Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House tonight, especially given the fact that it is the Speaker's 55th birthday. As a fellow Scot, I understand how emotive and physical the Scots are, so I could go up and give the Speaker a hug now or maybe he could give me two or three extra minutes in my speech. I will leave it to the hon. Speaker to decide.

We are talking about a government that has come in and ripped up a signed agreement with first nations across the country. It is shameful and it sends a message across first nations communities of a policy of contempt. However, it has to be seen in the light of a longstanding history. Unfortunately, this is what federal governments do. Federal governments sign agreements and make commitments time and time again with first nations and then walk away from them and leave those communities in abject poverty.

I will begin by telling a story because it was this subject and a former Indian affairs minister that inspired me to go into politics.

When I was working for the Algonquin Nation, we had the opportunity to meet the then Indian affairs minister in Rouyn-Noranda. I was with the chiefs at that time. We wanted to come forward with one suggestion, one issue that he would understand and with which we could bring change. The issue concerned a child at our reserve school, the Kiwetin School in Notre-Dame-du-Nord, Quebec, who had extreme special needs. Indian affairs would not pay money for special education for this little child. However, if the school and the community agreed to put that child on a bus and send the child 26 kilometres into Ontario to a non-native school, where the child basically sat strapped to a desk out in the hallway all day with an adult watching him, Indian affairs would pay the full shot.

We thought that was an outrage, that it was so crazy that anyone who saw it would say that it was a waste of money and that it would be fixed. The suggestion was made to the then Indian affairs minister and we said, “Surely to God it makes more sense to put the money for special education dollars into that community at its school so it could not only raise that child properly but the money could be used for other children”. Nothing happened then and nothing happened under the following Indian affairs minister. We will see if anything happens under the present Indian affairs minister.

I remember sitting there that day hearing his response and thinking that if that was as good as it got then we needed other people to run. I made the decision that day to run for politics because I never wanted to sit in front of first nation communities that were facing such a need and the special education funding for their children had to be blown off like that.

Across my region we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of treaty 9. The first question people in my community ask is: What is there to celebrate? What is there to celebrate in Peawanuck where 50,000 barrels of PCB contamination are sitting on the shores of the Winisk River, left by the Department of National Defence?

We have had government after government talk about maintaining and protecting sovereignty in the far north but not one of them will come back and admit their responsibility for the damage they have done on those lands. I have met with the families whose children and elders are suffering from the effects of that PCB contamination that flows into the river and into their communities.

When I asked the present Liberal House leader, when he was the defence minister, to work with us, he could not run fast enough from that obligation. When I hear him talk about how the Government of Canada does not walk away from signed obligations, that is what it has been doing and it does it year after year.

Let us look to Kashechewan. I do not want to get into the evacuations or the terrible housing conditions, but I will talk about the deaths of three people in my community between January and today: Ricardo Wesley, Jamie Goodwyn and 4-year-old Trianna Martin. Trianna died in a house fire with 21 people. The other two men died in a makeshift jail cell that looked like a crack house. That jail cell would not have been allowed in any community in this country and yet it was considered good enough for the Nishnawbe-Aski police to risk their lives and the lives of the people they brought in.

When those two men burned to death, we said that this was not the way things should be in the 21st century. Things have to be better. We said that there had to be basic standards. Members can ask the people in that community if there is something to celebrate after 100 years.

We can talk about the health authority in James Bay where some of the top rated efforts to do telehealth, teleophthalmology, dialysis and telemammography are all facing being cut because the former government, and it is being followed up by this government, allowed the deficit in that community hospital to rise year after year because it would not fund first nation health anywhere near the levels of non-native health funding.

Ask me if there are two countries in Canada and I will say yes.There is a country that sets a certain standard for health and then says to the rest of the first nations that it is not there for them.

