François Lapointe

[Groundwater Contamination, May 17th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House rather reluctantly. I rise reluctantly because of the subject matter, but I rise proudly in support of the motion moved by my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, namely Motion M-273. It is very reluctantly that I must rise in the House to speak to this matter after years of controversy and with so many families suffering.

I must admit that, for the first time, I had a hard time preparing my 10-minute speech because my first instinct was simply to stand up for two seconds, just enough to ask that this be resolved once and for all. I had to make a great deal of effort to prepare the few points I will address over the course of the next 10 minutes because, really, we have reached the stage where this needs to be resolved and we all need to support this motion. It is a matter of human dignity.

Let us talk about the problem's source, no pun on wells intended. Trichloroethylene is considered to be carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. When inhaled at high levels, it can induce a coma and cause death. It is an industrial solvent that was used at CFB Valcartier for decades starting in the 1930s and buried in the soil. That was a very long time ago.

As an aside, if any industry in the private sector had taken the liberty of burying a potent carcinogen in the ground for years, something tells me that the matter would have been resolved long ago.

In 2000, water from private wells belonging to residents of the municipality of Shannon was analyzed, and a high level of trichloroethylene was detected. More than 2,000 families, from whole neighbourhoods where fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters live, learned that a potent carcinogen had been flowing from their taps for decades. Years later, we are realizing that the cancer rate in that area is five times higher than the national average. I repeat: five times higher. We can imagine how families feel when they come to the following conclusion: they were poisoned for decades by a carcinogen and the consequence is that it is five times more likely that their two- or three-year-old son or daughter will get cancer. I am also speaking on behalf of parents who do not have cancer or do not have a child with cancer right now. They have committed no crime in their life, they are guilty of nothing, but they know that it is five times more likely that their three-year-old child will get cancer.

Furthermore, we can only imagine what effect this is having on Canada's image, as the government continues to drag its feet on this issue, challenging and questioning these families for decades. The Internet is full of comments like this. It is no longer even a question on Wikipedia:

Groundwater is the sole source of water for 25%...of the Canadian population...The municipality of Shannon, a municipality in the province of Quebec...conducted analyses and noted that the water table is contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), which has caused an increased incidence of cancer in the region. The people of the municipality decided to launch a class action lawsuit against the Government of Canada, which has known about the problem for 30 years.

Comments like that can be found all over the Internet. What a stain on Canada's reputation. It is no longer even being challenged by any groups. It appears everywhere. For 30 years, the government knew about the contamination. The people who have been affected are suing, but it takes forever to obtain justice. What a stain on Canada's reputation.

In 2009, the government spent $35 million to connect part of the municipality of Shannon to a new water supply system. At the same time as it was doing that, it maintained that the Crown was not to blame. Nine years had gone by—from 2000 to 2009—between the time that it was clearly established that concentrations of a powerful carcinogen were much too high and the implementation of a solution, with which the Crown washed its hands of the problem. Nine years is how long it takes for a family to produce three or four children, and, I repeat, these children are now five times more likely to develop cancer.

I repeat once more: just imagine what it must be like for the victims who now have cancer—people who lived in Shannon. Imagine what it must be like for those who lived in Shannon for some time between 2000 and 2009 and whose young children drank water containing a powerful carcinogen.

There is a price to pay for having failed to pay compensation to Shannon. There is a social price to pay for having resisted and for having dragged its feet while the problem continued. Imagine the stress felt by the parents. I have spoken about it twice now. Millions of dollars were spent on lawsuits by both parties, money that could have been put to much better use by paying these people compensation. TIt is now said that tens of millions of dollars have been spent, not to help the victims, but to continue with endless legal proceedings and court challenges.

Just think about the deep injustice felt by a 15-year-old victim who once lived in Shannon. She feels stress because she is wondering whether she will be able to live a normal life, and watches as her own government challenges a class action to redress a serious public health problem. How can she feel confident, first of all towards her country and then towards the government? How can she feel confident enough to get on with her life? This burden has been handed down to a whole generation of people in the Shannon area. How much less effective will they be at work, for example, with such a legacy, such a weight on their shoulders, and the stress they have experienced for years?

