Geoff Regan

House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

His favourite word was fact.

Last in Parliament September 2021, as Liberal MP for Halifax West (Nova Scotia)

Won his last election, in 2019, with 50% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the quote and the point my hon. colleague has made on the question of what happens to digital locks for people with disabilities. I certainly look forward to the discussion in committee on this, if the bill gets there. My hope is that it will not. In fact, I think this bill is fundamentally flawed and I disagree with those who feel otherwise.

Of course, when someone speaks on behalf of his or her organization, I would not be surprised that the person would take a certain point of view, as Mr. Manley has done in speaking on behalf of his organization. It reminds me of what we see from the Conservative MPs generally who tend to speak only the words they are given to speak by the Prime Minister's Office and stay very close to the party line.

Madam Speaker, in fact, as the hon. member will see in the motion we put forward, one of the areas we address is education. One of the things I talked about was people with disabilities.

I gave a similar example of a young person who perhaps is visually impaired. Under this law, that person would not be permitted to transfer a text into a format he or she could read because that would require the person to circumvent a digital lock. The government would fine the person for doing that. Someone could be fined $5,000 under the bill for doing that.

Does that make sense? Is that a way to go forward in education? I think not.

Madam Speaker, someone mentioned that is an issue of copyright. My hon. friend from Windsor is joking about that, of course.

The member may want to check with the offices of those ministers. If the ministers are not aware of the emails that have been received, perhaps she should talk to their staff. I think she will find there has been a huge number of emails. Perhaps they have received more than I have. It would not surprise me.

Madam Speaker, if the member wants to come to my office we can talk about this and she can talk to my staff. I would suggest, rather than do that, she might want to talk to the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage who also received most of these emails; in most cases, I was copied on the messages to them.

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member, with whom I am pleased to serve on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Many technological advances have had an impact on copyright; therefore, it is necessary to create a new bill and make some changes. However, what we are seeing in the bill before us today is that the government has not accepted or does not truly recognize the changes that give people a variety of ways to do things nowadays.

For example, as I have already said, a mother may want to transfer a movie from a DVD to her PlayBook or iPad so that her children can watch it during a long trip. But under this bill she cannot do that.

That example shows me that the government does not really recognize technological change or understand its implications.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. minister's question about the number of emails. I do not know how quickly she reads but I have not had the time to read all those emails to be able to tell her what aspects of the bill each one is dealing with. However, I can say that there was massive opposition. Yesterday my office received 2,900 emails on this topic, and the vast majority of them were opposed to the bill and opposed to the government's position on the bill. It is a remarkable number but it shows the kind of interest there is in this bill.

We have had so much input on this we would have thought that a government that wanted to hear about the bill, that was open to change, open to considering ways to improve the bill would have listened to some of those comments and adopted some changes in the bill it brought forward. We do not see that.

The Conservatives claim there are good things, but virtually anything good they have done here is ruined by the fact that digital locks apply to them and people cannot get at them.

That is shameful. It is hard to imagine that could happen. Surely, the Conservatives would have more respect for Parliament and for the House of Commons than to offer it to a foreign government before tabling it here and making it available for members and for Canadians to examine.

Worse than that, the cables revealed that the Conservatives actually asked the United States to place Canada on the United States trade representatives' piracy watch list. They wanted to scare Canadians into supporting this copyright bill. Talk about a regressive, recidivist, bizarre way to approach this. Ten days after the Conservatives made the request, the U.S. was only too happy to oblige them. Naturally. It is no surprise that they went along fully.

The irony of all this, of course, is that the U.S. is now loosening up its own provisions on digital locks. During the last review of the American circumvention rules, it significantly loosened them up. While it is now legal in the U.S. to circumvent a protection measure to create a mash-up for YouTube, in Canada it is going to be illegal, thanks to the government. Can anyone Imagine that? The Conservatives talk about this being balanced, fair and a modern copyright law. This is regressive.

While the Bush White House had a direct line into the Prime Minister's Office, the opinions and advice of Canadian stakeholders, Canadian citizens and Canadian experts fell on deaf ears.

During the 40th Parliament, a special legislative committee on the copyright bill heard from 142 witnesses and it received 167 submissions. That is a lot of input. As members of Parliament, we also received comments from thousands of Canadians. In fact, yesterday alone, my office received nearly 3,000 emails on this one subject. Canadians are concerned about this and have made lots of comments but the government is not listening.

Much of what the committee heard last winter and spring made a lot of sense. Instead of listening, instead of saying that they heard what the witnesses were saying and that they would make some changes, the Conservatives chose to table the exact same bill with the identical wording. There was not a comma change, a period change or a letter moved in the bill except for perhaps the numbering now because it is a new Parliament.

The heritage minister has said publicly that he will not accept any changes. Today, he seems to be singing a bit of a different tune but we will have to wait and see if that is true. His handlers in the Prime Minister's Office have let it be known that they do not even want full hearings on the bill. They do not want members of the House, many of whom are new to the House, to hear from different witnesses and to have the opportunity for a full debate on the bill. I hope not, but perhaps we can expect to see today what we have seen in the last few weeks from the government on every major bill so far, and that is it using closure to move it quickly forward and to ram it through the House. Because of this heavy-handed approach, the undue American influence and the government's unyielding and misguided stance on digital locks, the Liberals have no choice, in our view, but to vote against Bill C-11.

A central concern heard at previous committee hearings was how the expansion of fair dealing into areas such as education would affect artists and creators. Many authors explained repeatedly that the changes in the bill would significantly affect their business models, and that is an important concern for us. However, in Bill C-11 we see no attempt to improve the definitions of fair dealing or provide any kind of certainty to these authors.

