Wendy Lill

[Canada Student Loans, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today to speak to the motion by my colleague from Vancouver East which reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should reverse the privatization of Canada Student Loans, reject proposals for income contingent loan repayment, and should instead implement a federal student grant program and establish accessibility as a new national standard for post-secondary education.

I would like to dedicate what I have to say today to three young women. One of them, who worked for me last term, is one of the many students in this country who are bowled over by crushing student debt. Another young woman had to declare bankruptcy because of the size of her student debt. The main crime of both of these women was that they chose to get a post-secondary education. The third young woman is 20 years old and is absolutely terrified about even entering the game because of the situation she now sees facing so many other people. These are the people I am thinking about when I talk about this motion.

The Liberal government has called itself the government of youth. At the same time it is engaging in a deplorable strategy of gutting funding for post-secondary education and privatizing Canada's student loans and forcing more and more students into severe debt.

This motion attempts to rectify this injustice. It also attempts to highlight the Liberal hypocrisy and make the link explicit between the drive to privatize post-secondary education and the increased hopelessness of students graduating into unemployment and even poverty.

It also should be made clear that, as the government retreats from its commitment to post-secondary education, the banks are moving in. More and more students are forced to borrow more money directly from banks in order to fund their education. Banks are not publicly accountable and have an interest in profit maximization, not in education and student well-being.

It is a strategy on the part of the Liberals to erode public funding for post-secondary education to the point where it is completely within the private sector domain.

With this motion the New Democrats are pressuring the Liberals to recognize the extent of the student debt crisis. We want the government to listen to what the students are saying.

I am interested in the comments from my colleague opposite about disabled students, and I would like to speak a bit about what is facing disabled students in this equation right now. Disabled students are still not at all facing a level playing field when it comes to post-secondary education.

We have enormously handicapped students or just mobility handicapped students who have to work around attendant care schedules. They really are handicapped by the schedules of others. What we need here and now is really a user friendly home care program that will meet the needs of students as they try to make it to classes at different hours of the day.

In my city we need more than two accessible taxis for students who have to find their way to universities. We have students who are dependent on wheelchairs and find themselves not able to get to school because their wheelchairs are in disrepair. They are in fact having to spearhead their own fundraising for new wheelchairs. It would be really unfair at this point to say that there is a level playing field for these students.

There are also a lot of hidden costs for disabled students, things like audio tapes and batteries and hundreds of ways that students have to pick up hidden costs.

Deaf students in Ontario have recently found their grants turned into loans. The cost of interpretation for a deaf and hard of hearing student is quite frankly astounding. It can reach up to $60,000 per student.

Let us not leave the impression that students with disabilities are feeling confident as they enter the slings and arrows of outrageous higher education.

I want to put forward some facts about post-secondary education. According to Human Resources Development Canada, 45% of new jobs by 2000 will require post-secondary education. That means for many young people attending university or college there is simply no option if they want to find work.

Despite this and despite saying they are committed to youth, Liberals continue to throw barriers in the way of young people struggling to develop the skills and talents necessary to get ahead in a cut throat global economy.

Since 1995 the federal Liberals have cut $1.5 billion from federal funding for post-secondary education. Since 1980 Liberal and Conservative governments have cut federal funding from $6.40 for each dollar of students to less than $3.

Tuition fees in Canada have reached a national average of $3,100 which surpasses the average tuition rate at publicly funded universities in the U.S. Bankruptcy rates for students trying to pay off loans are at a record level, having increased by 700% since 1989.

Currently we have 130,000 students in default. The number of bankrupt graduates is estimated at 37,000. There is a legacy. I really cannot get that out of my mind. I guess the first thing this motion urges, which I think is central, is that the government should reverse the privatization of Canada student loans.

In 1995 the Liberals gave financial institutions broader responsibility in the area of student financial assistance. Before that time, even though student loans were accessed through banks, they were fully guaranteed by government. Since then the federal government has ceased to guarantee student loans.

Instead it pays a 5% risk premium on all loans to participant lenders. It was the government's subtle way of saying that students are not to be trusted.

In the last budget the government announced another giant step toward privatization. Buried deep within the budget legislation currently in committee is a clause which gives banks more power to refuse student loans.

