Lucien Bouchard

[Human Rights, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is not with the minister's speech in this House, because it was an excellent speech espousing a very generous vision of Canada's contribution to restoring a kind of balance between countries of the South and the North. We even praised the minister for his magnanimous remarks. The problem is the surprise we had on hearing the minister say one thing outside this House, whereas he had said the opposite in this chamber. Outside the House, the minister said that Canada's trade policy was not tied to the issue of human rights.

I would like to know if the minister recognizes that this new policy, which he defined outside the House-because there are two policies, one for the House, and one for outside the House-would not have allowed Canada to take part in the trade embargo which ultimately brought about an end to apartheid in South Africa. Furthermore, should we expect Canada to ease the trade sanctions imposed on Haiti to force the return of President Aristide?

[Human Rights, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In a surprising statement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has announced that Canada will no longer tie Canadian foreign assistance to a country's human rights record. In so doing, the government is casting aside the policy announced at the 1991 Commonwealth Summit in Zimbabwe and later reaffirmed at the Francophone Summit in Dakar, a policy which ties Canadian foreign assistance to respect for human rights.

Are we to understand from the minister's statement that the government had a sudden change of heart and decided that from now on business comes first, even if it means willingly ignoring systematic human rights abuse in countries under dictatorial rule, just to establish trade relations with these countries?

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would very much like to assure my hon. colleague and friend that there is nothing personal in our differences. It is really a question of collective perception of what the future should be, what should be best for our two collectivities, what kind of political structures would achieve in the best way the welfare and development of Quebec and the rest of Canada. Therefore, it is nothing personal but just personal consideration.

If it were possible to bridge our differences through personal appreciation, through friendship, I am sure it would already have been done. However even though we have all those good feelings and respective consideration for each other, it was not possible when it came time to table collective and concrete proposals to satisfy Quebec's aspirations. It is collective and it is the political dynamics of the country that has conducted us where we are.

Coming back to the specific deal, the hon. member said there were conditions attached to the 1989 transaction. There might be but we do not know. How come there was a very extensive contract? I suppose it exists. That is why we asked for it. There was a very extensive and comprehensive written contract as there always is when there is a transaction where all the conditions were stated and clearly expressed. How can we explain that one of the main conditions of the contract, one of the main considerations of the contract was taken out of the document? How can we explain that? It never happens.

I practised law for 22 years. I was involved in these kinds of deals. It never happened in my life that someone took the liberty of contracting a verbal agreement which was not couched in the contract. It is very dangerous too because chances are that the court would not sanction the commitment. That is why I do not believe for one moment that the legal advice is binding on the government. It is quite possible if the government hired good lawyers, and they have lots of good Liberal lawyers, it could go to court and fight for Canada and fight for the cultural interests of Canada.

Why does the government not do that? It did it for a $6 billion contract when it cancelled the helicopter deal in Quebec. It did it for the Pearson International Airport with a $1.6 billion contract which will be brought to court now. We read in the papers that the government will be sued for close to $200 million, but it did it anyway because it thought it was in the interest of the people.

Why does the government not do that with something which amounts to about $10 million, which is not a very big amount of money for a government, but so huge, so symbolic and with cultural interest?

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that the main reason, maybe the sole reason for which I am a separatist, as my colleague just said, is exactly because I want to protect what I am. I want to protect Quebec sovereignty.

I fully expect the rest of Canada to protect its own identity. It happens there are two identities in this country. That is my feeling. That is my vision of the future for us and of the present reality.

The rest of Canada is perfectly legitimate in fighting for its sovereignty against the Americans for example. It is perfectly legitimate to fight for your own identity. No one is better placed to understand that than a Quebecer. We think that Quebecers have won a great victory for the last 350 years in protecting their identity.

In this case, both our identities are threatened. If any government allows the invasion of the American publishing industry into Toronto it should be possible also in Montreal. As long as we are in the federation in Quebec, we are exposed to the same threat. I do not accept that.

This is a case where we have a common cause. This is a case where the interests of the rest of Canada and of Quebec are the same. Therefore we should act together. I would expect the national government which made such strong commitments to respect that.

This is a case where the government can fight the good fight for Quebec and the rest of Canada, for our own respective identities.

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for asking a very relevant and important question.

We are free traders. We think there should not be any economic barriers between our partners, that we should have completely free exchanges in every aspect of our economic life. When it comes to cultural identity, when it comes to the soul of a country, whatever country it is, we have a duty to protect it.