Finally, the Liberal Party continues to believe that artists and creators deserve transitional funding in order to cope with the effects this bill would have on their revenue streams. For instance, by no longer allowing creators to charge for ephemeral recordings, artists will lose a revenue stream of roughly $8 million a year. We believe the government should provide some transitional assistance to help artists adjust to the new reality. That is why we proposed in the last election a fund to compensate artists.

Many members will be aware that in the past there was a levy on blank cassettes and CDs. At one point that levy was producing revenue of $27.7 million for Canadian artists, and that was a very important revenue stream for them. Unfortunately, over time things change and people are not using as many cassettes or that many blank CDs and, therefore, the revenue has gone down to about $8.8 million a year. That is a dramatic drop for the artists who were relying on that. It seems to me that the government ought to be recognizing this and trying to find a way to respond to it, but it does not seem interested. It does not seem to have any concern for the impact this is having and we should be concerned.

As a result of the many problems in the bill, particularly the fact that the government has demonstrated that, after hearing 142 witnesses, reading 163 submissions and hearing from thousands of Canadians commenting on it online, in emails and so forth, it does not feel the need for any changes whatsoever, I want to bring forward the following amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and submitting the following:

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, because it fails to:

(a) uphold the rights of consumers to choose how to enjoy the content that they purchase through overly-restrictive digital lock provisions;

(b) include a clear and strict test for “fair dealing” for education purposes; and

(c) provide any transitional funding to help artists adapt to the loss of revenue streams that the Bill would cause.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased and honoured to stand today in this debate on Bill C-11 on behalf of the Liberal Party and on behalf of my constituents in the great riding of Halifax West.

It is disappointing that the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages do not appear to be interested in listening to this debate.

What we see in Bill C-11 is, as Yogi Berra said, “This is like déjà vu all over again”. In fact, this reminds of another Yogi Berraism. When he was asked about going to Coney Island, he said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded”.

This is the same kind of logic that we find in the government's approach to this bill. The new copyright bill, Bill C-11, is a carbon copy of the old copyright bill, Bill C-32. It has the same ideologically driven principles and it has the same flaws and omissions. It has the same, as my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay was just saying, American-influenced digital lock provisions.

However, the Liberals recognize that there is a need to modernize the Copyright Act. We also recognize the need to protect artists, creators, educators and consumers. We recognize the need for balanced legislation. We think it is important to have copyright rules that are fair and balanced.

Instead of that, today we have before us a recycled bill that includes some of the most restrictive digital lock provisions in the world. This is, in fact, an approach that Michael Geist, who is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, correctly points out is all about satisfying U.S. interests.

I was pleased to see this morning that he actually wrote on his blog today. He states:

The Liberal position is consistent with Bill C-60, their 2005 copyright bill that linked the digital lock rules to actual copyright infringement and did not establish a ban on the tools that can be used to circumvent digital locks.

Clearly, this renowned expert on copyright, the Internet and e-commerce is saying that our approach is one that makes sense and is consistent.

In view of those concerns, the Liberal Party will not support Bill C-11. The digital lock provisions in this bill are far too strict and they override virtually every other right that is in the legislation.

These provisions, for example, make it illegal for a mom to move a movie from her DVD to her iPad or Playbook so that her kids can watch it during a long car trip.

These provisions will make it illegal for Canadians to transfer a movie from a DVD to their iPad or PlayBook so that their kids can watch it during a long car trip, because bypassing the DVD protection measures would lead to a $5,000 lawsuit. That is appalling.

I will take the case of a visually impaired student. If that student needs to shift the format of a digital text so he can read it but finds protection measures on the source material, he would not be able to read it unless he breaks the law. How can that possibly be considered a fair and balanced approach? In fact, it is the opposite of fair and balanced.

I know many of my colleagues across the way do not believe their tough on crime agenda means going after busy moms or students with disabilities, but they should actually consider the implications of this bill because that is exactly what they are doing with this bill.

This morning, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages actually claimed that he and the government have the support of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada for the this bill. However, this is what the council actually said, “Much like many other education groups, provincial ministers agree that the digital lock provisions are too restrictive”.

The minister seems to interpret that as support, which is a strange interpretation in my view.

The Liberals are strongly opposed to a government that seeks to make it illegal for ordinary Canadians to exercise their rights to view material they have legally purchased in the format they choose. This is about whether people can change something. If people have a CD they have paid for and they want to transfer the music from their CD to their iPod or, perhaps, to their Blackberry, they want the ability to do that. What the government is saying is that they can do that. It wants Canadians to believe they can do that. However, the government is also saying that it is giving us that right but that it is taking it away because it has put a digital lock on it and we cannot. It is a contradictory position.

Other countries have managed to fulfill their international WIPO treaty obligations without having to implement such strict digital lock provisions. So why would Canada go well beyond what is expected of it? The answer is clear. This bill was drafted for the purpose of meeting the demands of the United States instead of meeting the needs of Canadians and standing up for their interests.

Diplomatic cables, recently released through WikiLeaks, have revealed that much of the bill was drafted specifically to meet American expectations in terms of the digital lock provisions. I find that quite shocking and disturbing. It is not about what is in the interests of Canadians but what is in the interest of some U.S. interests. The Conservatives even offered to provide the United States government with an advance copy of the bill before the Parliament of Canada was allowed to read it.

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my hon. colleague's line that suing dead people is a dead end.

He spoke about digital locks. With this bill, the government wants to impose a system on Canadians that is stricter than the systems in the United States or the United Kingdom. I find that troubling.

He also talked about the loss of the collector for royalty rights. Would he speak further about the impact on artists of the locks and what his solution to that would be?

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister has talked about heckling when, in fact, he himself was heckling earlier this morning. It is very inappropriate for him to be talking about it. He is in no position to cast aspersions in this fashion.