The clause allows cabinet, outside the scrutiny of the House, to determine which students do not deserve access to loans. The implications to that are staggering. Who is to say which guidelines cabinet will set? Will single mothers hoping to access loans be turned away because they missed their credit card payments?

Is this the first step toward giving banks total control over eligibility guidelines? How far are we from banks being able to determine which areas of study have a better return than others? For example, how profitable is it to get an education in the arts?

We are also concerned that privatizing student loans gives banks even more power on campus. CEOs and chairs of Canada's biggest banks already sit on boards of governors of many of Canada's universities and colleges. Privatizing student loans furthers their influence in shaping the direction of post-secondary education.

Why does business want in? It is simple. It wants control. Consider this statement by one time CEO of the Royal Bank Allan Taylor: “It is in business' best interest to get involved with funding for universities, but also with a direct involvement in setting courses, setting the curricula, so that it will get the kind of student it wants”. Big business has taken note. Across the country campuses are becoming a favourite stomping ground for big business elite.

This motion urges that the government should reject proposals for income contingent repayments. It urges the government instead to implement a federal student grant program and establish accessibility as a new national standard for post-secondary education.

New Democrats are not about to let the federal government forget about the student debt crisis. Instead of creating a scholarship program which duplicates existing programs and does nothing to help students in need, we have called on the federal government to take steps that will reduce student debt.

These include the end of privatization of Canada student loans and restoring this year's cut to education of $550 million. Following the suggestion of the British Columbia provincial government, work with the provinces to introduce a nationwide tuition freeze as the first step toward the elimination of tuition fees. Implement a national grant program to assist first and second year students and assist them to ensure students are provided with accurate information and are informed of their rights.

In the coming months the New Democrats will continue to work with others concerned about post-secondary education to make sure young people from low and middle income families do not have to mortgage their futures and their families to attend university or college.

[Museums, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday it was announced that the Halifax Regional Museum in Dartmouth will be closing due to lack of operating funding. Recent announcements from the heritage minister do nothing to address the crisis of a lack of operating money facing the 2,000 regional and local museums in Canada. To keep their doors open our museums are now selling valuable artifacts, auctioning off their art, cutting staff and reducing hours. Too many are closing.

These museums play a critical role in maintaining our heritage. Last year there were over 57 million visits to Canadian museums, more visits than to the movies and professional sports. These visitors see an all Canadian product for no or low cost.

I call on the Minister of Canadian Heritage to allocate emergency operating funding now for local and regional museums so that treasures such as the Halifax Regional Museum may remain open.

[Concentration Of Print Media In Canada, November 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion No. M-423 which states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of establishing a commission of inquiry to examine the concentration of print media in Canada.

I must start by registering a regret. My regret is that this motion does not go far enough. It does not go past the discussion stage to the action stage, to the legislation stage.

I for one, and I speak for the New Democratic Party, believe that we need media concentration legislation in this country now and that we needed it 20 years ago. Media concentration has been studied and studied. I have two studies here in front of me which I will refer to momentarily.

To show how long media concentration has been debated in this Chamber I point to Hansard of December 11, 1970.

Tommy Douglas rose to ask Pierre Trudeau about the three volume, 1117 page study which was the Senate special committee on mass media report, sometimes called the Davie report:

In view of the findings of this committee that the profits earned by media corporations, that is by broadcasters and publishers, are, in their words, extraordinary and astonishing, and in view of the evidence of the growing concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer media corporations, what actions does the government propose to take?

While Hansard does not record gestures, the answer was an obvious shrug.

The Liberals in the Senate spent over two years studying corporate concentration in the media. They discovered it was a problem requiring government action. The Liberal response was do nothing.

In 1980 another study was launched by the Liberals, the Kent commission, this time in response to the simultaneous shutdown of the Ottawa Journal and the Winnipeg Tribune , wiping out over 185 years of journalist tradition in Canada.

This eloquent report starts with a quote from a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States:

Freedom of the press from government interference does not sanction repression of that freedom by private interests.

The royal commission on newspapers reported in 1981 and, surprise, media concentration is a problem requiring government action, not more studies.

Specifically, the Kent commission called for halts to further concentration, with limited divestment relating to cross ownership in different medias and the divestment of the Globe and Mail from Thomson. It said that a newspaper owner should either be national or local.

