Mr. Speaker, before beginning my speech, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the House leader of the official opposition, who is also the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. He is one of the members who works the hardest in the House of Commons. What is more, he is the most ardent defender of the rights of Canadians. The NDP is really proud of its parliamentary leader.
I would also like to mention the great work that my wonderful colleague from LaSalle—Émard has done. She gave an excellent speech. She has a good grasp of the dynamics of the situation. I listened very carefully to her speech, which was very enlightening. I am also very pleased to mention my colleague from Sherbrooke's excellent work. He talked about the importance of border protection. Over the past few months, there have been major scandals in the ridings of Sherbrooke and Compton—Stanstead. Incidents have shown that our border is indeed porous. Unfortunately, the Conservative government did not do its job and did not make sure that our border is secure.
Bill C-56, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, amends the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act. It seeks to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trade-mark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies and counterfeit trade-marked goods.
This bill creates two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act. They deal with the possession and export of infringing copies. The bill also creates offences related to the sale or offering for sale of counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. It creates a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods. Finally, it grants border officials new ex officio powers to detain infringing copies and counterfeit goods.
These are important changes, since up until now, border officials required copyright holders to first get a court order before they would seize infringing copies or counterfeit goods. These are the main changes proposed in this bill.
However, it is important to understand that this bill assigns new tasks to border authorities, to the border officers. As I have already said, as my colleague from Sherbrooke said so well earlier, and as my colleague from Compton—Stanstead often says during question period, there are already problems at the border. Ensuring safety at the border to allow the border authorities to do their job properly is problematic. The reason is quite simple: $143 million was cut from the Canada Border Services Agency. There were already problems, but instead of strengthening the border, the government made more cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency, which is irresponsible. This will have a direct impact on jobs. It will affect officers who work to protect our borders. Five hundred and forty-nine jobs will be cut, which means 549 fewer people to do the work at the borders across Canada, including in the Sherbrooke area and at the Compton—Stanstead border.
This is not going to improve the situation, despite the fact that this bill makes some corrections, as a number of members have mentioned. I am not one to make partisan speeches. I will even mention the hon. member for Durham, who made a very important speech and talked about a number of things, including the fact that this bill needs to be improved in committee. I think it is a shame that we have to hear such things.
It is 11:35 p.m. and I am a bit tired, so that explains why I sometimes lose my train of thought. I think it is important to the democratic process for us to be here, even at 11:35 p.m., to make speeches, debate bills, propose amendments and provide explanations about the validity of these bills. We will support this bill at second reading so that it can go to committee. That is very important.
This is directed mainly at the Conservatives, because I know that NDP members do an excellent job in committee. I do not know how many times I have made speeches in the House about the excellent job NDP members are doing in committee. They listen carefully to the recommendations made by experts and then bring them forward in the form of amendments.
We will support this bill. As a number of members have mentioned today, we have been waiting for this bill for a long time. We must strengthen the fight against counterfeiting to ensure respect for the efforts of Canadian businesses and the goods they produce and to protect the health and safety of all Canadians.
Several of my colleagues have given good examples of car parts and other items we use every day that could put our health and safety at risk. That is why this kind of bill is so important. It will essentially guarantee that the products Canadians use are safe.
However, the Conservatives, who are currently in power, have to provide the necessary financial and human resources to implement this bill. We will support it and study it in committee.
I must appeal to the Conservatives once again, because unfortunately, as we have seen many times in the past, they have not been listening. I hope they will listen closely to all of the experts who testify before the committee, and I urge them to take the experts' recommendations into account along with amendments that the NDP and others will make based on the experts' recommendations. I hope they will improve this bill. That would be a first step to show that they are acting in good faith.
They could also show they are acting in good faith by investing the necessary money and human resources to ensure all Canadians benefit from a bill that meets their expectations.
The government has been aware of this problem for a long time. Difficulty measuring the scale of counterfeiting and pirated goods in Canada has been a challenge from the start. The OECD's 1998 report entitled “The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy” was a first look at the scale of the problem.
I am running out of time, so I will wrap up my remarks. This bill must meet the needs of Canadian consumers and protect health and safety. The Conservatives must reverse their decision to cut the CBSA's budget by $143 million, a decision that will result in the loss of 549 jobs. Otherwise, this bill will not really benefit Canadians.
