House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 24% of the vote.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to have an answer to just one very specific question. Can the hon. member confirm that the position he just described, which we have heard 30, 100, 150 times in the House and which the hon. member expanded on a bit this evening—will this position on a hypothetical way of using asbestos create a single job tomorrow morning in the Asbestos region? I would just like to get a clear and frank answer to this very simple question.
Mr. Speaker, on September 27, I asked a question of the hon. Minister of Industry. I will read it now to refresh our memories.
This government claims to want to create jobs by supporting the asbestos industry. In reality, it is exporting disease and death to countries that have inadequate labour health and safety standards. This position does not help the communities that are relying on a dying industry. The workers have suffered enough.
What is this government waiting for to show real respect for these people and to develop with them a transition plan to stimulate the economy in that region?
I asked that question in the House, and two months later, the Lac d'amiante mine in Thetford Mines and the Jeffrey mine in Asbestos are now closed. There is no more mining going on in the asbestos region.
My question from two months ago ended on this point: what is this government waiting for to show real respect for these people who are now out of work and to develop a transition plan with and for them?
Something else rather significant has happened recently. More and more elected officials no longer support exporting asbestos. That includes some Conservatives who, anonymously of course, have gone as far as admitting that they wanted to vote in favour of the motion the NDP moved in this House less than a month ago. That motion called for an end to mining and exporting the substance, and for an immediate transition plan to help all workers in the asbestos regions.
Other factors have been added to the mix in the past two months. A growing portion of Quebec civil society has changed its position on asbestos. For instance, the Coalition Pour que le Québec ait meilleure MINE and the Centrale des syndicats du Québec are calling on governments to compensate asbestos workers and their communities immediately—with the money that is supposedly being invested to help that industry recover—so that healthy, sustainable industries can be developed instead.
The Confédération des syndicats nationaux, or CSN, has committed to talks with other unions in order to propose a retraining schedule for people working in the asbestos industry, all with a view to initiating the necessary debates with both levels of government on banning asbestos.
Given the present circumstances, we have a historic opportunity to stop a commercial activity that exports disease and is very harmful to Canada's reputation. The government therefore needs to finance a transition plan, stop mining asbestos and agree to include the substance on the Rotterdam Convention. That is all.
Will the minister take advantage of this historic opportunity? If not, how can he justify a decision that will not create any jobs in the asbestos region? My question is not about asbestos handling policies, but about the future of the people in the asbestos region.
Business of Supply November 25th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague even more for raising this issue than the previous issue. It is absolutely absurd to claim that having a debate on a bill would be useless simply because the opposition is likely to vote against it. To take that reasoning a little further, why do we not just shut down the House of Commons tomorrow and be done with it? We could play a recording that simply repeats, “Canadians gave our government a strong mandate for the economy” and we could all go do something else. If we take that reasoning a little further, Canadian parliamentary life would look a little like what I just described.
Business of Supply November 25th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for raising this particular issue. I would like to quickly read a quotation that is even more to the point:
After limiting debate in the House on the first day of debate, after limiting committee hearings to two days and giving witnesses 24 hours notice, the government now informs us it wants to make a major change....Will the government admit that it should properly consult Parliament, affected parties, experts and Canadians...?
Who said these words of wisdom? It was none other than the current Right Honourable Prime Minister on December 8, 1995. How is it that this was so important in 1995, yet it is so trivial now? Our colleagues across the floor are the ones who should be answering that.
Business of Supply November 25th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to the NDP motion. And quite sincerely, I am especially pleased to speak since it directly concerns your role, Mr. Speaker, which you fulfill so well out of respect for your title in the House. I am a new member. I have the advantage of a fresh outlook, and I can say that I truly appreciate the work you do.
I have a quote here from May 2, 2011: “We must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us [I would like to repeat that last part: “including those who did not vote for us”], and that includes the great Quebec nation.”
That is an excerpt from the first speech the Right Hon. Prime Minister, our current Prime Minister, made as the leader of a parliamentary majority.
That was how he felt on May 2, after years in opposition and years of leading a minority government. And now here we are, just a few months later, having to defend the idea of the opposition's right to speak in the House.
