Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I stand in the House today to talk about Bill C-321. I salute the member for Brandon—Souris for his work on this bill and for the many years that he has tried to pass the bill through the House. I would like to underline that I will miss his chairmanship now that I am no longer on the same committee. I was vice-chair of the committee on which he is chair. I have always found him to be a very fair member and that his ideas are very practical and pragmatic. He takes a balanced approach to public administration. I know he has tried to pass this bill in the House many times. Therefore, it gives me pleasure to say that our party will be supporting this bill at second reading.
We will be supporting this bill at second reading because it is a practical proposition. We believe that rural communities are dependent on this postal rate. In order to give access to everyone across Canada and fill the gap between the rural and the urban, we need measures like this so that people in rural communities are not deprived of library materials. We believe this bill would allow Canadians to get the library materials they need and would allow Canada Post to do it at a reduced rate.
Usually from the government side we see a desire to privatize public services such as Canada Post. We often hear rhetoric about how the government should not get involved with these arm's-length corporations. We are glad that the government is not taking that approach with this bill. We believe that government does have a role to play and that it can make practical propositions to benefit all Canadians. A crown corporation does not necessarily need to be privatized in order to achieve those aims. Therefore, we are delighted with the fact that members on the government side are willing to make propositions that make sense and are pragmatic.
The one provision I would like to see explored at committee is the five year time limit for the first definition of library materials. In other words, the definition would be decided In five years' time and after that it would be ten years' time.
We never know the pace of technological change. Ten years ago we did not have resources such as YouTube. Then, from 1992 to 2002, technological change went crazy. Therefore, we have put a question mark on the period for the review of library materials just because the pace of technology change in the past 20 years has been fairly accelerated and we would not want libraries to lose out on this reduced rate just because the review period is too long.
Other than that, we believe the bill, as it is, with some minor discussions at committee, will probably pass quite quickly. We do not see any roadblocks. I am sure the member for Brandon—Souris is quite happy that this bill will finally see royal assent.
As a member of this place, I am sure it is a great pleasure to see a bill that comes from one's heart make it through all of the stages of legislation and finally gets passed. That is a great achievement and the member for Brandon—Souris can be proud of that achievement. We salute him.
Other than the things I have mentioned, which perhaps need to be discussed at committee, we plan on supporting the bill.