That is why one of the main victories won by Canada during the negotiations with the Americans on the free trade agreement was the cultural exception. It was a great victory. It was the first time that Americans had to accept from any country in the world, from any of their partners, that they should respect the cultural identity and the cultural sector of a country. It was taken out of the scope of the free trade agreement.

We should not forget also that this question has been very much at the heart of the political landscape and preoccupations of Canada. For example if you look at the Investment Canada Act you will see two provisions where it is really strongly affirmed that the cultural sector is a special case. For example section 20 of the Investment Canada Act states that one of the criteria to approve transactions is the "compatibility of the investment with national, industrial, economic and cultural policies".

If you look more precisely at section 15, which is a very strong provision, it states very clearly that cultural activities are very special and that we should assess quite differently any transaction that would bear on this sector when it comes to be reviewed by Investment Canada. Subsection (a) of section 15 reads: "It falls within the prescribed specific type of business activity that in the opinion of the governor in council is related to Canada's cultural heritage or national identity".

To resume my answer, there is a wide consensus from every part of Canada, from every walk of life, that we should protect our identity from a very strong and invading neighbour. The Americans have a universal civilization and culture. It is quite dynamic. We admire them. But in a way we have a duty to protect what we are. If we do not protect what we are we will never be in a position to do anything right. There would never be any dialogue if we have nothing to say. We have a contribution to bring to the universal realities, to the universal values, and it stems from what we are so we have to protect what we are.

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

This government had the decision to make. We all know we have a new government and the decision was in the hands of this government.

Why did the government say no? The excuse was a previous verbal commitment by someone existed that might go back as far as 1989. We do not know exactly. There are many questions to ask.

The first question would be: Where is the legal advice that the government is invoking? The government is basing its decision on the fact it has been provided with a legal opinion from the justice department supporting the decision to let the transaction go, the sellout. We never saw this legal opinion. I think we should have it. It should be tabled.

Second, where is the contract confirming the deal between CDIC and Paramount dated 1989? We have never seen it. If it exists we feel it would be very important for us to see it.

Third, who has made this commitment? This is quite a mystery. Is it possible for a national government policy decision to have been taken because someone we do not know said something to someone else in a meeting on a date we do not know? Is it possible that everything has swerved because of that? The question has been asked and I think the government should answer it.

We must ask ourselves whether there effectively was a sale of Ginn to Paramount in 1989. Where is the contract to establish that?

There was an interesting sequel to the letter sent to CDIC by Canada Publishing Corporation. It is very interesting because the letter was sent on May 7, 1993 and on August 13 of the same year the corporate counsel of Canada Publishing, Mr. John Evans, met with Mrs. Benita Warmbold of CDIC to express Canada Publishing's interest in acquiring the 51 per cent equity in Ginn in accordance with what the letter said before. There was a meeting, a letter, and another meeting.

Then what happened? On August 19 the chairman of Canada Publishing Corporation who signed the letter, Mr. Ronald Besse, received an answer from Paramount. The answer came from Paramount through a phone call inquiring: "Why are you doing that? What are you trying to do? We are not interested in selling our equity in this company. We would like to control the whole company". That was the answer from the American company.

Those are the facts. The government used its ministerial discretion to get out of the obligations under the guidelines. The only motive was that he had a verbal agreement, a verbal commitment. We should know the name of the person. Is it a minister? Is it a public servant? Who is it? We should know it.

I do not think the minister is right when he says in answer to a question in the House that we should protect the name of the person. I do not think this man, this person, has a right to anonymity. Surely the public has the right to know who killed the Baie Comeau policy and who was instrumental in depriving Canada of one of its publishing companies.

I see that my time is coming to an end. We are asking the government to table the legal opinion. We are asking the government to table the contract between CDIC and Paramount. The government should not be afraid to confront anyone in court with the facts, with the public policy and the fact that only one man or one woman would have reached an anonymous, hidden, secret verbal agreement on behalf of Canadians, throwing aside the policy of government discussed in Parliament.

As far as legal opinions are concerned, I am a lawyer and I have seen many legal opinions in my life. There is always one legal opinion against another legal opinion. I respect the people in Department of Justice but we would like to see the legal opinion. I know lawyers; there must have been some nuances in the legal opinion. They should describe the full circumstances wherein such a commitment would have been made.

We have the right to ask for it. We have the right to ask the government to change its policy and go back to the Baie Comeau policy. We would like the House of Commons to vote on the question of knowing if there should be, as we think there should be, a public inquiry into those obscure circumstances.