I hear a lot about how we had the blueprint for change, the dialogue for change, the road map for it and the round table for it. When a person lives in Martin Falls or Pikangikum, a person does not have any round table with which to discuss anything. They have their INAC bureaucrats. A hundred years ago they had the Hudson's Bay factor. Fifty years ago they had the Indian agents. Now they have the INAC bureaucrats. People can talk all they want about a blueprint for it. It means nothing in these communities because they are put in a box and they are not let out.

I will refer now to the latest piece of bizarre news that I heard. The Liberal leadership candidate from Kings--Hants said his plan for improving life on first nations was:

Innovative tax incentives can attract private capital from both within Canada and abroad to help aboriginal businesses...We all know that countries around the world have found that low tax environments attract private sector capital. I would use the Departments of International Trade and Industry to attract private international capital to these dynamic aboriginal industrial parks.

I did economic development on first nations. It is a crock for that member to stand up and pretend that this is the solution for first nations. Let me explain how development happens on a first nations community. We will go back to Peawanuck.

Peawanuck is an isolated community with a diesel generator. Every year Indian Affairs would pay $600,000 to subsidize the heavy cost. Then about five years ago, Indian Affairs said that it would not subsidize it any more, that the band would begin to collect from the people.

The band took it over, the families started to rapidly go into debt and the community started to put its capital dollars into running the fuel generator. It put its development dollars into running the fuel generator and it was not enough. The community was going under. It knew if it went below a certain level, it would be put into third party management.

The community said to Indian Affairs that it would not continue to run the generator. It said that $600,000 that the department used to give it helped, but it could not do it any more. The community was going bankrupt so it returned it to Indian Affairs.

Indian Affairs hired a third party manager. Guess what Indian Affairs paid that third party manager? It was $600,000. The $600,000 that used to subsidize the community was now being paid to a third party manager. On top of that, it was taking another $300,000 to subsidize that. We are now looking at almost $1 million a year.

The third party manager's job is to get the money from the families for the rates of hydro. What are the rates of hydro? We are talking about one of these dynamic aboriginal industrial zones to which the member for Kings—Hants is going to attract international capital. How do we attract international capital when people are paying 18¢ a kilowatt hour? That is three times higher than the provincial standard?

What happened then? The band members said they could not pay that amount, that they could not even turn their our lights on for that amount. Indian Affairs set it at 200 kilowatt hours. They knew that was not possible.

I have been in that community in January. I have seen families with their lights off. These families tell me that they run the hot water once a day to keep the lines flushed out and they still pay $500 and $600 a month. With INAC setting the acceptable rates for the lower end of kilowatt hours, which is 16¢ a kilowatt hour, the families went into such high levels of debt that they were now carrying $2,000 and $3,000 a month debt, which they could not pay off.

Last week I spent my day trying to stop 30% to 40% of that community having their hydro power cut off. That is not only happening in Peawanuck. It is happening in Martin Falls and in communities across this country.

When I hear people say that the federal government does not walk away on its responsibilities, it walks away all the time. This is not good enough and it has to change. I look at these communities. Their futures are continually being snuffed out and erased by being kept in these boxes. Young people have no future because they cannot get proper education.

When I hear this kind of talk about fixing it and making changes, well let us make real changes. Let us make these communities sustainable. Let us live up to our commitments. The Kelowna agreement was a start. The government has an obligation not to do what the last government allowed to happen for 13 straight years.

[Mining Industry, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear the only thing more toothless than our foreign investment review act is the minister when it comes to standing up for Canadian mining and smelting jobs.

Let us paint a picture here. These are national resources and the government is sitting back while they are picked off by some company set up in an unaccountable Swiss canton. Meanwhile the futures of Sudbury, Timmins, Rouyn-Noranda and Bathurst are being traded away like chips in a card game.

