concerns.

One concern is the balancing act of granting a new range of access privileges, which is important in this day of digital information. However, the fact is that the bill does nothing to guarantee compensation for creators. It fails on the issue of ensuring that artists, creators and producers of content would be compensated fairly.

Given that the area of arts, culture, heritage, music, theatre, et cetera is a growth industry in Canada and one of our new engines of economic growth, what are doing to protect it? Given the context that we deal with the Copyright Act only once every 30 or 40 years, what are we doing to protect the creators and developers of this economic engine of growth that is the arts, culture and heritage?

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member.

This demonstrates that the legislative process quite often lags behind reality. In the lock example, for instance, it is as though this bill visualized digital reality as a physical book that we carry around with us and cannot load into our television.

We have to take advantage of the innovative nature of the digital world in order to modernize the tools that will allow us to both use and refer to works and to remunerate their creators. If we do not shed the mentality of the physical book, as I was illustrating, and shift toward digital methods for managing copyright and remuneration, no one will win.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, many people in my riding are very concerned about this bill. It is not just the many artists in my riding, but everyone who is concerned about Bill C-11. By everyone I mean artists as well.

Artists make an absolutely extraordinary contribution to our society. I can see it in my riding. Take the Saint-Viateur neighbourhood as one example among many. When that neighbourhood was slowly dying and losing its factories, the artists arrived en masse, rented out work spaces and created areas where they could work together. And, just like that, the neighbourhood was revived. All of sudden small restaurants started opening up. Shops and larger creative enterprises started opening up in the same area. A dying neighbourhood got a second chance at life. Now the artists are paying the price for that second wind because, unfortunately, rents have now gone up in the area and artists are finding it increasingly difficult to pay for space.

However, artists contribute to more than just the life of our society; they also make a significant economic contribution. I will not go into the numbers in terms of gross domestic product, economic spinoffs and so on. We have already heard those numbers. My colleagues have already mentioned them.

I would like to talk about a personal experience I had. A very well-known Quebec artist came to see me in my office to discuss her concerns about Bill C-11. She told me that she has a small business that employs sound technicians, graphic artists, musicians and set designers. She said her business is really small and that it gets by on next to nothing. She also said that this bill will deprive her of a significant portion of her income. This was a heartfelt appeal from someone who has been working in the arts for years and who makes an important contribution to our lives, our society and our economy.

As always, however, the Conservative government prefers to favour large corporations over small and medium-sized businesses artists often have. It prefers to favour large American content owners, rather than our own creators.

Indeed, this bill does not have adequate mechanisms to protect creators' rights and, as a result, it deprives artists of millions of dollars in revenue. Our artists are already poor enough, and I think everyone knows that. Existing mechanisms provide artists with some income through royalties that allow them to get by. Not only does the bill deprive artists of millions of dollars in revenue, but it provides no alternate funding method.

Solutions do exist and suggestions have been made. But, as with so many other issues, the Conservatives will not listen to anyone. As a result, our artists, who already have very difficult lives, will no longer be able to survive. The creation of creative content will eventually decrease, because our creators will be unable to make a living. We need to protect our artists. We need to protect them because of the contribution they make to the vitality of our society and because of the economic contribution they make.

I would like to quote one of my constituents who wrote, “Canada's future relies on creativity and imagination, which promote innovation and contribute to the quality of life in our communities and, as a result, increase our capacities to grow socially and economically.”

That is a fundamental problem with this bill, but there are others. First, in addition to its content and effect—not only on artists but also on our economy and society as a whole—this bill has some legal shortcomings. I would like to quote Mr. de Beer, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, who spoke about this bill:

There are doubts whether Parliament has the authority to legislate in respect of TPMs and RMI systems.... Although there is a tangential link to the federal Copyrights power, the matter might be more appropriately placed within provincial authority over Property and Civil Rights. Similarly, although this is a commercial matter, it seems not to fall within the federal Trade and Commerce power and is consequently for the provinces to deal with.