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

This letter is very important because it gives irrefutable evidence that there was at least one Canadian owner who was very much interested in buying the interests in Ginn. The letter is dated May 7, 1993 and is signed by Mr. Ronald Besse, chairman and president of Canada Publishing Corporation. It is addressed to Mr. Patrick Keenan, then chairman of CDIC, and reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Keenan:

I would like to formally express my interest in purchasing the 51 per cent equity held in Ginn Publishing by the Canadian government. We are a successful educational publisher, 100 per cent Canadian owned, and we have identified Ginn as a company with excellent synergies with our future business plans.

Would you please have someone contact me if you are interested in selling this equity position.

We have this evidence. The government felt obligated to say no to the transaction. Why did it not say yes? The only answer is that-

[Supply, March 16th, 1994]

moved:

That this House urge the government to follow up on its election promise to protect and strengthen Canada's publishing industry by renewing the Baie Comeau policy adopted in 1985 and by declaring that a public investigation will be held into the circumstances surrounding the takeover of Ginn Publishing by Paramount.

Mr. Speaker, there are many different reasons for submitting a question for debate. For instance, a decision was made and one feels it should be questioned because it was wrong, or it may be necessary to shed some light on the circumstances surrounding the decision-making process or on what was actually done. Or again, one would want to prevent a recurrence of something that just happened and which was unacceptable.

We have here a situation where all these reasons converge to require a public debate on a transaction that has just been authorized by the government. We are, of course, referring to the decision made by the government and the Minister of Canadian Heritage on February 18 to authorize the sale of Ginn Publishing Canada, a Canadian publishing company based in Toronto, to Paramount, the American communications and publishing giant.

The conclusion of this transaction is shrouded in mystery. I would say it is an enigma. Consider the following sequence of events: everything started in July 1985, when Cabinet met in Baie-Comeau and adopted, at the request of the Minister of Communications at the time, the so-called Baie Comeau policy which was aimed at further protecting the Canadian publishing industry.

The gist of the policy was, first of all, to authorize the creation of new Canadian publishing companies or the acquisition of Canadian publishing companies, provided, and I quote, "the proposed investment takes place within the framework of a joint enterprise controlled by Canadians".

Second, the policy provided that in the case of the direct acquisition of a company controlled by foreign interests but operating in Canada, the transaction could be authorized, provided that control over ownership was transferred to Canadians within two years, at a price reflecting market value. Third, the strongest component of the Baie Comeau policy, in my opinion, is the section pertaining to indirect transactions which ensures that in the case of foreign takeovers, Canadian publishing houses controlled by foreign interests are returned to Canadian owners. This means that 51 per cent of the shares of these Canadian subsidiaries must be transferred to a Canadian owner in the event the parent company operating abroad undergoes a change of ownership.

What are the objectives of this policy? Many members of the cultural community have congratulated themselves for supporting it. The following assessment was made by the hon. member for Mount-Royal, the Liberal Party critic at the time, who had been following this issue very closely. On June 7, 1993, she delivered in this House a speech in which she assessed the implications of this Baie Comeau policy. She asked what the results of this policy were? She stated the following and I quote: "Initially it was very exciting. It was very positive".

And she goes on to give examples. "The major retail chain, W.H. Smith, became Canadian controlled. An important book wholesaler, John Coutts Ltd., returned to Canadian ownership. The Doubleday Book Clubs were brought under Canadian control with a resulting fivefold increase in sales of Canadian authored books. For the first time"-still according to the Liberal critic at the time last year-"Canadian controlled publishers handled an increasing share of the distribution of imported books".

Let me continue to describe the sequence of events. In 1986, one of the first effects of the policy was-and here we are getting to the heart of the matter-to require Paramount to return Ginn Publishing and G.L.C. Publishers to Canadian control. And events continued to unfold.

In 1989, after the expiration of the two-year period required by regulation following Paramount's decision to put Ginn Publishing and G.L.C. Publishers up for sale, since no private buyer had expressed an interest in these companies, the federal government, acting through the Canada Investment Corporation, intervened to acquire 51 per cent of the shares of these two companies at a cost of $10 million. The government had no choice but to act to ensure that Paramount did not retain control over its shares following the expiration of the two-year waiting period.