When is the minister going to stand up for the rights of our communities and put them ahead of the interests of the financiers, the money-changers and the speculators?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 16th, 2006]

With regard to the recent General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations in Geneva: (a) what bilateral, multilateral, and plurilateral proposals, requests and offers was Canada a signatory to; (b) what were the responses to and results of these proposals; (c) what proposals, requests and offers were made to Canada; (d) what were the responses to and results of these proposals; (e) what new agreements have been signed onto by Canada; (f) were changes made to Canada’s policy on the foreign ownership restrictions in telecommunications and audio-visual industries before the conference and, if so, what were they; (g) did consultations take place between the departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage with respect to these policies; (h) what provisional agreements or agreements in principle were signed by Canada; and (i) when is the next formal negotiation conference planned?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I share my hon. colleague's frustration that someone is missing from this room, someone who could give us answers on whether this deal is on the up and up or whether this deal should be turned down.

There is someone who is making decisions who is unelected and unaccountable. When he was asked prior to the election if he would consider putting his name forward to represent the people of this country, he said he was too busy. That man was too busy to run for office, but he was not too busy to take the free cash for life lottery from the Prime Minister of Canada to sit in that other chamber.

I believe that the day of accountable electoral reform will come and all of the friends of the two main parties in the Senate will be tossed out with their desks after them. Then we will be able to put something a little more accountable in place.

There is a major issue here for Parliament. When a minister who has control over such important decisions in terms of public spending is unaccountable to Parliament, it raises serious questions.

In light of the fact that there is a minister who is unelected and unaccountable and does not feel the need to show his face anywhere, if we could get all-party consensus, perhaps we could get a large cardboard cut-out of him and wheel it into the House so that we could ask it questions. We would probably get about the same level of answers that we are getting from his lessers right now. If we had a cardboard cut-out of the minister, at least we would know who he is. We would at least be able to put a face to the backroom deals that he is making.

Would my hon. colleague support me in bringing forward a motion to have a cardboard cut-out brought into the House each day for question period?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, once again I will rise to say how surreal I find this discussion, coming from an area along the James Bay coast where I have 21 people living in houses on the first nations. We cannot make any kind of moves or any first nations development without tender process after tender process, capital study after capital study. It seems the federal government's main job in these communities is to block development, and it is always speaking of accountability.

We are talking about a real estate deal of $30 million that might be flipped to $300 million or $600 million. My God, that money spent on first nations across Canada would turn some of these terrible sinkholes of human misery into livable places. Yet we are gong to spend that on one building. To even talk about the issue is scandalous.

I came back from Kashechewan, just before the flood, for the funeral of four year old Trianna Martin who died in a house fire in a community for which the federal government will not pay any fire service, and it is its responsibility.

Why do we have this demand on all our isolated first nations for tendering processes for the smallest project and a project of this size can go through the system without any tendering at all?

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, representing, as I do, a large northern region with high levels of unemployment, it is hard for me to agree with the principle that 75% of the jobs stay in Ottawa and 25% of the jobs are on the other side of the river when I am looking at regions that have almost no federal presence.

We hear discussions about the kinds of prices we are paying for buildings in the Ottawa region when we could get much better benefit for taxpayers. For example, in the town of Kirkland Lake where we have the veterans affairs building there is room for more government jobs. It is a hardrock mining town and federal jobs play an incredibly important role in that community.

It is the same in downtown Timmins where we fought to maintain a federal presence. It is not just a benefit to the taxpayers. It is a symbol. It is a commitment. It is saying that there is life outside of Babylon here on the Hill, that there is a country out there and that when we are making a commitment to move forward in planning for new federal expenditures, we should be looking at these regions. When the federal government has a presence in those regions, it creates stability and a workforce that is motivated. In my region there is a bilingual workforce.

I would advise the government to sell the building and move workers to Kirkland Lake and Timmins. If it did that it would have a great deal.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to television as opposed to radio, the public broadcaster has two roles. One is entertainment and one is to create a sense of cultural identity. What we see with private broadcasters is the role to entertain, period.

