Wendy Lill

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I must say that families in my riding are painfully aware of the lack of resources and the fact that soldiers are constantly redeployed almost as soon as they get off the ships. It is painful to watch at the family resources centre as families deal with yet another deployment.

I will talk about the government's failure to safely equip our forces. In the conclusion of the national defence 2002-03 estimates the government states:

Over the past few years, Defence has pursued a deliberate strategy to position Canada’sdefence and security establishment for the future, focussing on ways to reinvest in itspeople, and to modernize, revitalize, and enhance the operational effectiveness of theCanadian Forces.

I guess this refers to upgrading the CF18s, the Aurora and the Coyote. However the replacement of the Sea King continues to be delayed. Other members here are passionate about the issue as well. How can the government claim to be working to enhance and modernize the armed forces when for close to 10 years the Maritime Helicopter Project has been stalled? The service personnel of 12 Wing Shearwater continue to operate and maintain the Sea Kings which are flying accidents waiting to happen.

When will the government replace the Sea King? How many more soldiers do we need to lose in these helicopters before the government gets the message that they are death traps?

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to use my time tonight, however long it is, to make comments and ask questions based on my own experience as the member of parliament for Dartmouth and as the representative of thousands of military personnel and their families.

I have enormous respect for the military and their commitment to this great country. It is in that spirit that I will ask the minister to address some central planning and priority issues which will have a profound effect on my constituents.

I would like to start by talking about the fact we are all aware of: our military resources are overstretched and our missions are under-resourced. In the national defence 2002-03 estimates report, the government stated that the pace of operations from the late 1990s has taken its toll and has stretched the Canadian forces, the department, and the men and women who wear the uniform.

As well as Senate committee reports, a Canadian security and military preparedness report released in February of this year reported that there are 105 military occupations, with 43 of these occupations considered to be “stressed”. This means that the status of these occupations is considered to be red, with indications that its trained effective strength is 90% or less and that it may not recover within two years.

I would like to ask the minister how the government intends to continue its high level of overseas commitment given its resources in these estimates. Even with the government's “aggressive” recruitment strategies, how can this situation be remedied before there are increased deployments for our already overtaxed and overburdened military personnel?

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I would ask consent of the House to split my time with the member for Palliser.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I will be splitting my time with the member for Palliser, with the consent of the House.

[Lisa's Law, May 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to make a couple of very brief remarks. I have been listening with interest to the debate on Bill C-400 and it is a very moving tale. It is important that this issue is looked at much more closely by members of parliament. The New Democrats and I would support having this sent to committee for further study.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am interested in the issues related to housing strategies and the idea that while we wait to challenge this U.S. duty decision at the WTO, which could take a year or two, we can in fact do something right now to encourage the domestic housing market at a time when we need it so desperately. We have so many people who are homeless or underhoused. The member spoke eloquently about that.

I am wondering about other methods in terms of the employment insurance fund and loan programs. What other methods does the member have in mind to help the workers in the forest industry as well as the owners of this crisis ridden industry right now?

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Yukon a question about the present state of the auto industry in Ontario. In the last 18 months the CAW has lost approximately 15,000 auto-related members as the industry restructures. Plant closures have been announced by GM in Quebec and by Ford at its Oakville truck plant. There are also concerns about the future of DaimlerChrysler's Pillette Road truck plant in Windsor. At the same time auto parts plants have also been hit hard in southern Ontario.

What is the government doing to stem the tide of jobs in Windsor and Oakville? What is the government doing to work on a new auto industry strategy for Canada?

[Canadian Heritage, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the heritage minister.

Last Friday an urgent plea was published in the Globe and Mail , a plea to hold a public inquiry into media concentration as a threat to democracy. This plea came from some of the greatest leaders, writers and historians of our time, including: Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Stevie Cameron, Matthew Coon Come, Ken Georgetti, Tom Kent, Flora MacDonald, John Meisel, Claude Ryan, Florian Sauvageau, Hamilton Southam, Keith Spicer, David Suzuki, Jane Urquhart and Patrick Watson.

Will the government listen to these 53 great Canadians and call an inquiry today?

