Dean Del Mastro

[November 17th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I will do my best to provide an answer for that statement as factually as I can.

To begin with, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages is not in the House. That is the first answer I would provide, but the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages is most certainly on board with updating the Copyright Act.

Bill C-32 is an outstanding bill. While it may need some technical amendments, upon which we have consulted with some groups, let us face it. We have the basic tenets of the bill right.

What is so important to the constituent who has just been cited by the hon. member is that we will actually put a system in place again whereby a creator who creates a piece of music, video or intellectual property can sell it, rather than have it stolen or compromised over the Internet.

It was mentioned to me the other day that Canada is the number one location in the world for Bit Torrent sites. Why is this happening? It is happening because we need to update the Copyright Act. Unless members like this get on board, frankly, we will have a difficult time doing that. The hon. member would prefer to favour a system whereby we would put a tax on devices, an iPod tax, a digital tax or something like that, rather than actually tackle the problem. The problem is that the Copyright Act is out of date.

Furthermore, in the statement it was indicated that Bill C-32 is just Bill C-61. Actually, I worked on Bill C-32 and there are a lot of differences between Bill C-32 and Bill C-61. I thought Bill C-61 was a good bill, but Bill C-32 is a much better bill and corrects some of the shortfalls in Bill C-61.

I can also say to the hon. member that we have been told by groups from across the country that this bill does strike the appropriate balance. In fact, I would argue that she should actually speak to her constituents and indicate to them what she is lobbying for, and in fact she has asked the same question many times. What they are actually looking for she refers to as a levy, but my constituents will not see it as a levy. It will be as much as $28 per device, which is what ACTRA has indicated to me when they met with me the other day. It would be added on to digital devices. That is what they would request at the copyright collective. On top of that $28, which would be arbitrarily added to the price of every single digital device, we would then also pay sales taxes in the various jurisdictions, so it becomes even more.

People at home are asking why we are taxing technology. Why would we want to put a tax on technology? They want us to just make the system work. If people want music, they will buy it.

What we want to do is shut down the sites that are allowing people to obtain these works illegally, music, movies or whatever. We want to shut down illegal file-sharing.

At the same time, we will allow for format-shifting, so if people buy CDs and want to format-shift them on to their digital device, their BlackBerry, their iPod, their laptop, their home computer or whatever the case may be, we will allow that. Bill C-32 is entirely technologically neutral. It allows for a review every five years, and it is in the interest of all Canadians. An iPod tax is not in the interest of all Canadians.

[National Railway Day, November 5th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, author Pierre Berton always said the most pivotal day in Canadian history after July 1, 1867, was November 7, 1885. That is when the last spike was driven into the transcontinental main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, B.C., completing the world's first transcontinental railway under one management.

The importance of that date in the building of the Canadian nation has never been more eloquently summarized as on the plaque that marks the spot where the last spike was driven:

A nebulous dream was a reality; an iron ribbon crossed Canada from sea to sea. Often following the footsteps of early explorers, nearly 3,000 miles of steel rail pushed across vast prairies, cleft lofty mountain passes, twisted through canyons and bridged a thousand streams. Here on November 7, 1885, a plain iron spike welded East to West.

This Sunday marks the 125th anniversary of the last spike and I am proud the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages will recognize November 7 as National Railway Day. One hundred and twenty-five years ago an impossible dream became a reality, and a nation flourished and grew because it did.

[November 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that music should not be free. Artists should be compensated. That is why we want to re-establish a market-based system whereby we can actually protect people's rights so that when they have a product, they can sell it and get paid.

Once again, the member is saying, “We understand people are going to steal music, so let us just charge them a couple of bucks up front, maybe as much as $80 on an iPod”, which is the iTax we keep describing. She is saying, “Let us just charge the iTax and we will allow them to steal music”. I do not accept that. The Canadian recording industry does not accept that. The member does not have a single person from the cultural industry, not one, who is telling her not to support copyright modernization.

The member can hold out on this issue if she wants. The bottom line is that we are going to stand up for consumers and we are going to stand up for artists.

[November 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I will say at the outset that I look forward to the member's support for Bill C-32. As somebody who wants to see the arts, culture and creative sector in Canada succeed, she knows that we need to modernize Canada's Copyright Act. I hope the member is going to support Bill C-32, a balanced modernization of the Copyright Act.

With respect to the copying levy, as she puts it, I think my party has taken a position that is very principled, one that suggests we are going to stand up for Canadian consumers. I know the Bloc does not understand what I am saying on this, so I am going to try to speak to it in a manner whereby it is well understood.

Thirty years ago when the transition was first made from vinyl records to cassette tapes, people often made copies on cassette tapes. Cassette tapes could be used for one thing and one thing only: audio recording. There was a system put in place whereby people who made copies of audio recordings paid a small fee, a tax, on the cassette tapes and that fee went to a collective. Many people did not even know they were paying it. I have a problem with that because most people did not know they were paying this tax to begin with, but it did go to a collective.

