Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a bill to which an overwhelming majority of the groups that will be affected have objected. Only the big corporations that distribute content seem to be pleased with it. Journalists, artists, authors, new media specialists and copyright law specialists, all these groups object to the bill as it stands. Despite the fact that there are senior ministers present in the House, the government is not participating at all in the debate this morning. How can we interpret that kind of attitude toward all these groups, representing thousands of Canadians who produce books and songs and who have a positive effect on the lives of millions of Canadians? How can we interpret that silence this morning? How can we not see it as complete contempt for the issue of intellectual property? Canadians will be the judges.
Copyright issues have not been lagging behind other legislation in Canada just recently. Twenty years ago, I had the good fortune to take several courses taught by an expert in this field, Gilles Valiquette, as part of an audio technician programmer course. Even then we were surprised to learn that Canadian copyright law had long been managed by the Department of Agriculture. It took nearly 100 years to correct that situation.
We were also very surprised to learn that the way copyright was managed in Canada, unlike under a number of European laws, the author was not paid until the very end. At that time, we were talking just about CDs, because there was as yet no great diversity in digital formats. Sales had to be reported, say 50,000 copies sold, in order for authors to receive their share, while under a number of European laws, a CD, for example, could not leave the plant before the authors received what was coming to them.
For comparison purposes, it is as if a law in Canada had prevented a bricklayer from being paid until there was enough money for the shopping centre and until enough consumers had visited that shopping centre. That approach is quite absurd and has prevented a lot of creators from earning a living with dignity in Canada.
In the early years of this century I owned a small business where creators produced music. The industry went through a very difficult period with the diversification of digital formats and the ease of copying them. We saw extraordinary artists who ordinarily sold 100,000 or 150,000 or 200,000 copies suddenly, even though they had the same fan base, selling 50,000 or 40,000 or 35,000 copies. When we see a bill that talks about modernizing copyright, the first reaction is to rejoice and say “finally”.
But this bill demonstrates extreme hypocrisy. Even its title should be questioned. Can we really call it a copyright bill when its effect will be to cut creative people’s incomes by millions of dollars? The title of the bill should be changed to make it a little less hypocritical to “an act to support the big distributors” or something along those lines. But no, this bill claims to be about copyright, about authors' rights.
The introduction of this bill was accompanied by completely absurd rhetoric with the government saying, among other things, that copyright is comparable to a tax on iPods.
To say that to authors is just as absurd as saying to any other consultant—someone who does not put down an object in exchange for money, for example the consultants hired by the ministers opposite—that we do not know if they will be paid, because it would be considered a tax. Paying them would be like imposing a surtax on the consumer or the public. We would never make this argument to consultants hired by the departments of our colleagues opposite. It is that absurd.
Such contempt of intellectual property and copyright has consequences. This has been pointed out not just by the NDP, but also by copyright legislation experts. If this bill is passed in its present form, the cultural output of Canada and Quebec will be impoverished. I will give a simple example: I do not want my children living in a world where the only major cultural event of the week, in 2030, is the release of Indiana Jones 27. I hope that my children will live in a world where such talented writers as Yann Martel can make a living writing books and such talented composers as Karkwa can make a living recording music. That is my hope. This bill guarantees that the opposite—the impoverishment of Quebec and Canadian culture—will occur.
In closing, I would like to lend my voice to a group of authors who express, better than I, the current problems with this legislation in an opinion letter entitled “Preserving the dignity of works and their creators”, which was published in Le Devoir.
...this is what is proposed in Bill C-32 [the old nomenclature]: broadening the scope of fair dealing to include education, the possibility of creating a new work from existing works without the consent or remuneration of the author, private copying without payment of additional royalties [the creator is paid once, money is made for 1,000 years; that is inadequate], the mandatory use of digital locks to protect one's work on the Internet, the elimination of the responsibility of Internet service providers, and so forth. These are all situations where respect for intellectual property will disappear [this is the harsh but quite justified conclusion of this group of authors]. With [this] bill..., the exceptions overtake the rule.
We also perceive in this bill a deep-seated contempt for creators and a stubborn refusal to recognize their contribution to the development of our society.
To digress a little: many creators are suffering great hardship. Some great creators with whom I worked were barely able to make a living from their art, if at all. However, I would like to point out that a career as extraordinary as that of Leonard Cohen may have helped him to become a millionaire, and that is wonderful. I want the next Leonard Cohen to also be a millionaire.
My little boy, who is six years old, loves to go for snowmobile rides, and this enriches my everyday life. So thank you, Mr. Bombardier. I am very happy that the Bombardiers are billionaires. My son loves it when we listen to three of Leonard Cohen's songs in particular when we go on road trips. It makes him happy. These two things are very important in my son's life.
It is good that some successful creators simply get rich from their work and their success. I would like to come back to the editorial:
...the bill...calls for the exact opposite. At a time when our government is prepared to spend amounts that defy reason to build up its military arsenal, it is upset about the money that the education sector is paying creators for using their works....
By the way, I have never heard a single teacher ask that creators not be given payment for the use of their works in the classroom. I have never heard of it. I do not know where this is coming from.
In closing, I once again deplore the total lack of interest demonstrated by the members opposite in a situation that is so critical to the future of intellectual property and our country's culture.