Another key set of recommendations in the Kent report was designed to protect the editorial independence of the newsroom from the interference of the boardroom through the use of an independent board to hire the editor of the local paper and the establishment of a central press panel which would oversee the independence of the newsroom. The government response at the time, a Liberal government headed by Pierre Trudeau, was a little more encouraging. It flew trial balloons in the form of a draft bill on the watered down press council with limited divestment. Then it blew the balloons out of the water and did nothing.

It is worth noting that the minister who tried to do something about this, James Fleming, was removed from cabinet. He then tried to have a private member's bill pass on the same topic. It was a bill that was strongly opposed by his Liberal colleagues. I notice a pattern of behaviour here. Liberals study and then Liberals do nothing.

The problem of corporate concentration in the media is in crisis. Conrad Black, the Star fighting for the Sun , Global and Shaw carving up WIC, these events will continue to escalate unless the government acts now. Unless the government does something now and unless the government makes a real commitment to protect Canadian media at upcoming trade talks, Canada can expect to see the eventual takeover of media giants like Baton and Global by American giants like NBC and CBS. We need government action now.

Where do we start? I spoke to Tom Kent in recent weeks. When he wrote his report 34% of the daily newspapers were in the hands of one chain. With the launch of the National Post Conrad Black now owns about 55% of Canadian dailies. Given that, I asked Tom Kent what recommendations from his report were still doable given the rise of Conrad Black and since then the Star wars in Toronto. Mr. Kent felt that the future he predicted had come to pass and therefore the divestment options are probably not available. He strongly felt that the setting up of independent committees in the newsrooms to protect the paper from boardroom interference was still doable but also more important than ever.

I also spoke with people who know the media business like Gail Lem, a former journalist and now an organizer for the communications workers, and David Robinson from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It is clear that there are things that the government must do now to control the situation.

The government can and should ban newspaper owners from owning broadcasting corporations. The government should also ban any further concentration and cross ownership dealing with the weekly newspaper sector.

The government can implement the sections of the Kent commission dealing with the press rights panel and the newspaper advisory committees for all daily newspapers. This does not cause government interference. It protects editorial independence of content.

The government can place controls on the foreign ownership of all media companies in Canada.

The government must re-fund the CBC so that Canadians have a strong independent standard voice across the country.

The government can and must encourage community organizations of all types to participate and buy their local weekly papers, stopping the massive concentration of weekly chains and making weeklies truly community papers.

The government can instruct the CRTC to force cable stations to have a higher level of standard, community run programming on its community channels.

The CRTC, as part of the current exercise it is conducting, should also be asked to advise the government on controls which may be placed on the cross ownership of media corporations as they relate to the new medias which are emerging daily on our computer screens.

In conclusion, I regret that I will not be able to support Motion M-423 because it falls far short of what is required now. I believe that the member moving this motion is sincere and concerned. I also think Canadians are concerned about media concentration. We all want a free press. We all know, almost instinctively, that having the ownership of the press in a very few hands threatens freedom of the press. What we need now however is not more study but action.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would have to say that our party is on record as not being in favour at all of the MAI in its present configuration. When I say I am in support of cultural carve outs in terms of international trade agreements, I would have to say that this is in terms of a new kind of international trade agreement which in fact supports environmental concerns, labour concerns and social concerns, as well as cultural concerns.

I wish that our government had been right in front of the Government of France in pulling out of the MAI negotiations and killing that particularly egregious trade agreement. Unfortunately that was not the case, but I wish it had been.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am worried about the word “adjustments”. That is a word that usually means job losses. It means money being taken from places that are not immediately evident.

With respect to this whole bill, I must say that it still looks to me like a quick fix and an effort in some respect to save the magazine industry. In many ways it is still in denial of the root causes of the problem that we are now facing, which has to do with our engaging in trade agreements without sufficiently understanding the impact they are going to have on our cultural industries.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I too have some concerns about where the $18 million will come from. I will turn that question back to my hon. colleague opposite.

I am still not clear. That $18 million will not come out of the air. It obviously will come out of Canada Post, and we know who pays for Canada Post. Maybe the parliamentary secretary could answer that question.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments. I agree that the minister of heritage has a real commitment to preserving culture. I believe she was carrying the flame in that respect with regard to the MAI negotiations.