[Pension Savings, April 19th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 357 which was placed on the floor of the House by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should create a personal retirement account whereby Canadians may be given an after-tax option for pension savings.

I do not support the motion because it would be a way for Canadians with middle to high incomes to escape paying taxes. Let us face it, the motion is calling for a situation whereby people who had money to put into private investment accounts would not need to pay taxes on those accounts. The motion would create a government sponsored personalized tax haven for every Canadian who could afford it.

That is a bad idea. Unlike RRSPs and pension plans which are tax holidays these accounts would be tax exemptions, pure and simple. Most people I know who play the stock market are not the ones in society who need tax breaks.

Besides the general unfairness of creating another tax loophole for people with money to play the stock market while the government still forces single mothers on welfare to pay the GST, the motion would create an overall policy problem by depriving the government of revenue. The sad consequence of people being allowed to escape paying their fair share of taxes is the continued deterioration of public services like medicare or the pension system. I would prefer the House to look at ways of increasing public support for institutions like our pension system, public education system and health care system.

Let us look at the values of Canadians in this regard. Canadians do not mind paying taxes as long as they know the taxes will be used for the benefit of the community. They do not mind paying if the result will be more public transit, better public housing, support for their neighbours with disabilities and generous support for seniors.

My constituents get angry when they pay unfair levels of taxes. They get angry when they pay 40% or 50% marginal tax rates on modest incomes while the wealthiest families are able to shuffle billions of dollars out of the country in family trusts without paying tax and with the permission of the government.

My constituents lose confidence in the system when they pay 40% tax rates but see their health care system underfunded; transfers cut to the provinces for education; people paying into the employment insurance scheme who are unable to collect; and families of our Canadian forces who have to visit food banks to make it through the month. Canadians lose confidence when at the same time corporations get huge tax cuts, private companies make huge profits doing the work of recently privatized public services, and companies that should be contributing to local communities are instead lining up to the government with lists of social and economic demands in the name of globalization.

If hon. members do not believe we can rebuild our public services with higher taxes they should check this week's budget in Great Britain. The British government raised taxes and ran a temporary deficit so it could pay for a 41% increase in funding for the national health service and substantial increases in essential public services like education and transportation. That is the kind of economic direction I can wholeheartedly support.

The system proposed by Motion No. 357 would fundamentally undermine that. A personal retirement account that is never taxed would ultimately undermine the Canada Pension Plan and our RRSP system.

Under the present system people can put a portion of their income into an RRSP. The amount put into the RRSP does not count as income for the tax year in which the contribution is made. Upon retirement when people's incomes are usually lower and their tax rates are less they can take money from their RRSP accounts and the withdrawals are taxed at the lower rate. RRSPs are a tax holiday but the government gets the revenue eventually. Under Motion No. 357 there would be no tax deferral or holiday but a total loss of income for the government.

I am wondering if the member actually believes that we do not need revenue to pay for our social programs, such as pensions. Does he not see that the consequences of gutting income for government is the gutting of programs which help people?

I believe it is morally backward that wealthy families should receive retirement benefits in the form of a tax exempt retirement allowance at the cost of the existence of public pension plans for the poor. It is wrongheaded to say the least.

In conclusion I hope the member for Vancouver Island North will abandon this notion of tax exemptions for families who can afford large savings and work with New Democrats to develop policies that will put a fair tax system in place which will support reliable and sustainable public services like pensions and health care.

[Copyright Act, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 431 put forward by my colleague from Kootenay--Columbia. The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should draft legislation deleting sections 30.8(8) and 30.9(6) of the Copyright Act.

My interest is always piqued when business of the House affects copyright. As I have said before, I am someone who has had the joy of receiving a royalty payment and I also believe I am the only member of the House who has made a living writing plays, so when Motion No. 431 came across my desk, I was interested.

Having read the motion many times, I could not understand what the motion intended to do. No offence is meant to my colleague, but I try to frame my writing so as to be understandable in at least one of the official languages. The way the motion is written, it is hard to know what it says.