A very important event occurred in January 1992, namely the amending of the Baie Comeau policy. This came about as a result of the enormous pressure exerted on the federal government and on the Conservatives, primarily by the Americans. The Conservative government caved in to these pressures and watered down its Baie Comeau policy which had achieved excellent results since 1985, even according to the Liberals in the House. So, the policy was amended. While the direct takeover of Canadian publishing houses by foreign interests was still prohibited, as far as indirect takeovers were concerned, however, foreign investors could now acquire ownership of a Canadian publishing house, provided that they made commitments likely to benefit the Canadian publishing industry. They were required to demonstrate that Canada was likely to derive a net benefit from this transaction. This change occurred in 1992.

We can ask ourselves what all of these provisions mean and why the fuss over the publishing sector? The answer is that we wanted to step in to protect the publishing industry, a cultural industry that is clearly very much at risk in Canada. In 1991-92, Canadian publishers controlled only 50 per cent of a $1.2 billion market. During this same period, 80 per cent of Canadian authors had their works published by Canadian book publishers.

The imbalance between the two is clear. Canadian publishers are far more likely than foreign controlled publishing houses to publish the works of Canadian authors.

Therefore, since the publishing industry is important to Canada and to Quebec and indeed to all Canadians and since it plays a meaningful role in the protection of our cultural identity, it must be protected. And that was what the Baie Comeau policy purported to do.

Of course, when the policy was watered down, howls of protest arose from cultural circles. Everyone in cultural circles-I would say it was a rare case of unanimity in Canada and Quebec-protested, including the Liberal Party now in office.

On February 14, 1992, we heard in this House the hon. member for Mount Royal, who is now a member of the Liberal Cabinet, complain about what happened and ask very tough questions to the then Minister of Communications, and I quote: "Is the government going to permit the foreign takeover of Canadian publishing subsidiaries like Harper-Collins, Collier-Macmillan and Grolier which are presently before Investment Canada? Is it going to sell off $150 million of our book publishing industry to foreigners?" That amount was worth a lot more back then.

So here we are today with a new government whose members harshly criticized the watering-down by the Conservatives of the very welcome measures they had taken in July 1985.

We would have thought that this government would tighten the screws in line with the old Liberal tradition to defend Canada's cultural identity. We thought that a Liberal government more sensitive to the important realities and symbols of cultural identity would come to the rescue of this threatened industry. The red book even contained a very explicit commitment in this regard, that the government does not like to quote very often but that I will quote today: "A Liberal government will help Canadian books, films, and sound recordings to increase their share of the domestic market through the establishment of policies and legislation with respect to marketing, distribution, and exhibition". They talk about culture in very lyrical terms that must have won them many votes in the last election.

And I quote: "Culture is the very essence of national identity, the bedrock of national sovereignty and national pride. At a time when globalization and the information and communications revolution are erasing national borders, Canada needs more than ever to commit itself to cultural development".

Nobody could have put it better. But as for honouring its commitment to protect cultural industries, the first time this government was put to the test, it failed miserably and disappointed a lot of people.

I am talking, of course, about Ginn Publishing that Paramount had to return to Canadian interests in 1989 under the Baie Comeau policy. We do not know exactly what happened, we may find out in this debate, but Paramount eventually managed to get Ginn back with the agreement, I would say the complicity or the complacency at least, of the heritage minister. How could a great victory for Canadian cultural identity be erased with a stroke of a pen by the minister who must defend Canada's heritage, a member of a government that promised to do the opposite? How is it possible?

Because the current legislation and even the 1992 guidelines contained the policies considered by the Liberal Party to be diluted, feeble, insufficient. Even the Liberal Party had, through its heritage minister, violated the Tories' already very diluted rules. In other words, they were more lax than the Conservatives themselves by allowing Paramount to regain Ginn Publishing. Under the rules in the 1992 policies, it should have been demonstrated that Ginn was in financial trouble, which is not the case. It should also have been demonstrated that Canadian buyers had the opportunity to make an offer. Nothing of the sort happened, no matter what the people opposite are saying. All Canadian publishers feel they have been pushed aside. All Canadian publishers are unanimous in their complaints. We would have found people to buy this publishing house but everything was done on the sly to allow the American company to reclaim Ginn quickly.

I would like to table a letter proving that at least one Canadian buyer expressed interest on May 7, 1993. This letter was addressed to the then owner of Ginn by Canada Development Investment Corporation.

I would like to file this letter before the House because it is evidence that there was at least one Canadian interested.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

They cannot take it. They find it so hard.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Keep going.