However, I asked the Minister for International Trade twice in this House to be very specific about the wording around “Would you guarantee a complete cultural carve-out?” One day the answer was yes and then two days later, when I read the script of a dinner speech made by the minister, the wording was quite different. It had sort of backed down on cultural exemption.

I think that the devil is in the wording. That is what has been confounding this whole issue all along. Whether we are talking carve-out or exemption, at the 11th hour at these tables what exactly is given away? I do not believe for a minute that the spirit of the MAI is dead, but I am still not convinced that if the MAI had continued on in the present realm of negotiations that we would have had what we wanted at the end of the day in terms of real cultural protection.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, as my party's critic for culture and communications I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the contents of Bill C-55, an act representing advertising services supplied by foreign periodical publishers.

I was not able to be in the House to speak on this bill on first reading last Thursday but our member for Winnipeg—Transcona with his usual eloquence and clarity spoke to the bill so I will, in my own fashion, try to add to that.

To refresh members on the contents, Bill C-55 will make it an offence for a publisher to provide advertising services aimed at the Canadian market to be placed in foreign periodic publications except for those currently receiving Canadian advertising.

The offence is enforceable by a Canadian court after an investigation ordered by the Minister of Canadian Heritage using powers of investigation borrowed from the Criminal Code. The penalties range anywhere from $20,000 to $250,000 for a corporate offender on indictment.

The offences that take place outside of Canada by foreign individuals or corporations are deemed to have taken place in Canada for the purposes of endorsement of the act.

What we have here in effect and without doubt with Bill C-55 is an eleventh hour effort to protect the Canadian magazine industry from being truly swamped and I would say possibly sunk by the thousands of shiny, glossy, glitzy, sexy American magazines which we all see row by row, bicep by bicep, cleavage by cleavage in our airport bookstores and in the chains of American bookstores we now have all over our country.

It is not that I do not like American magazines. I like them a great deal and I have a tremendous admiration for American writers, the political commentators, the satirists, the sports writers, the poets and the playwrights. I like a whole lot about the United States and its talent and its spirit. But it is the volume and the velocity of the American product and the unrelenting manner with which it floods the Canadian shores which concerns me. It obviously concerns the Minister of Canadian Heritage as well or she would not be putting forward Bill C-55.

It is not the first effort and I doubt it will be the last effort to protect the Canadian magazine industry from the American tidal wave of publications. Nor is it the last effort probably to keep Canadian advertising dollars in Canadian publications.

In 1976 passage in parliament of Bill C-58, a statute which disallowed tax deductions by Canadian companies for their advertising expenditures in foreign periodicals and broadcasting outlets, obviously enhanced the attractiveness of advertising in Canadian media.

In 1982 postal subsidies instituted for Canadian magazines helped to stabilize Canadian periodical competitive position vis-a-vis American magazines whose overrun copies were simply dumped in the Canadian market.

In 1982 the Canadian Periodical Publishers Association termed the postal subsidy not only the oldest but in some ways the most effective of all the many kinds of cultural assistance created by the taxpayers of Canada. Postal subsidies were considered a true grant in the public interest.

Now it is 1998 and a lot of water has gone under the bridge. Now we have Bill C-55 and it is a direct result of a GATT panel overturning the Canadian policy on split run magazines, magazines which contain mostly American content but run in separate editions for Canada containing Canadian ads. Sports Illustrated , Readers' Digest and Time magazine are the best known examples.

Eighteen months ago a Canadian conference for the arts report on this ruling on the GATT case said: “World trade organization decision on magazines advances the cultural sovereignty doomsday clock”. What an ominous concept. The CCA strongly recommended immediate action in a number of areas and it is still very relevant to today and I am going to quote some. Number one is, not surprisingly, fix the magazine industry policy.

Second, Canada must aggressively promote and secure an effective and durable cultural exemption in all existing and proposed international agreements. Third, develop a systematic understanding of the constraints and challenges in cultural sovereignty posed by existing trade agreements.

It is clear that the federal government understands the impact of international trade agreements on culture as poorly as the rest of us. Who can forget the assurances that the former minister of Canadian heritage, the Hon. Michael Dupuy, gave to the Senate that officials in his and other departments assured him that C-103, the split-run legislation, was fully consistent with our international trade obligations. This has proven to be far from the truth.