As technology improved, people could write onto CDs. CDs, unlike cassette tapes, could also be used with computers, for storage of information, quite a bit more storage actually, and they could also be used to store photos. The connection between audio recordings and CDs started to get stretched, but there was a levy, or a tax, placed on blank CDs for all Canadians. People did not pay it in the United States or in a lot of competing jurisdictions, but Canadians were forced to pay it here. A lot of Canadians did not know that.

The device I have on my hip is a telephone, but I can surf the Internet, send emails and take pictures and video with it. Unfortunately, perhaps I could also copy a song onto it. What the Bloc and the NDP propose is that we put an additional tax on devices like this, even Canadian-made devices like the one I am proud to own, which is made by a company in Waterloo. That does not make any sense. Nobody agrees that this makes any sense.

I suggest that I accompany the member to her riding and ask her constituents these simple questions: Are they prepared to pay more money for their iPod, laptop, cell phone or home computer? Are they prepared to pay more money which will go to a collective, which will come up with a formula to redistribute money? Or would they rather have a system that works, a market-based system? That is what Bill C-32 does. It re-establishes the market.

The member was in committee when she heard representatives of the Canadian recording industry say, “You want to give us pennies when what we really need is a market system that works, one that allows us to get paid for the music and albums we are producing”. That is what Bill C-32 delivers and the member should support it.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Are you calling everyday Canadians bigots?

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, to be quite honest, I am dismayed with a number of the comments made by the member.

As a person whose family is not far removed from being new Canadians, I think all Canadians, including myself, are very proud of Canada's very giving and gracious immigration system. I think immigrants have added so much to Canada and I know that is speaking from my own family's history.

This past summer I was inundated with people from my riding, including new Canadians, who felt that what we were seeing was an egregious violation of Canada's very open immigration and very open refugee laws. We must respond to it.

It appears that what the member is suggesting is that Canada's immigration laws should be behest to some unknown international community that thinks it should be something other than what the government feels it should be. It also appears that the member is suggesting that the people in my riding, the thousands of people who objected to what we saw this summer, apparently are not prepared to help people in need. I reject that entire line of dogma from the member.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is remarkable that when we talk about financial irresponsibility and tax-and-spend, which is something I think they would be proud of, judging by the bills they bring in, when it is pointed out how financially irresponsible and wrong-headed the NDP is, they get all excited. They do not like being called on it.

The reality is there is no magic money tree in Ottawa. The NDP believes that there is, that we can create money out of thin air or they would not bring irresponsible bills like this to the House. Similarly, when they call for more spending and more programs, they distract Canadians from clear thinking. This certainly hurts more than it helps.

The opposition's solution is this bill, a new layer of bureaucracy and taxes and spending. It would take the form of direct cash transfers and incentives and building more spending and more programs, but they ignore the fact that one of the best ways to increase the amount of money that Canadians have in their pockets for themselves and their families is action through the tax system.

Lower taxes increase take-home income. Our government has brought in tax measures to help people who need it, the working income tax benefit, WITB. Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that my time is coming to a close, because I have so many things to talk about that our government has done.

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the member across the way would like to debate whether or not people who commit violent offences on innocent civilians should go to jail.

I would be happy to debate with him why violent criminals should be behind bars and not on the streets of Canada, but I do not think that is what we are debating here right now. However, I will take him on that debate any time he wants. In fact, I will go to his own riding and debate it with him if he likes. I have no problem with standing up for justice. The member can heckle me if he wants. I am just going to continue talking about why this piece of legislation is as wrong-headed as virtually everything else we see coming from the NDP.

This bill calls for billions of dollars to be plucked out of thin air, magically--that is NDP math--and spent at the direction of the federal government in the area of fundamentally provincial jurisdiction. It would be interesting to see what the Bloc does with a bill that steps blindly into the provincial jurisdiction.

It is mind-boggling. Where do the NDP members think they are going to find the money if it is not in higher taxes? Governments do not have money. All they have is what they tax from Canadians. The NDP members do not understand that. We do not have the ability to create money. We do not have a magic money tree that we can get money from. The NDP members have a special mathematician who works with them who does wonders, I suppose.

They want to create a new bureaucracy but how do they think the federal bureaucracy can be as aware, as knowledgeable and as responsive as provincial and territorial governments that already work closely with us? Why do they think Ottawa knows better than our local, provincial and territorial governments and more than our local stakeholders, the people on the ground who understand the issues well?

Even further, why do they think the government in general is the only solution? Why do they insist on one size fits all solutions? Fundamentally, the answers to these questions come down to ideology. The left-wing, tax and spend, money is no object ideology of the NDP often, and frankly really often, is supported in Parliament by the Liberals and the leftist Bloc, the coalition. That is their ideology. That is what is behind this bill: higher taxes and more spending is the only solution.

