Jim Abbott

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact I am very pleased to tell the hon. member and very proud of the fact that I am completely in support of the former leader of our party. The member for Calgary Southwest is one of the most competent, capable, honest and dedicated people that I have ever met in politics. I am campaigning very aggressively for him. I take full ownership of the kind of leadership that he has shown. Let me make that very clear.

With respect to the question of polls, what he was saying was very clear. I ask my friend from Yukon to recall that Jean Chrétien as prime minister of Canada went around and was listening and was not making a determination, was not making a determination, was not making a determination. I say again and again that he was not making a determination because he was not at all clear in his own mind which way public opinion was going.

Instead, he permitted his backbenchers during the war in Iraq to turn around and use unparliamentary words toward the President of the United States. I may have some serious differences with what the president has done, is doing or may do, but he must be treated with respect. All of that was going on and it was the prime minister of Canada who was waiting to see which way the poll would go as to which way the government would go.

I spoke to a colleague of his, whom I will not name because it was a private conversation, who was aggressively and adamantly opposed to the war. He said that until he got to the caucus meeting on the Wednesday when the prime minister finally determined which way he was going to go, before the member left his home in the morning he said to his wife, “If Jean Chrétien does not do the right thing, I am walking out”. Even people in his own party did not have any idea which way he was going to go because he did not make a principled decision.

I am very pleased and proud to support the member for Calgary Southwest as the future leader of the Conservative Party, particularly because he is such a principled individual. He took a position. He stood for it and we moved forward under his great leadership.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a very interesting debate. It is particularly interesting because of the apparent hypocrisy of the position that the current Prime Minister is taking.

I used the word hypocrisy once in deference to the Chair. I used that word because on one side of the coin our current Prime Minister would like us to believe that this is a brand new government. He is a brand new Prime Minister with a brand new cabinet and a brand new approach to politics in Canada. Everything is completely brand new.

We are supposed to forget that under Jean Chrétien we had 10 years of an oppressive government that rammed things through the House and consistently whipped votes. For people who are not familiar with parliamentary language, that simply means that backbenchers were treated like trained seals. They were told how to vote. We are told to forget that.

We are told that the 10 years that we had under Jean Chrétien, which had very questionable parts to them, belong to the old Liberals. The new Prime Minister is brand new; everything is new. Everything is fresh such as new Tide or new Ultra or whatever the soap of the day is. Yet the Prime Minister turns around and says that he wants to recycle all of the bills or have the opportunity to recycle all of the bills that were passed in the previous two sessions.

In the previous two sessions these bills that went through the House of Commons were whipped bills. Backbenchers were told how to vote and they voted obligingly and obediently, notwithstanding the views, wishes, desires or direction of their constituents. Their constituents did not matter. It was because the Prime Minister at the time, the former House leader, who spoke a few minutes ago, the finance minister and now the Prime Minister, as one of the senior members of the government, told them how to vote and to heck with the constituents. The bills were just forced through.

The government wants to turn around and use this reinstatement legislation to pick and choose which of the bills from the old regime it wants to bring into this new regime. The government cannot have it both ways. Either he is a new Prime Minister, and he has a new cabinet and a new agenda, or he is a retread. He is simply digging back into the past into what he himself has said is a discredited past. The government cannot have it both ways. I find this absolutely astounding.

We have learned, and certainly I have learned in the 10 years that I have had the privilege of representing the people of Kootenay—Columbia, that the Liberals are masters at managing the news.

The government has a fairly heavy day coming at it tomorrow. The Auditor General will be reporting how much taxpayers' money was actually slid through to the supporters of the Liberal Party. We know that the national news media is in something of a frenzy at this point. I can pretty well guarantee, whether it is Global, CTV, CBC or the A-Channel or any other network, that the lead item on the 6 o'clock, the 10 and 11 o'clock news will be the Auditor General's report.