He goes on to say:

It is unclear whether the federal government has a general treaty-implementation power that would justify its proposed legislation. In general, the broader the proposed provisions, the further they are from federal jurisdiction and the more they trench into provincial powers.... At minimum, there are aspects of this matter that fall within the provincial sphere. All of this suggests that provincial Attorney Generals and other provincial policy-makers ought to actively participate in the debate.

Once again, we can see how the Conservatives operate: they lack respect for producers and small producers in Canada, grant all the privileges to the major corporations, refuse to listen, refuse to be open to proposed solutions and have little respect for existing laws. This bill itself contains several examples of problems we have noted in the House when examining a large number of bills.

I would like to point out another issue that is close to my heart, which is the destruction of course notes after 30 days. During the last year of my master's degree, while I was writing my thesis, I was still using course notes that I took during my first year, and I used them again while working on my doctorate.

Will this bill prevent students who are continuing their studies from keeping their course notes to use them again later? I wonder.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's commentary.

However, one provision in this bill that has not received a lot of attention pertains to the export of materials for the perceptually disabled. This includes braille and audio books for people who require access in this manner. The bill would actually legalize the export of works by an author who is a Canadian or a citizen of the country of import, subject to payment of a royalty that, as I understand it, would be set out in the regulations. My research indicates that.

Does the hon. member have views on this provision, which would place Canada in the forefront of international developments on accessibility for disabled people?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would be very happy to see Canada become a leader in producing materials for people with all types of disabilities. That said, we are still talking about exports, and I have nothing against exports. The main point that I raised in my speech was about defending the producers and artists, many of whom are young, who work here and who are the precursors to a new artistic elite that will someday be known around the world.

But that will not come out of nowhere. We must truly allow artists to grow, work and create synergies. Right now, we are pulling the rug out from under them. By not allowing this group of artists, who often live in difficult conditions, to do their work, we are destroying the foundations of our cultural home.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, the cultural industries have issued a statement. Thousands of people are directly affected by this bill. They have said that if the government does not amend the copyright modernization bill to ensure adequate compensation to Canadian content owners, it will lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and its distribution within Canada and abroad.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this. In response to such a statement from the entire Canadian cultural industry, the current government, in this morning's debate, has done practically nothing. It is not defending its position and it is asking very few questions. Some people opposite are reading newspapers. What is my colleague's impression?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his excellent two-part question.

First, the representatives from the entire cultural community in Canada have spelled out in black and white, repeatedly, saying that this bill is inadequate. We want a bill that balances the needs of the consumers with those of the artists. I did not talk about consumer needs, but this bill has major flaws in that regard. When it comes to the artists, this bill has been described to me as a disaster. The current government is refusing to listen to any other arguments or any other points of view.

The other part of the hon. member's question had to do with the decline in the production of Canadian content for use in Canada and abroad. That is terrible for Canada's image abroad, which is already suffering. If our artists can no longer flourish, that is bad news.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join in this debate on a topic that has been near and dear to my heart for many years in my role as a union representative for broadcasters and, more recently, for newspapers.

We perhaps have lost sight of what the whole purpose of this legislation ought to be. When we talk about copyright, we are talking about the right of individuals to protect their intellectual property from being reproduced without their receiving remuneration for it. In other words, it is about protecting the rights of individuals to be fairly and properly compensated when they produce a work.

Some history may be what we need to remind our friends here in the House of how Canada has dealt with this issue over the past century and perhaps before.

In the 1920s, we discovered a new technology, and this appears to be where we are going with all of this to deal with new technology. The 1920s had a new technology called radio. Immediately upon the broadcasting of the first radio programs, radio broadcasters discovered a need for content and they discovered that a cheap and easy way to get content was to play recordings made by artists. They would purchase those recordings in record stores, which was where they were coming from.

Rather than broadcasting the artists live, they would broadcast the artist on record and the artist immediately said, “Wait a minute. We got paid when we were sitting in a musical hall and actually performing for you. We're not getting paid for our work when you are merely re-broadcasting something we've recorded”. Thus began the debate, almost 100 years ago, about how artists were to be compensated for their work when that work was not live and immediate.