The problem we are facing is that CBC does not have the resources to adequately provide the entertainment value. Let us be very honest that without the entertainment value it will not have the market sufficient to carry out its educational and cultural roles. That connection between entertainment and maintaining a strong audience base so that it can carry out those other functions is essential. Unfortunately the situation now, for example in Toronto, is that the design production abilities of CBC English Canada have been erased. No longer will English Canada television be able to do in-house production. They have gotten rid of that, I believe because of the lack of funding over the years, to the point where now they are simply having to buy outside programming.

That undermines the notion of a cohesive identity that can be created through a cultural space. It also undermines what we had always had before on CBC, which is the building of a talent pool that is committed as national broadcasters for entertainment, for sports, for news and for cultural and political development.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I did read that. I found that during the election and I also spent a great deal of time when the budget came down trying to find culture. I even looked it up under K, but it was not there in the budget either.

The question in terms of a commitment to a public broadcaster is meaningless, unless we are talking about a commitment in financing. That is what has been noticeably absent.

When we hear comments from the minister that the public broadcaster should have a distinctive role which should not be in competition with private broadcasters, I think, what are we talking about then? Are we talking about taking away the ability of CBC to raise advertising revenues so that it becomes a small, diminutive education network that is on channel 300 of the multi-screen universe? If it cannot compete for advertising revenues, I certainly do not see anything in the Conservative budget or in terms of the language the Conservatives have used that they would be willing to fund it to the degree necessary for television to be able to provide the kind of programming that it needs in the very expensive television markets of today.

The government is committed to maintaining a public broadcaster, but that could take any form. Right now, our concern is that the form it would take would be in a very diminished role, unless we hear some very clear commitments that yes means yes. Yes means a public broadcaster that is fully funded. Yes means a broadcaster that is able to carry on its role in the region and yes, this is a broadcaster that can compete against a private broadcaster for advertising revenues.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I did try to pay very close attention to the minister's whirlwind tour through committee, which seemed to be over before it started, and I did not hear it at committee.

What I did hear from the minister when she was the heritage critic was that during the lockout she mused out loud that she did not know if anybody missed English CBC. What I did hear was the present leader of the Conservative Party in the Senate who said she did not want CBC back on the air because she did not think it was good for the Conservative Party. I have heard the present parliamentary secretary, who said when he was the Reform critic that he was very clear on a privatized role for English CBC television. That is what I have heard. I have not heard yes clear enough.

When I did ask the parliamentary secretary if he would be willing to work with us on committee so that we could help in the larger issues that could not be addressed in the CBC mandate, he categorically said no. He did not think it was the role of the heritage committee to be involved in any of the fundamental decisions that are coming down in terms of television policy.

The question is does yes mean yes, or does yes mean no? I believe at this point from the government that unless we are debating it in the House, unless we get it on the record and unless we get a very clear commitment from the minister, there is not a lot of trust in our party where the mandate review will go. We believe it has to be done in conjunction with the work that is being done at the heritage committee.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak to this motion today. Members are asking why it has come before the House? I think it is important that it is before the House because decisions are being made in terms of the future of broadcasting, the future of telecommunications, and in fact the future of the CBC outside the purview of Parliament.

The good book says that what is done in the dark should be seen in the light. Given our concern over directions taken by the government, this debate is a chance for us to inform Canadians about the issues being raised and the fundamental changes being made by the government regarding broadcasting.

We are talking about the role of a public broadcaster versus a private broadcaster. There is a notion that if private broadcasters were allowed to step up to the plate they could do the job as well. Having been a former musician and having travelled the country for some 20 years, I can tell the House that nobody is more committed to the market approach than musicians because that is how we make our living.

We believe in a free and open market, but sometimes we need government to regulate it to ensure that it is in fact free and open. Whether we are talking about musicians or about getting agricultural products on the shelves at grocery stores, we know that the problem with our markets right now is that they do not have access and choice that consumers demand.

I am going to tell two stories. I was 19 years old and God I was a handsome young fella. Our band was touring the country, playing in Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and Toronto. Everywhere we went we had an audience of university students because our record was being played on the radio at the university level.