Was it a motion that condemned proposed increases in the copyright levy on blank recordable material? I am opposed to the size of the proposed increases because I believe the amount is excessive and may erode public support for the all important copyright payments to creators. No, if that were the case it would read something like “That, in the opinion of this House, the proposed increase in the copyright tariff currently before the Copyright Board is excessive”. I would be happy to rise today to support that motion, but Motion No. 431 reads nothing like that.

I pulled out the Copyright Act and tried to figure out what my friend from Kootenay--Columbia was talking about. I had my assistant call the member to get a better understanding of what he meant in the motion and I thank my friend for his kind explanations.

Section 30 of the Copyright Act deals with ephemeral recordings, a phrase that basically means recordings made for later broadcast but do not go directly to broadcast. Technically it is a breach of copyright to transfer a recording from one medium to another, just as it is a breach of copyright to photocopy a book or an article from a magazine. Section 30 outlines the circumstances when these ephemeral recordings are allowed without the express permission of the copyright holder, including what records are required, how long these recordings may be kept and so on.

Subsections 30.8(8) and 30.9(6) say that when a licence is available from the collective society of the specific individual copyright holder, then the other rules of section 30 do not apply and the licence fee applied by the copyright society takes precedence.

There have recently been testimonies before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage from private radio stations on the effect of these sections. They said that the sections amount to a loophole in the law which is being used by some of the copyright collectives to charge radio stations a royalty to transfer the recording to a medium from which it can be broadcast, the ephemeral recording, and then another royalty to broadcast the recording. They complain that they are paying a royalty twice to broadcast a song once. I suggest that Motion No. 431 really means that in the opinion of this House, radio stations should only have to pay once for the use of a recording for broadcast, regardless of how many times the recording must be transferred to a different medium to prepare for the single broadcast.

The concept is something I actually endorse. New Democrats support fair taxation, not double taxation. There are a few caveats I would like to put on the record on which my support is conditional.

The first is that the basic framework of the copyright collective is a concept we should all be supporting. There are many who use these organizations as the target for every economic ill in the copyright world. I think that the biggest step forward that has been made in our copyright laws has been the establishment and support of copyright collectives. These collectives are critical for the future of Canadian creators. After all, artists have little to no support in this country. If we look at real dollar expenditures in Canada over the last decade, government support for the arts and for artists is still at a lower level than it was under Brian Mulroney.

This lack of public support has made artists rely more and more on that little copyright cheque. Remember that the vast majority of Canadian creators make less than $20,000 a year, so these collectives are important to them because they are basically poor. Poor people cannot enforce their rights in our society by themselves.

Artists are not going to get legal aid to sue the local radio station or the local kid with an MP3 player for copyright infringement. Without copyright collectives, artists would be unable to enforce their rights, collect any revenue for the use of their work, or effectively negotiate with the huge media interests that primarily use their work to make a profit.

Another part of the Copyright Act I want to be on record as supporting are the sections that allow for private copying of music with the condition that creators are compensated through a small levy on the sale of blank material. I said earlier that I opposed the size of the proposed increase to the blank medium levy, but I oppose it because I worry that a 100% increase in the levy will erode public support for the whole levy system.

Frankly, I want to comment on the fact that the government and the collectives have done an abysmal job explaining the copyright system to the public. All I hear from my constituents is that they know the price of blank CDs is increasing and they are angry about it. No one is attempting to explain to consumers that the money collected by the levy goes directly to composers and performers. No one is explaining that the reason it is legal to make these private copies in Canada is that there is a levy to offset the loss in revenue to creators from private copying.

The government and the collectives, both of whom seem to have lots of money for private jets for the Prime Minister or in the case of SOCAN for meetings in the best private clubs in town, should be spending a small amount of their administrative costs on letting the public know how our copyright system actually works.

Canadians understand that the creators need to be paid for their work. They want to pay creators and performers for their work. They are suspicious of the current system because we live in a country with a history of hidden taxes and comparatively secret and wealthy organizations that only speak through their lawyers. This past behaviour has led the public to be suspicious of the whole public sector and copyright is not immune to this suspicion. They do not need to be suspicious and if the government and the collectives put some effort into public education, then they would not be.

I thank my friend for moving the motion. I hope that this debate contributes to a stronger copyright system.