I would also like to quote an excerpt from an excellent column that was published in Quebec in La Presse on November 23, 2011. It does a wonderful job of expressing the opinion of a very large majority of Quebeckers and likely Canadians as well:
...sometimes, when a leader reaches his goal [in this case, a majority in Parliament for the current Prime Minister's party], blind partisanship gives way to some magnanimity [lending a compassionate ear, let us say], a word that apparently is not in the vocabulary of...[I will not quote directly, since we cannot use the current Right Hon. Prime Minister's name in the House] and his key ministers.
Do not forget that this government enjoys a majority in the House, but it was elected by only 39.6% of Canadians (16.5% in Quebec, a province particularly badly crushed by the bulldozer).
When, on the night of his victory, [our hon. Prime Minister] declared that his would be a government of all Canadians, it was apparently just empty words devoid of any real intention....
The column used the Prime Minister's last name followed by the words “the bulldozer”.
That is what the columnists who are by far the most popular among Quebeckers are saying in black and white, without mincing words. The same thing is happening in English Canada. We should be worried that things have gotten to this point and that something like this is happening in a democracy as old as ours.
It is all caused by a problem involving overuse of what is called the “gag order”. Before digging more deeply into the problem, I would first like to correct a statement by the government, which is inaccurate to say the least, in response to our motion today. It relates to Bill C-13.
I would simply like to point out that the bill is to implement certain provisions of the budget. We are not postponing passage of a budget, this is about implementing it. Bill C-13 was introduced on October 4, 2011. Contrary to what some of my colleagues opposite have said, we have not been delaying passage of a budget since the throne speech in June. That is simply not the case. We were questioning an extremely important document. One of my colleagues has said it was as thick as a phone book. It was only introduced on October 4. The budget is 644 pages long. There have been only seven days of debate in the House and there was time allocation at each stage. There was time allocation at second reading, at report stage and at third reading.
It is completely incorrect to use this example when we look at what has in fact happened and the very proper behaviour of the opposition, which was simply asking for more time to discuss the 640 or so pages of the budget.
Let us come back to the main problem. The government has the unilateral power to invoke rule 78 concerning time allocation. This is where we have a problem. Canadians already have a democratic deficit.
With our first past the post electoral system, we can end up with a House like this one, where 60 % of Canadians find themselves represented by a minority of members in the House. So we have a serious democratic deficit that has been corrected in a number of modern democracies. I could talk for 25 minutes on this subject alone, so I will not dwell too long on it.
This means we are stuck with this flawed poor first past the post system which distorts the results. What is left for the Canadians who make up that 60 % and more? There is only one thing left for them: the right for their representatives, who have been relegated to a minority, to speak, to introduce numerous suggestions by motion and to be heard. If we take away the very essence of the very little bit of what is left of democratic rights in the present system, we have to wonder what will remain of democracy in Canada. It is as serious as that.
Gagging the opposition seven times in a short time span means gagging six Canadians out of ten, seven times in a few months. If we still think that the government is a responsible government, that the House is a House of representatives, gagging this side of the House seven times means gagging six Canadians out of ten, seven times in a few months. I would like to hear it, if a single one of my colleagues opposite disagrees with this perception or this view of democracy. Can they rise in the House and say that if the opposition is gagged seven times, that is not the equivalent, in the present situation in the House, of gagging six Canadians out of ten, seven times in a few months?
The gag was applied in the case of Bill C-18 on wheat management, a foundation of the economy, a foundation of Canadians’ food supply, which is a somewhat important question. The gag was applied twice. The gag was applied in the case of Bill C-10. It was even done in committee, even in that separate kind of place where we are supposed to be able to hear experts and speak with them. Even there, the gag was applied. And we still have to point out over and over again in the House that Bill C-10 is opposed by the Canadian Bar Association, by the lawyers’ organizations in all provinces and by a majority of the provincial governments. And the gag was applied.
I want to come back to the speech by the Right Hon. Prime Minister about governing for all Canadians. He had a perfect opportunity to prove that between his words and his actions, there might one day be some consistency. We moved a very simple motion more than six times to introduce a Bill C-10A on everything to do with sexual assault against minors. The House would have stood up the next day and adopted the motion. Those six motions were never once considered by the current government, led by a prime minister who began, on the first evening of his first-ever win as a majority government, by saying he would govern for all Canadians.