One night we were doing a show right here in Ottawa at the old Roxy Club on Elgin Street. We were interviewed by the big FM radio station in Ottawa, which was basically the same FM chain as the one in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. During the interview I asked why we were being interviewed since our record was not being played on its station. I was told the station was not allowed to play our band in the same way it was not allowed to play other bands because it had a canned list of what it was allowed to play.

Things have changed somewhat in the last 20 years but not a lot. Right across Canada there are very few radio corporations and they run off lists. If a band is lucky enough to get on that list, then it will do fairly well because of the recording royalties, which of course as New Democrats we support.

The problem is that it is a very closed market and it is very arbitrary as to who gets heard and who does not. So when we talk about fragmentation of radio markets, many young people tune out the radio because they can find what they want to hear on other sources.

I will move from the example of the private radio to public radio. My last band, the Grievous Angels, was considered a localized band until we were interviewed by Peter Gzowski. As a result of that interview we became a national act because people across Canada listened to his show. After that interview we were selling CDs from Prince George, B.C. to Halifax and we were getting engagements.

That is the role a public broadcaster should play. It has the mandate to expose Canadians to new sounds and to new ideas, sometimes controversial ideas. It is in that public broadcast domain that consumers are given the ability to hear new ideas and new sounds. It is a role that private broadcasters simply cannot and will not play.

Does the CBC fulfill this mandate as well as it should? It certainly does not. We know there are major problems with the CBC and the New Democratic Party has been raising these problems for a number of years. It would not be an exaggeration to say there is somewhat of a crisis at the CBC. It has had years of underfunding, so much so that it has lost numerous world markets that used to have CBC television as their choice of viewing in the evening. Those markets have disappeared. They have gone to private broadcasters.

Private broadcasts on television attempt some local and regional coverage, but we lose a sense of identity in rural areas when we do not hear our own voices being spoken. There is nothing worse, and it almost sends me into a rock cut, than when I am driving on the highway outside Cochrane, Ontario and I hear the afternoon drive home show from Toronto. That is not something I want to hear on my radio. I want to hear the voices from my region. I want to hear their identity and their discussions.

There has been a problem. The underfunding of CBC year after year by the former government has put the CBC in a very difficult situation. This is an issue that we were discussing at the heritage committee.

We have raised these issues. We have asked the CBC president for a plan for restoring regional programs. We have asked CBC to address the issue of the lack of drama content in programming. We have asked about the role the CBC plays in terms of promoting film. We see that Radio-Canada in the Quebec market plays an integral role. Yet in the English market, CBC is not playing a similar role. As a heritage committee, we have started to raise these issues.

Another issue we have to raise is the issue in terms of the patronage system at CBC.

What we have now is a situation where the CBC president locks out the employees, reduces Canadian content, and ignores CRTC directives. Furthermore, he is not accountable to anyone for his actions.

The CBC is the only public broadcasting corporation in the world whose managers are political appointees.

We have to end the system of patronage at the CBC. Year after year we have had very good people on the CBC board of directors, but it has also been a political dumping ground. Let us be honest. Since the CBC was founded, 89% of the appointees to the CBC were allied to the ruling political party. We have asked for that system to stop. We have asked for accountability.

Should there be a mandate review of the CBC? Yes indeed, it is very important. We have to address these fundamental problems. The question we New Democrats have is about whether or not there is trust with the government's plan for a mandate review if we are not involved. In the last lockout, the present heritage minister mused out loud that she did not know if anybody even missed English CBC or whether anybody even noticed. The present Conservative leader in the Senate wanted the CBC to stay off the air because it rankled her political views.

We are being told not to worry, to trust the government, to let the government handle this outside of Parliament and outside of heritage. We are being told that the government will move forward and come back with decisions that could fundamentally change the CBC. My hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, made it very clear where he stands in terms of the CBC when he said, as heritage critic for the Reform Party:

Mr. Speaker, speaking of the CBC, the Reform Party has a very clear vision of a publicly funded CBC and a privately funded or a privatized CBC television.