Why then would the government not take advantage of the fact that it will be the big issue tomorrow, as indeed it should be--certainly with the kind of abject waste and mismanagement, and in some cases criminal activity that occurred under the previous administration--and not just slide this closure through at that point? It is a very neat trick. The Prime Minister knows that the Liberals will be paying a dear price tomorrow, as they darn well should, and so he says “Why do we not just get this through?”

Is it not hypocritical on one side of the coin to say that he is new, that his cabinet is new--almost as though we had gone through an election for people who consider themselves to be the naturally governing party in a general election--and then turn around and say that he is going to take some of these old bills that have been passed?

We noted that the government under Jean Chrétien made use of time allocation 75 times and closure 10 times. That is a parliamentary record, as my colleague from Surrey pointed out. The Liberals used it 85 times to stifle debate in the House of debate, where I and the rest of the members have an opportunity to represent the views, wishes, desires and direction that we get from our constituents when we are home.

However, in spite of that, I point out that the former Prime Minister at least had the decency, such as it was, to wait a year and a half before he moved his first closure motion. I should point out, Mr. Speaker, and you may possibly have noted, that when Prime Minister Mulroney moved closure and time allocation, there were many opposition Liberal members who raised an awful howl and it was the worst thing in the world. Well, the former Prime Minister and the former House leader who just finished speaking eclipsed anything that Mr. Mulroney did.

The current Prime Minister has waited one week. We recall that in this chamber, exactly seven days ago following the Speech from the Throne, following this all new detergent that had occurred in this chamber, this all new Prime Minister and this all new party was starting afresh. And one week later, not a year and a half, he is bringing in closure.

The Prime Minister, in bringing this motion--and it does come fully with the approval of the current Prime Minister, let us be clear--has basically done more to drive the democratic deficit problem, to which he keeps on referring, deeper down and embed it further in this place than anyone in the history of the House of Commons.

The fact is that, as I believe my colleague was just pointing out with respect to the gun registry, on one side of the coin the Prime Minister says that he will empower all the backbenchers. What a revolutionary idea. My goodness, he must have come across the same thing that I did, and that was an advertisement showing Preston Manning, the then leader of the Reform Party, saying “Who does this seat in the House of Commons belong to?”

Our whole campaign, as the Reform Party in 1997, was around the issue that I, my party, all of my colleagues, and the leader of the day--and subsequently our party policy--would represent the views, wishes, desires and directions of the people of Canada from our seats. He must have seen the same advertisement and thought to himself, “My, what a great, revolutionary idea”. It took him seven years to find it, but he trots it out and says that he will allow free votes in the House of Commons.

The next day he was asked by my very competent colleague from Yorkton what he would do about the gun registry, the gun registry that has blown away $1 billion when it was only to cost $2 million, the gun registry which the government actually has ended up penalizing and registering law-abiding citizens, but on the other hand it will not register sex offenders. He was asked what he would do about that. Clearly we know there are people who are representing the views, the wishes, the desires and the direction of their constituents; there are people on the backbenches who want to do the right thing and abolish this crazy boondoggle gun registry, so the member asked the question.

It did not take the government a week to flip flop on that one as it has on closure. No, it took the government a bit less than 24 hours to flip flop on that one. Now when people come around and say that the member for Kootenay—Columbia and the member for Brandon—Souris have been around for 10 years, and would it not be nice if there were a government member on their side, then at least they would be getting proper representation, they should not believe it, because the Liberal backbenchers will continue to be whipped into shape.

I believe it was the House leader I just saw in news reports saying, “Actually, probably what the Prime Minister was referring to was that we could have free votes on private members' business”. How shallow is that? Unless the government decides that it will cherry-pick from private members' business, as my friend from Surrey has pointed out, and actually extract pieces of private members' business and put them into its own legislation and claim them for its own--and gee, that is something I have never heard of the Liberals doing before--unless we are talking about that, private members' business basically is nothing more than the ability for private members to give the government a bit of a push.

This is revolutionary. We will now have free votes in the House of Commons on private members' business. Guess what. We have had that for the last two sessions. What is new? Nothing is new, except in the Prime Minister's mind. He is talking about being new.