Public health authorities have testified in connection with the class action. They explained that the population of Shannon was too small for statistical studies. That is basically all that remains as a basis to challenge the class action by the people of Shannon. The situation is now completely preposterous. The thing to learn from this kind of logic is that if a group of people should ever become ill, then they should make sure that there are a lot of them. Because if there are not enough of them to be so sick that they are dying, then statistically, it will be impossible to prove that it was the introduction of a carcinogen or some other substance into a well that made them all sick.

Thus, if a group of people has to be ill in Canada, there had better be at least 300,000 suffering from the same thing. Otherwise, the statistics are not valid. In a group of 250 people, 25 could die, but it would not be enough to prove that contamination was the cause. This justification for not helping the people of Shannon puts us squarely in the realm of the absurd and the unacceptable.

There was one piece of bad news, among the many given to the people of Shannon, that particularly bothered me. In February 2011, the lawyer for the Shannon Citizens Committee, Charles Veilleux, was audited by the Canada Revenue Agency, just a few days before the start of this important case. The president of the Shannon Citizens Committee, Marie-Paule Spieser, did not believe it could be a coincidence.

All the commentators that I read at the time were outraged by the thought that, suddenly, three days away from such a complex trial, Mr. Veilleux was subjected to a major audit. This case had been backed by Mr. Veilleux, who was up to his neck in debt primarily because of his decade-long effort to help the people of Shannon. I raise my glass to Mr. Veilleux, who deserves to be toasted. It is just water, but it is not contaminated. Not one of the commentators I read that week had even a shadow of a doubt that it could have been a coincidence. It was unacceptable.

I will conclude with a fairly simple principle—the duty of a government. When a public health problem is serious, we must help the people. We can no longer hide behind the statistics, as former military personnel sometimes did, and say that the evidence may not be adequate.

If people are suffering because of huge mistakes made by the army or an industry, we must simply do our duty as a government and help them.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, we will definitely have to take a sensible and balanced approach to address the issue of distribution networks and platforms. Is there a small percentage that can guarantee sustainability for creators?

We have to stop saying that this is a tax. CD copyright is not a tax, but rather a way of compensating musicians who write songs that we hear on the radio and who make our lives more enjoyable.

So why all of a sudden is any solution applied to new technologies a tax? If we accept this way of seeing things, how can we make sure that successful creators will be able to make a living from their works? We need to move away from this approach that is completely out of step—

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, focusing exclusively on digital locks is not healthy, particularly when it comes to education, as my colleague pointed out.

We are all aware that this bill could lead to an obligation to completely destroy everything that has been built in a classroom within a very short period of time, perhaps even before the end of the semester. Is that feasible? We all know that it is not. How is it that this measure is still there and that it is going to be implemented? Is this situation really going to become a reality?

My colleague raised an important point. People have spoken about e-learning, for example, which can be an extremely important solution for people who live in remote areas. Right now, many of the current government's decisions are costing remote areas dearly. Ultimately, this is another decision that will ensure that remote areas pay a higher price, and it is a decision of the Conservative Party.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, there are many examples. We need only look so far as the example that was given earlier, namely, the very strong, very clear and very alarming position of 80 large cultural organizations.

Copyright experts are completely opposed to the decisions made in this bill. No, the government has not done its homework. The government must ensure that people who have a profound understanding of the problem are reassured and that they are included in the implementation of the bill, but it has not done so.

It is shameful that this bill, which is so important, has been under consideration for years and yet the results achieved are so mediocre.

[Copyright Modernization Act, May 15th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, for the past hour, I have been listening to the hon. members opposite talk about the industry's needs. If they were more transparent—honest might be a better word—they would clarify the fact that when they say industry, they mean the very large distributors. I have a great deal of respect for large distributors, which are a major part of the world economy, but they are talking about helping companies like Sony and Walt Disney. Those are the corporations that will benefit from this bill.

Let me go back to a rather striking example. How can they claim that they are thinking about the industry, when the cultural industry—which includes 80 arts and culture organizations across Quebec and the rest of the country, so from all across Canada—has stated that the bill will be toxic to Canada's digital economy? How can there be 80 major organizations across the country that have come to that conclusion and yet the government is still constantly claiming that it is thinking about the industry?