So is it simply enough to expect that the heritage committee will sit on the sidelines while a mandate review goes ahead that could have profound implications for the future of broadcast? Is it reasonable to expect the heritage committee to put aside the requests it has undertaken of CBC management to respond to us in terms of regional programming plans and in terms of drama content? Should the heritage committee put this aside so this other body can make the decisions?

What we need to look at is the issue of how the crisis at the CBC is playing out in terms of larger media. As my hon. colleague from the Conservatives said, CBC does not exist in a vacuum. He is right. What we are seeing now are numerous issues that are coming to bear in terms of the future of broadcast in Canada. Again, there has to be a composite review. Where else can that review be done except at the heritage committee? That is our role.

We now are seeing questions of a mandate review at the CRTC on the renewal of broadcast licences for the private broadcasters. Have the private broadcasters stepped up to the plate in terms of Canadian domestic drama content? No, they have not. In fact, they have done a very poor job of it. I will put that on the record.

The 1999 CRTC decision changed the rules of drama and the private broadcasters said, “Trust us. Change the rules, open it up and make it easier for us and we will provide Canadians with good drama content”. If we look at station after station in prime time, we will see that it is a wasteland for Canadian products right now.

How would the changes at the CRTC with regard to the private broadcasters affect their obligations in the use of public airwaves? Because that is what we are speaking about: they are public airwaves and these are private corporations that have a responsibility to the people of Canada for the use of those airwaves.

Here is one question. How will the CRTC review of the private broadcasters' licences affect the future direction of television? How will this mandate review of the CBC affect our ability to maintain a strong and vigorous public broadcaster?

The other question is in terms of Canada's role at the international level at the GATS negotiations in Geneva. We have taken it upon ourselves to be the lead nation in terms of encouraging other countries to strip themselves of all foreign ownership restrictions on broadcast and telecom. Telecommunications in Canada, because of convergence, means that the same companies that are providing our phone service are also providing our television news network service. It is impossible to suggest that we can separate those two.

So the question is this: where is the mandate for our trade negotiators in Geneva? Where is it coming from with a government where the industry minister, when he was in private business, was with the right-wing Montreal think tank that was advocating stripping all foreign ownership restrictions on telecommunications?

We have just seen the orders from the industry minister that were released to members of Parliament and senators today in terms of telecommunications, the CRTC and government direction. As of today, it states:

The policy direction contained in the proposed order would direct the CRTC to rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible and regulate, where there is still a need to do so, in a manner that interferes with market forces to the minimum extent possible.

That is what the minister gave as his marching orders today. Those, we can imagine, are the same marching orders that he is giving to our trade negotiators in Geneva. The question is, if the government believes that we have to allow market forces more access in telecommunications, where is that need coming from? There is not a single telecommunications company in the country that is even close to its foreign ownership limitations.

In fact, if we look at the role that telecommunications has played in Canada, our companies have done a much better job for the consumer in reaching rural regions, providing adequate service and getting broadband high speed Internet into rural areas of the country. It is much better than what we see with competitors in the United States.

We have a direction coming down from government to allow market forces as much latitude as possible when it comes to telecommunications. I would like to read for members from a policy study done on Canada's position in terms of telecommunications:

As a result of WTO and GATS commitments, Canada [already] has one of the most open and loosely regulated telecom markets amongst OECD countries.

Canada [has already] unilaterally agreed to:

end Teleglobe Canada's monopoly on transcontinental...traffic...;

end Teleglobe's special ownership restrictions, which prohibited investment by foreign telecommunication carriers and limited the investment by Stentor, (the incumbent carriers);

allow 100% foreign ownership and control of international submarine cable landings in Canada...;

allow 100% foreign ownership and control of mobile satellite systems used by a Canadian service provider...;

end Telesat's monopoly on the fixed-satellite system on March 1 2000, allowing the use of foreign satellites to provide service to Canadians....