Over many years, the debate raged between the artists who said that broadcasters were getting the ability to sell advertising on their radio stations as a result of their good work. The radio stations replied that they were giving the artists free advertising and making them household names so they should actually pay the radio stations for the privilege of having their music played on their radio stations. That debate raged on for several years until finally we have a system in Canada and the United States today by which musicians are rewarded by royalties that are paid by these radio stations, and, ultimately, other forms of distribution, for recorded works. That system worked quite well and was a proper Canadian response to a copyright issue.

We did not go around looking to make criminals of people. We did not go around looking to punish people. We went looking for a way to make the system fair. We discovered that the distribution mechanism was the best way to pay the artists, that the artists were now receiving money as a result of the distribution of their work. It created, and held dear to Canadians' hearts, an industry that flourished.

However, we fast forward to the 1970s, and maybe the 1960s before it, when it became clear to regulators in this country that Canadian artists were suffering. Canadian artists were not flourishing the way we thought they would when they were going to get paid because there was a discovery by Canadians that the American television and radio systems were easy to receive over our close border and, therefore, because of that, artists were not getting the royalties they needed to stay alive.

Therefore, the Canadian content regulations were created in this country, that, again, did not make criminals out of anybody, but made it possible for a Canadian music industry to flourish, and not just flourish but become world-renowned as one of the best music industries in the world.

We have world-renowned performers who have been paid for their work as a result of the Canadian content regulations developed in the 1970s that forced radio stations to ensure their broadcast contained a percentage of Canadian original works. That concept flowed to television as well, and Canadian television companies were also forced to play Canadian content.

Then we had another wrinkle in this mix. It was becoming easier for consumers, the listeners, to not listen to the radio station and therefore provide royalties to the performers but, instead, to record those radio broadcasts themselves. The performers rightly said, "Wait a minute", as they did in the 1920s with radio. They said that the radio stations' works were now being copied by other people and that they needed a way in the Canadian model for that to pay them. They said that they needed a way for the Canadian system to ensure that the copyright owners would get money for this.

One reaction would have been to just ban it and say that it was illegal to copy it. However, in the good Canadian way, we do not like making criminals of law-abiding citizens. We like to find ways to compromise. So, a levy was created and administered by an arm's-length agency that would provide funding for the artists for their material that was put onto cassette tapes and, ultimately, CDs and DVDs. We found a mechanism whereby the distribution system for the artists' works paid the artists. That worked. We did not make criminals. We made artists prosper in this country. We ensured that the artists got their royalties and were fairly compensated for their works.

Those two historical events have led us now to a new system whereby the distribution mechanism has changed. People are not copying onto a cassette tape, CD or DVD. They are recording material that is available on the Internet. It is sometimes put on the Internet by the artists themselves, but it is often by other more nefarious means. I believe that we need to find a mechanism whereby that distribution system is in fact a way of providing royalties to the artists so that they can continue.

Instead, the legislation we have in front of us purports to make criminals out of ordinary citizens who might use this system to record material. It provides for locks, handcuffs, to prevent people from putting themselves in a position of being able to use and reuse Canadian artists' material in a way that pays those Canadian artists for that use. We are creating a system, which has now gone away from the traditional Canadian method of compensating artists, of making the distribution mechanism pay them. Now we are moving to a system of forbidding, a system of locks, of chains, of protection for essentially the distributors, not the artists, and preventing the free and easy use of this material. That prevention now threatens to make criminals of ordinary Canadians who, for whatever reason, want to time-shift a radio program or a television program or listen to a piece of music that they might be particularly interested in and are quite willing to pay a fee to listen to. Now they will be prevented from doing that.

The chaos that will result of lawsuits, charges and countercharges can only be imagined but it will happen and we will have a system that does not protect artists or pay them appropriately but rather chases ordinary Canadians and turns them into criminals. That is not the Canadian way.

I will also briefly comment on the notion that disabled persons, particularly blind individuals, would continue to have access. I have had representations made to me, as deputy critic for persons with disabilities, from members of the blind community who suggest that their current software would become invalid, that they would not be able to use it and that this law would prevent them from having books read to them.