Certainly some sectors of the industry are perfectly comfortable with this bill, but let me reiterate that major sectors have reached that very harsh conclusion. That does not come from the New Democrats, but rather from a significant portion of the cultural industry, not just distributors. This bill will be toxic to Canada's digital economy.

Those organizations have warned us that if the government fails to amend the copyright modernization bill to ensure that content owners are properly compensated, this will lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and its dissemination domestically and abroad. We are using the word “dissemination”. These are crisis words, blunt words that, I repeat, are not coming from the “big bad leftists”, as some of our neighbours opposite like to call us, but from people in the cultural industry.

With this kind of reaction from such important industry players, the government should first have the decency to not claim any great success. It should show great respect for the industry's response to the bill and go back to the drawing board until these people believe that the government's proposed legislation will not give rise to something as significant as disseminating Canadian content in Canada and abroad.

In Canada, the government has historically had a hard time fully understanding the cultural industry and its front-line players: creators.

I cannot cover every aspect of this 70-page bill, but I will take a few minutes to talk about one aspect I know well and to provide some historical overview.

We have been lagging behind for far too long with respect to the status of creators in Canada. We are one of the last countries to keep its Copyright Act under the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food. We are one of the last countries to realize that it has been a very long time since the days when artists were reduced to simply performing at agricultural fairs.

Then the government came up with a modernized copyright regime that was one of the worst in the western world.

Let us compare our copyright system with what was being done in Europe in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Here, for example, a songwriter or composer—and this was true everywhere—shared up to 50% of total royalties with a publisher. Consequently, there remained 25% for the songwriter and 25% for the composer. That is generally how it worked. That was quite a common model. And then a few pennies were paid per songrecorded on a widespread format, such as CDs, which are still in use. One of the differences between Canada and Europe was that, in Europe, the author had to be paid for the right to distribute CDs in stores.

If 100,000 copies of an artist's work were made, first it had to be proven that the composer of the musical work and the songwriter had received their few pennies per song, which could add up to a lot if it was a major success. We are not talking about $100,000, but, even if it was a few pennies, that gave them a decent income.

In Canada, however, records could be distributed through merchants, in stores, without paying anything. Up to 20% could be considered “free goods”. That is what the merchants were given for promoting the product, and those “free goods” were exempt from copyright obligations. So 100,000 copies were distributed, but the first 20,000 copies did not generate a cent for the creator, and the other 80,000 copies had to be sold and had to be recorded as having been sold. Ultimately, the creator might receive his meagre 25% for a song recorded on a CD that eventually sold.

That was something like telling a bricklayer to lay bricks at a shopping centre, but that he would not be paid for his work unless the shopping centre was successful and had customers and its tenants were happy and paid their rent. He could do the brickwork at the shopping centre but never get paid. The deep roots of that attitude toward copyright in Canada are evident in the failures of this bill.

I will conclude on this basic attitude because the problem of a toothless copyright regime that has been around for decades underscores a fundamental perception that must absolutely change in Canada. The success of a cultural product stems from something magical that comes from the artist, not from the investor, the broadcaster or the person who—admittedly—may have invested thousands or even millions of dollars in the distribution of an album, a disk or a book. It is the artist who suddenly manages to grasp the most interesting thing that is happening at a particular time and who suddenly finds an audience. When an artist does that, he deserves his copyright.

If we understand that, we can immediately see that attempts in this legislation to protect major broadcasters do not honour the artist’s medium- and long-term need to earn an adequate and decent income from new technologies. Often, people do not really understand that it is the creator's magic that makes the product.

If the major distributors had a magic potion and knew exactly how to produce an artistic product for one million dollars that would sell three million copies, they would do so every day. They attempt this regularly and, often, it does not work out. When it works, it is because there was something magical that came from the creators and had an effect on the public.

Things do not happen magically. Creators invests thousands of hours in practice and rehearsals, rewrite thousands of pages, and spend thousands of hours developing themselves culturally in order to become people who create magic. The fact that we are considering modernizing copyright—and that this is even in the title of the bill—and that the party in power has managed to conduct a smear campaign by conflating the notion of guaranteeing suitable copyright with a tax, represents a dangerous, slippery slope.