Right now the only element that is left on the table to negotiate is the fact that we still have a 46.7% limit for foreign ownership of telecom companies. This is the very issue that our negotiators in Geneva are trying to trade away.

Where is the government going in terms of its direction for the future of telecom? Because telecom and broadcast are one and the same, and if we are asking countries in other parts of the world to strip their foreign ownership restrictions, then clearly the government must be committed to the concept of trade reciprocity. The government is accepting that we are going to strip our own foreign ownership restrictions on broadcast.

That has major implications, because Canadian policy has been consistent. The Canadian Parliament has maintained a very consistent position, that is, that maintaining our control of our sovereign airwaves is a fundamental feature of the Canadian experience. These things are now on the table.

We are looking at a government that has raised very dubious questions about its commitment to the future of the CBC and is looking to do a mandate review outside of Parliament and outside of the heritage committee. We are looking at the broadcast companies coming forward on radio and television and major questions being asked on the future obligations in terms of even having to provide Canadian content and how that should be.

We are looking at trade negotiations that are ongoing in Geneva and could allow, for example, AT&T, without any commercial presence in Canada, to buy up Bell Globemedia. As for anybody who suggests that we are going to maintain our domestic content quotas and our language quotas when we are being taken over by a large U.S. multinational that does not even have to maintain a commercial presence in this country, it is absurd. It is simply absurd to say that we will be able to maintain the policies that we have had until now.

The other issue is the convergence of new media. Where are we going with that? There has not been a very clear direction at all in terms of how Canada will be involved in the development of digital culture. Digital culture is the direction.

As an example, after I was elected and was away from home so much, my wife and children decided to get cable television against their father's strong wishes. That television is never on. My children are of the digital age. They do not watch television. They are on the Internet. That is where their sense of culture and identity is. Where is Canada in terms of the digital culture?

In the 38th Parliament there was the LaPierre report on the future of Canada's online vision. Nobody has picked up on that. That report is sitting on a shelf. That report lays out a very fascinating and powerful call to start championing the rights of the online cultural citizen. Canada should be in the forefront of digital development so that the next generation, which does not listen to radio or watch television, is able to experience Canadian identity and Canadian political and cultural issues online. We need to be at the table when that happens.

What I am saying is that major issues are coming together at this time and they are all being handled outside the purview of Parliament. We are being told to trust the government. I am sorry but I do not trust the government. I believe my responsibility as the heritage critic for the NDP is to work in Parliament and review the fundamental changes that could alter the cultural landscape for the 21st century.

Is a review of the CBC mandate needed? Yes, indeed. Is there a review needed of the mandate for telecommunications broadcast, Canadian cultural and drama policy for television? Yes, indeed. That has to happen within a holistic view and I would submit that can only happen at the heritage committee. That is why as a committee we have been trying to start to address some of these issues in this new Parliament. Yet it seems every time these issues are raised, and in fact it happened the other day, we are asked what we could possibly learn by looking at television.

It is pretty clear the government knows there is a lot on the table with television. I think it is being disingenuous with the members of the committee when it tells us to look at other things and asks why we as heritage critics are not concerned about other things. We are concerned about the whole heritage portfolio. There are many issues that have to come before us, but the problem is there is limited time.

My suggestion has been, and I have tried to work with the other parties, that we need to address the fundamental changes that are coming. If we are asleep at the switch when these decisions are being traded away in Geneva or in a backroom with Conservative lobbyists, there will be no going back from that point. We need to look at the direction.

The NDP does not want the status quo. We believe that the CBC needs to change. There needs to be a vision that brings us forward. We cannot simply accept what happened yesterday. It worked somewhat but it does not work any more. The NDP would support a mandate review, but it has to be done with a clear set of terms of reference. It has to be done in conjunction with the work that is being done, or should be done, at the heritage committee so we can bring forward a holistic view of broadcast and cultural issues in our country so that we are ready for the challenges that face us as a nation in the 21st century.