This bill, through the implementation of its strategy, would require billions in increased taxes, which is no different from any of their other proposals. In fact, I am not even sure the opposition members have any idea exactly how much the bill would actually cost, and they certainly do not know how to pay for it, apart from unspecified need for higher taxes.

I do not think they particularly care that the money needs to come from somewhere and that that somewhere is the pockets of hard-working Canadians. The price tag for their ideology and for the bill is, in this case, unaffordable.

They live in a bubble. Do they not watch the news and see the difficult decisions that governments are making right now? They continue to bring irresponsible, uncosted bills before Parliament and suggest that it is somehow responsible. It is not responsible. They bring forward uncosted bills that impact the Canadian books to the tune of billions of dollars of new spending and suggest that they are there to help people. The outcome of this would be less employment, fewer jobs, less opportunity, more people homeless and higher taxes. That would be the outcome. They do not understand economics.

Mr. Speaker, their heckling is really quite encouraging, so I would ask that you not do anything to curb the NDP's heckles because I am really quite enjoying it.

We can and do debate the merits and wisdom of policy choices. What I am talking about is a pure spending aspect, especially given the financial circumstances of the global economy and of the Canadian economy. The spending envisioned by the implementation of this bill cannot reasonably be seen as anything but reckless.

The coalition may not care about sane financial policy, but our government does. We simply cannot afford to start throwing billions of dollars around without a care. That is what this bill is instructing us to do.

It is remarkable. I am not that old, but I have been around a little while and I can say that right now there is a significant number of affordable housing projects going on from coast to coast to coast. That is because this government made it a priority to invest in affordable housing, to renew the housing stock, build new units, invest from one community to another from coast to coast in each and every territory and province, and to invest in aboriginal housing on and off reserve. We have made these investments.

The one remarkable consistency is that the movers of this bill, the irresponsible economists of the NDP that I am listening to right now, they are the ones who voted against all those measures. Any affordable housing that is being built, any improvement to the housing stock, the people who are being lifted out of poverty, the jobs that have been protected, the special measures in EI, all of these things that have been done, that have guided the Canadian economy through unprecedented difficulties--in fact, we have not seen a downturn like this since the 1930s--this government moved to protect them and the NDP voted against all of that, including the measures for homelessness.

There is a new YWCA shelter in Peterborough that protects vulnerable women. It got funding from some of these programs. Let us remember that the NDP voted against it.

Then those members stand in this House and suggest that their ideology is quite different from ours and they want to help people. We have been there to help people, and we have done so in a financially responsible way.

The fact is federal support for housing is very robust. Our support is multi-pronged and our current system respects the jurisdiction, different needs and circumstances of our provinces and territories, something this irresponsible NDP bill would not do.

I talked earlier about how their own inflexible ideology causes problems. When all they want is more spending and more programs, they drown out reality. They drown out innovations that could be much more effective than simply more money, more programs, more taxes, more government and—

[Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act, October 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing Bill C-304, the NDP's bill for a national housing strategy.

It has been reviewed by committee and returned to the House with amendments, but it remains a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation.

The amendments proposed by the committee do nothing to alleviate the government's concerns with the bill.

The NDP members have gone to quite a bit of trouble to craft a bill just so. In fact, they had to take great care to ensure the bill did not run afoul of the rules of royal recommendation and they succeeded, barely.

They had to take all that care because they know as well as anyone that actual implementation of their national housing strategy will cost billions upon billions of extra dollars every year.

As the Speaker has ruled, this bill may go forward if it has sufficient support, but it is certainly not without cost. So, we will not indulge the opposition with that bold fiction. The truth is that the bill would cost us quite a lot and I think far too much.

Our country is still recovering from the recent recession. What it certainly does not need at this time is coalition-driven spending and tax increases, which is what would result with the passing of this bill. This is something they cannot deny.

It seems every time the opposition members speak, they are calling for billions in more spending and more tax increases.

To say they have some big ticket items in their policy hopper would grossly underestimate the price of those other items. As I said earlier, this bill is no different.

[Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act, October 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address a question to the hon. member across the way. I have indicated that when the member leaves this place I would like to put an offer in on his thesaurus. I think he is amongst the better deliverers of lines in the House. I would not mind getting a copy of that when he has done. Perhaps he might even write it in a memoir for me.

I did want to mention a couple of points on his speech. I know he has companions in the Liberal Party who in last election indicated that they were going to cut corporate taxes farther and faster than I would cut them. Now they have skipped across, and they have apparently taken the 2008 NDP campaign platform and are running with that.

I am sure the member is actually happy about that in some regards, but at the same time I am sure he sees that it is not likely a truthful position from the Liberal Party since they have supported our reductions in corporate taxes. Good for them to this point, although most people believe that they actually supported it to save their skin.

I would say to the hon. member that this bill contains some key measures, including on the working income tax benefit. There are some key measures to help the working poor to climb and claw their way up, assisting them to get to middle class.

Has the member considered those measures in Bill C-47 and if he supports them?