The nature of the case made by the international trade officials at the WTO appears to provide abundant evidence that the situation has not improved. The government must move with dispatch to ensure that we have a clear and solid appreciation of the constraints and opportunities presented in the full network of international trade agreements and their impact on cultural sovereignty. We must develop a solid base of knowledge and talent in foreign affairs and international trade as well as within all government departments active in this area and the cultural sector itself.

Those were some comments from the CCA bulletin, the Canadian Conference of the Arts bulletin, of July 1997.

Eighteen months later I look at those cautionary remarks and I would say that we still have not gained the kind of understanding and self-knowledge that we need to pull this critical cultural issue out of the fire.

Instead, with Bill C-55 we see the failure of the Liberals to adequately protect the Canadian magazine industry under international trade agreements or admit, more to the point, where the problem lies.

Since the panel has proclaimed that Canadian policy cannot discriminate against foreign-owned goods, such as the product on paper of split-run magazines, the government will now try it under the definition of services such as the placing of advertising.

Will it work? Will it save the Canadian magazine industry? I am afraid this bill will likely be challenged as well, possibly under the NAFTA or under the FTA. I might add that it would definitely have been disallowed under the MAI which the Canadian government fought to keep alive until the end, which came last week.

With Bill C-55 we see the disappearance of the postal subsidies for Canadian magazines which were described in 1982 as a true grant in the public interest. As a result of the changes required by the WTO, Canada Post will eliminate the international publication rate which was higher than the domestic rate.

Foreign publishers will therefore benefit from reduced postal rates. There will be an estimated $18 million reduction in mailing costs.

The last section of the bill, section 24, the grandfather clause, is a legal surrender to American magazines which have already broken into the Canadian market. The NDP will closely examine that exemption in committee with a view to opening up new opportunities for Canadian publications.

In effect, this bill entrenches the status quo. There is nothing in the bill to promote Canadian content, to encourage more community periodicals or to bring forward new Canadian or regional voices. But it is an effort by the government and any effort cannot be spurned.

However, I would like to reiterate the central point made by my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona that this is an effort to please, to kowtow to trade agreements and not, first and foremost, to protect and nurture our culture.

I would also like to reiterate his point that government members are not critical enough of the agreements in which they find themselves. I am talking particularly about the WTO.

There is a fundamental contradiction between the ideology, the world view embodied in the WTO, and the whole notion of protection of culture.

There is the fundamental contradiction between culture and free trade as it is understood by the WTO and the NAFTA. The fact is that our previous policy has been tested against the ideology and the world view of the WTO and has been shot down.

It is important for our government and our Minister of Canadian Heritage to admit to the fact that there are fundamental problems with these trade agreements. It is important that they recognize that their hands are tied by the rules of trade agreements which they were deeply involved in formulating.

The Liberals are in a box right now. The country and our culture is now in a box which is of our own government's making.

Now we have Bill C-55, a quick fix which will likely be challenged as well by the trade agreements which the Liberals and Tories before them were intricately involved in formulating.

The government is trying to provide a quick fix for a much larger problem which it had a hand in creating, the sacrificing of culture at trade negotiation tables.

Bill C-55, inadequate as it is, does represent a small effort on behalf of the government to protect our magazine industry, an industry that supports thousands of cultural workers, writers, publishers, copy editors, photographers and many others.

It is an industry that continues to go a long way, despite the onslaught of American magazines, to tell Canadian stories to Canadian people.

In conclusion, the NDP will support the principles of the bill and we will be voting in favour of it at second reading.

[Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act, October 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question about the member's comment that there would be no new cost to taxpayers.

I checked with the heritage department about the removal of postal subsidies. It made the point that as a result of the changes required by the WTO, Canada Post would eliminate the international publication rate which was higher than the domestic rate. Foreign publishers would therefore benefit from reduced postal rates to a tune of an estimated $18 million.

Where does the mailing cost come from if not from the taxpayer?

[Social Policies, October 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the minister understands the gravity of the situation.

Children are sleeping in overcrowded shelters, on hot air grates and in abandoned cars and it is starting to get cold. Today the city of Toronto passed a motion by a vote of 53 to 1 calling on the federal government to declare homelessness a national disaster.

Will the federal government take emergency action and use its resources now and open armouries and surplus office space to give shelter to the 200,000 homeless across Canada before winter sets in?