Charlie Angus

[Ethics, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, once again Canadians see the abuses of entitlement that come from the lack of accountability of public boards and agencies. Let us look at the Old Port of Montreal, where the taxpayers were stiffed with the cost for a South Seas cruise and an extended vacation. What did we get for all of our money? A bunch of stock pictures they could have taken off Google.

Canadians are tired of this excess. Will the government ask the Old Port to ensure that this $10,000 is not on the taxpayers' dime? What steps will the Conservatives take to rein in this system of buddy entitlement at these ports?

[Forest Fire Emergency Crews, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this past week the people of Timmins—James Bay saw heroism up close. Our region was under threat from numerous fires, and we had over 1,500 people evacuated from the various fire zones.

In the case of Kirkland Lake 8, the fire reached within three kilometres of the town, and for nearly a week the emergency officials not only had to fight the fire but also had to prepare for the possible evacuation of an entire community. It was an enormous undertaking.

In the case of Timmins 9, this was a major firestorm that drew on all the resources of our provincial MNR fire crews. It was touch and go for days.

I had the great honour of working closely with the emergency teams, and their professionalism and dedication were beyond compare. I specifically want to thank the MNR crews, emergency measures, municipal officials, police, hydro, Red Cross and the many volunteers.

It is going to be a long, hot summer. I would like to thank, on behalf of the New Democratic caucus, all of Canada's fire crews who put their lives on the line in the summer to make sure that our northern communities are safe.

[Government Appointments, May 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have the nerve to tell seniors and the unemployed that the cupboard is bare, while giving out all the pork to their failed candidates.

Let us look at who is feeding over at the trough at the employment insurance board. We have Yvan Patry, failed candidate from Papineau; Jean-Philippe Payment, from Blainville; Leanne Villella, rejected in Welland; Jean-Philippe Bachand, from Richmond--Arthabaska; Nathalie Ferland Drolet; Sébastien Forté; Pierre Lafontaine; Pierre Harvey.

Have members heard enough? I have tons more Tories to still go through. We have Jennifer Clarke, from Vancouver; Bernard Généreux; Richard Bélisle; the Laval candidate, Robert Malo.

And who could overlook the cash-for-life lottery in the Senate? We have Jean-Guy Dagenais; Fabian Manning; Josée Verner; Larry Smith.

The Prime Minister promised to clean up the cesspool in Ottawa. He broke that promise.

Why are his buddies who were rejected by the Canadian people living off the taxpayers' dime?

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have been on the copyright issue since 2004. We have never put a single speaker up. He is talking about another bill. Will he just speak to the issue of shutting down the independent members?

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, first, almost as an aside, I would like to offer my condolences to the Liberal Party, because when the Minister of Canadian Heritage reaches out and says that he feels bad for the Liberals, I think those guys are in a really rough spot.

We are talking about 23 amendments that were brought forward by the independent members who were not able to sit at the committee, and we are talking about one day of debate.

The minister said he has heard all these amendments before and he is not interested, so we should just shut down the debate. However, every individual member of Parliament has the right to participate and bring forward legislative amendments, and these are worthy of debate. There has been a single day of debate. That is what it has been. It might go a couple more hours before we go through them.

As I said, the New Democratic Party went through these very carefully. Some of them are very interesting and some of them we think are very problematic, but that is our role.

This is not about obstruction. This is about allowing every member of the House to participate on a substantive piece of legislation that affects all Canadians.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the minister is talking out of both sides of his mouth. If he had respect for the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands he would have allowed debate on these amendments. Independent members of the House who did not sit at committee came forward with amendments. Our party looked at them and found some of them interesting and others very problematic. The problematic elements deserve to be debated. That is the role of Parliament.

The Conservative government is dismissive of the role of parliamentarians. It ridicules the work of parliamentarians. Time and time again the Conservatives have shut down debate. Thank God we have principled opposition here. The Conservative bill on snooping accuses average Canadians of supporting child pornographers because they had the temerity to challenge the government.

Why does the hon. member show such disrespect for the issue of debate?

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the Conservative backbenchers cherry-pick quotes from testimony that I sat through. I had heard a very different set of testimony from all the people they are quoting. However, it is a larger issue. It is the contempt for Parliament that this government shows again and again.

Yesterday, the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's said that our participation in this debate was not legitimate, that there was no legitimacy for members of Parliament to do their job. The fact is that it takes them a day of having to listen again to the problems with this bill. That is what debate is about.

I ask my hon. colleague to at least be truthful on this. The Conservatives did not work with anybody on amendments. They did not listen, so it is our right as opposition to point out the flaws of the bill. That is the democratic process. If he does not like the democratic process, they should just shut this place down.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I sat with my hon. colleague on the committee. We heard witness after witness. The Conservatives keep talking about all the witnesses we heard, but they ignored every one of them. Sure we had lots of testimony. They ignored it. They said that they were willing to work with everyone, but ignored everyone.

Then the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's said that it was not legitimate in the House for us to debate because they were tired of debating. The issue is that he has accused us. When we have tried to get simple answers about the attack on artists' royalties, the attack on students, on the need to modernize copyright, our willingness to work, the Conservative member has said that there is no legitimacy to debate.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about a bigger principle than the issue of copyright, and that is the importance of democratic debate and a government that continues to attack the witnesses, to misrepresent the facts, to attack the opposition and to cut down legitimate debate. Our job is to debate, especially when a bill is as wrong as this copyright bill.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague.

The issue facing us at committee was that very clear and realistic amendments needed to be made in order to ensure balance, but the government continued to attack that idea. I finally understood where the Conservatives were coming from when the member said that they did not want any back doors for these pirates to get in, because we could not understand why they did not want to work with us to clarify the provisions for people with perceptual disabilities.

Blind students trying to access a work on their Kindle should not be criminalized, yet the Conservatives put provisions in there that said they could only access a work as long as they did not unduly impair the technological protection measure, as though they actually thought it was a digital lock that people were picking. I was wondering why they were so adamant. Does the member really believe that blind students, deaf students and people with perceptual disabilities are somehow opening a back door to piracy? Why would the Conservatives not accept those reasonable amendments to protect the rights of people with perceptual disabilities to get the kind of education they have a right to? Why does he think that they are in league with pirates?

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and I congratulate her on having been chosen as the digital affairs spokesperson for the New Democratic Party. We are the only party that actually understands the importance of having a digital spokesperson and I think she is very equipped for the job.

The issue of forward-looking copyright as opposed to backward-looking copyright or defensive copyright is crucial to the issue of developing a 21st century economic plan.

Under this provision, any long distance learning materials, the transfer of materials from library to library, which has such an incredible potential for development and for learning research, the government will make it law that after five days any of the research materials must somehow disappear. They need to have a technological protection measure to interfere with the right of people to do research.

Why does my hon. colleague think the government wants to treat researchers, academics, students and people doing medical and legal research as though they were pirates, that they are such a threat that we need to put locks on their ability to learn?