The first definition that appears after a simple little search on the Speaker's site is as follows:
To ensure the orderly flow of business, the House of Commons observes parliamentary rules and traditions, both written and unwritten. It is the Speaker's duty to interpret these rules impartially, to maintain order, and to defend the rights and privileges of Members, including [the first right mentioned in black and white] the right to freedom of speech.
What the motion is calling for is quite simple, Mr. Speaker. It is to give you this responsibility, which is part of your role, and to give you more powers. We are not playing with something here that does not exist in other countries or inventing a very complex democratic mechanism. We are simply saying that the role of Speaker is indeed to be impartial—a role that the current Speaker is fulfilling very well in the House—and that we are all giving him the role to address this antidemocratic abuse of Standing Order 78 to gag debate to no end, and to ask why there needs to be a gag order.
We have to ask if there are excellent reasons to gag debate and why the government should quickly silence the official opposition, which, in our system, represents the majority of Canadians.
Asbestos November 25th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' broken record will not create any jobs tomorrow morning. By passively watching the industry slowly die —just as people are dying of respiratory illnesses in India and other developing countries—the government has turned its back on asbestos workers and an entire region's economy. Asbestos production has stopped and workers are finding themselves without jobs and without a transition program.
Is this government so pro-cancer that it cannot recognize that it is making the wrong choices by trying to make people believe that there is still a future for this industry?
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, that is a concern shared by all of the people I still consider my friends, people who work in record producing and music producing, and who are authors and composers. They are concerned about that. Two things are happening: digital copying and the ease of making copies at home have caused the market to collapse. Artists have a hard time selling copies, and as soon as they sell one, it turns into as many as 14 illegal copies. Now, if we add to that pressure such as what is in this bill, where what little there is left gives them even less in the way of copyright revenue, it is very likely that extraordinarily talented people, after trying for one, two or three years, after one album or one book, simply will not be able to make an adequate living—we are talking about a roof over their heads and some peanut butter, not much. It is very likely that the next Yann Martel, Karkwa or Arcade Fire will end up in this position and will stop creating. It is very likely that this will happen many times in the years to come.
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising this issue, which is not directly related to the bill but is still very relevant.
In reality, it is nearly impossible to think that artists will bring in a stable income over several years, simply because they may have some success with launching an album, but since there is a cycle of about 18 months, artists may not necessarily be able to launch an album right away after 18 months. Therefore, artists may make a lot of money some years and less other years. So any legislation that would help stabilize that income would be necessary and would help the cultural community.
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a bill to which an overwhelming majority of the groups that will be affected have objected. Only the big corporations that distribute content seem to be pleased with it. Journalists, artists, authors, new media specialists and copyright law specialists, all these groups object to the bill as it stands. Despite the fact that there are senior ministers present in the House, the government is not participating at all in the debate this morning. How can we interpret that kind of attitude toward all these groups, representing thousands of Canadians who produce books and songs and who have a positive effect on the lives of millions of Canadians? How can we interpret that silence this morning? How can we not see it as complete contempt for the issue of intellectual property? Canadians will be the judges.
Copyright issues have not been lagging behind other legislation in Canada just recently. Twenty years ago, I had the good fortune to take several courses taught by an expert in this field, Gilles Valiquette, as part of an audio technician programmer course. Even then we were surprised to learn that Canadian copyright law had long been managed by the Department of Agriculture. It took nearly 100 years to correct that situation.
We were also very surprised to learn that the way copyright was managed in Canada, unlike under a number of European laws, the author was not paid until the very end. At that time, we were talking just about CDs, because there was as yet no great diversity in digital formats. Sales had to be reported, say 50,000 copies sold, in order for authors to receive their share, while under a number of European laws, a CD, for example, could not leave the plant before the authors received what was coming to them.
For comparison purposes, it is as if a law in Canada had prevented a bricklayer from being paid until there was enough money for the shopping centre and until enough consumers had visited that shopping centre. That approach is quite absurd and has prevented a lot of creators from earning a living with dignity in Canada.