In sectors of the industry that require a lot of creativity, the downward spiral has already begun. In video game production, for example, creators are often paid on a per-game basis. Young men and women are approached and asked to put together a beautiful soundtrack in exchange for $1,000. Regardless of its success, whether the video game in question is a hit and sells 75,000 copies, or is a total flop and only sells 200 copies, there is no copyright. That is what is called a buyout; the rights are purchased from the young creator.

That is the fate that awaits creators. Personally, I do not want to live in a world where creators can no longer live off copyright unless they produce a real hit. It means living in a less creative world. I do not need a Rocky 127. In future decades, I want to see creators who create interesting music and arthouse films.

[Finance, May 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives and credit card companies are hiding behind a code of conduct that is clearly unacceptable. Of course, consumers and SMEs are the ones to pay the price. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Competition Bureau agree that the obligation to accept certain cards and absorb the additional fees binds SMEs.

Will the government finally listen and respond to the legitimate demands of a pillar of the Canadian economy: owners of small and medium-sized businesses?

[Regional Economic Development, May 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are breaking their election promises and making decisions that harm the economy of the regions.

In my riding, for the past ten years, the Economic Development Agency of Canada has funded the youth employment program for the Centre d'aide aux entreprises de Montmagny-L'Islet, which has had some of the best results in Quebec. One hundred entrepreneurial projects have been supported by the program.

The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had promised, one day before the last election, to keep the program going for another two years. However, one year later, he cut the program. Why did he break his promise?

[Sisters of the Child Jesus of Chauffailles, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago, a group of nuns left France to put down roots in Sept-Îles, Rivière-au-Tonnerre, Havre-Saint-Pierre and Natashquan. The Sisters of the Child Jesus of Chauffailles began their work as a teaching order in Quebec.

A few years later, they branched out to Rivière-du-Loup, where they helped set up several educational and health care facilities. They were also active in Saint-Antonin and La Pocatière, two municipalities in my riding.

They founded the Notre-Dame-de-Fatima hospital in La Pocatière and helped create the Collège Notre-Dame in Rivière-du-Loup, an institution that they support to this day.

They are also active in Cambodia, Japan, Chad and France. They minister to the material and spiritual needs of all people, regardless of their socio-economic status, race or religion. They are dedicated to their ministry of compassion and solidarity.

I would like to take this solemn opportunity to thank the Sisters of the Child Jesus of Chauffailles for their century of dedication to Quebec. On behalf of all the communities that have benefited from their devotion, I salute and thank them.

Happy anniversary, and long live the Sisters of the Child Jesus of Chauffailles.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, May 1st, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I think that I can say that this is in keeping with my thoughts on the possible scenarios that could result from this bill.

Collectively, we must stay the course. Our collective goal is that the panic button will protect the 71-year-old grocery store owner, not that he will be under some sort of obligation to know how to use a baseball bat. This sort of thinking could lead to a great deal of trouble and serious consequences for the aggressor.

Yes. Let us support this bill on behalf of all the store owners who, unfortunately, too often find themselves in such situations, but let us ensure that we introduce a very detailed, brilliant bill that will include the expertise of the best Canadians in the field. If that takes time, let us take that time.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, May 1st, 2012]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. In a case like this, things are easy as long as we are looking at extremes.

With regard to the example I gave earlier, in committee it was said that a teenager who steals a can of Pepsi must not be beaten with a baseball bat, but on the other hand, a store owner must not spend 30 days in prison for defending himself against someone who aggressively threatened him with a machete. It is simple. These are two extremes. Anyone with good moral standards and a little bit of balance will agree. However, scenarios that fall in the middle of these two extremes must be properly defined, and that will take time.

I would therefore like to reiterate that we must allow the committee to consider 50% of the cases and how they should be dealt with. We are looking at the triggers of aggression, and the reactions of the aggressor and of the person defending himself. We need to consider all these scenarios and come to conclusions that will result in legislation that will help those who use self-defence, but will help them in a fair manner.