In the early years of this century I owned a small business where creators produced music. The industry went through a very difficult period with the diversification of digital formats and the ease of copying them. We saw extraordinary artists who ordinarily sold 100,000 or 150,000 or 200,000 copies suddenly, even though they had the same fan base, selling 50,000 or 40,000 or 35,000 copies. When we see a bill that talks about modernizing copyright, the first reaction is to rejoice and say “finally”.
But this bill demonstrates extreme hypocrisy. Even its title should be questioned. Can we really call it a copyright bill when its effect will be to cut creative people’s incomes by millions of dollars? The title of the bill should be changed to make it a little less hypocritical to “an act to support the big distributors” or something along those lines. But no, this bill claims to be about copyright, about authors' rights.
The introduction of this bill was accompanied by completely absurd rhetoric with the government saying, among other things, that copyright is comparable to a tax on iPods.
To say that to authors is just as absurd as saying to any other consultant—someone who does not put down an object in exchange for money, for example the consultants hired by the ministers opposite—that we do not know if they will be paid, because it would be considered a tax. Paying them would be like imposing a surtax on the consumer or the public. We would never make this argument to consultants hired by the departments of our colleagues opposite. It is that absurd.
Such contempt of intellectual property and copyright has consequences. This has been pointed out not just by the NDP, but also by copyright legislation experts. If this bill is passed in its present form, the cultural output of Canada and Quebec will be impoverished. I will give a simple example: I do not want my children living in a world where the only major cultural event of the week, in 2030, is the release of Indiana Jones 27. I hope that my children will live in a world where such talented writers as Yann Martel can make a living writing books and such talented composers as Karkwa can make a living recording music. That is my hope. This bill guarantees that the opposite—the impoverishment of Quebec and Canadian culture—will occur.
In closing, I would like to lend my voice to a group of authors who express, better than I, the current problems with this legislation in an opinion letter entitled “Preserving the dignity of works and their creators”, which was published in Le Devoir.
...this is what is proposed in Bill C-32 [the old nomenclature]: broadening the scope of fair dealing to include education, the possibility of creating a new work from existing works without the consent or remuneration of the author, private copying without payment of additional royalties [the creator is paid once, money is made for 1,000 years; that is inadequate], the mandatory use of digital locks to protect one's work on the Internet, the elimination of the responsibility of Internet service providers, and so forth. These are all situations where respect for intellectual property will disappear [this is the harsh but quite justified conclusion of this group of authors]. With [this] bill..., the exceptions overtake the rule.
We also perceive in this bill a deep-seated contempt for creators and a stubborn refusal to recognize their contribution to the development of our society.
To digress a little: many creators are suffering great hardship. Some great creators with whom I worked were barely able to make a living from their art, if at all. However, I would like to point out that a career as extraordinary as that of Leonard Cohen may have helped him to become a millionaire, and that is wonderful. I want the next Leonard Cohen to also be a millionaire.
My little boy, who is six years old, loves to go for snowmobile rides, and this enriches my everyday life. So thank you, Mr. Bombardier. I am very happy that the Bombardiers are billionaires. My son loves it when we listen to three of Leonard Cohen's songs in particular when we go on road trips. It makes him happy. These two things are very important in my son's life.
It is good that some successful creators simply get rich from their work and their success. I would like to come back to the editorial:
...the bill...calls for the exact opposite. At a time when our government is prepared to spend amounts that defy reason to build up its military arsenal, it is upset about the money that the education sector is paying creators for using their works....
By the way, I have never heard a single teacher ask that creators not be given payment for the use of their works in the classroom. I have never heard of it. I do not know where this is coming from.
In closing, I once again deplore the total lack of interest demonstrated by the members opposite in a situation that is so critical to the future of intellectual property and our country's culture.
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Madam Speaker, the cultural industries have issued a statement. Thousands of people are directly affected by this bill. They have said that if the government does not amend the copyright modernization bill to ensure adequate compensation to Canadian content owners, it will lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and its distribution within Canada and abroad.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this. In response to such a statement from the entire Canadian cultural industry, the current government, in this morning's debate, has done practically nothing. It is not defending its position and it is asking very few questions. Some people opposite are reading newspapers. What is my colleague's impression?