Let us take a look at some of the pieces of legislation that we have passed and which he does want to bring in. The one I am thinking of in particular, because I have some familiarity with it, is what is now called Bill C-2. It is a bill that will penalize people who are involved in bringing electronic equipment into Canada for the purpose of getting under the CRTC rules and by getting under the CRTC rules they can then make a profit by literally stealing signal from the providers of the satellite signal that is beaming down on earth.

As we debated earlier in the day, the Liberal approach is to say “Let us penalize. Let us go after them. Let us control it”. What a tremendous idea: let us control electronic innovation; let us control technology. I do not know what planet the Liberals come from. Certainly it does not have anything to do with this century or with the revolutions that are occurring electronically with computers, with satellites, with our ability to communicate. It borders on being impossible even to keep up with what is going on.

The Liberals are bringing in rules to try to control something that is uncontrollable, but it makes them feel better. We need a fresh approach on that bill. The legislation as it is presently written, technologically is simply not feasible.

Let us take a look at another one, the legislation on human reproduction. There was a bill that if there was ever any whipping going on, it would have gone on with that bill.

I recognize that the member is the former House leader and does not speak for the current government. He has raised that bill as an example of bills where the votes of the House of Commons have been done and therefore we should not be turning our backs on those votes. Clearly he has chosen to forget how he, as the government House leader giving direction to the whip of the day, had people quaking in their boots.

I do not know what kind of pressure the Liberals can put on their backbenchers to make some of them certainly appear to me to be voting against their most closely held personal values. I do not know what kind of pressure that is, but it is that pressure that has given us the raft of legislation that we presently have at various stages in the House or at stages in the other place. That legislation was all brought about as a result of a regime that the current Prime Minister claims to reject. He claims to reject it. How shallow is that? It is amazingly shallow.

In taking a look at the procedures that the House has at its disposal, I recognize that the former House leader, the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, is probably a master of those procedures. Certainly he used all of his background and knowledge, his trips around the world and his time at Westminster to put pressure on his backbenchers and to use that kind of pressure within the House to push those bills through.

I therefore wonder how genuine it is for him to say that these bills have been passed and therefore we should be making sure they have the opportunity to be handled. He did not answer the question of my friend from Surrey. When my friend put it to him that this is the first time in British parliamentary history that a new prime minister has simply reached back into an old prime minister's grab bag of bills, he did not answer that question. I am sure my friend noticed that.

With the amount of background, understanding and knowledge that the former House leader has of the historic British parliamentary system around the world, it becomes very clear to me that we have probably hit on something. The new Prime Minister is actually creating history not only in Canada but in the British parliamentary system.

It is absolutely unconscionable that the Prime Minister and the government would bring this notice of closure to the House. It is unconscionable in itself. I am going through the dictionary in my brain and I am not capable of coming up with a word that would be creative enough perhaps to get past the Speaker's excellent chairing of this session. Let me just say I find it unbelievably amazing that the Prime Minister has the chutzpah to turn around and say that he is dealing with the democratic deficit in this way. He is saying that he is new. How can he say that with a straight face? The democratic deficit is real and its dain belongs to the Prime Minister.

[Radiocommunication Act, February 9th, 2004]

As we know, Mr. Speaker, this bill, numbered Bill C-52, was in the House when the House prorogued. We are now into the third session. The bill fundamentally remains the same. As the former vice-chair of the heritage committee of the Parliament of Canada, I stand opposed to Bill C-2 because it is exactly the same as Bill C-52.

I must say that I have a tremendous amount of sympathy, as my colleague from the Liberals has just pointed out, for the fact that the broadcasters who play by the rules are being put at a fundamental disadvantage. I understand and am very clear on that issue, so what we need to do, then, is take a look at the rules.

I am going to discuss the specific concerns I have about the bill in just a second, but I want to point out that there is a fundamental problem here. Canadians want choices. Canadians want to be able to make the choices of the entertainment that they are going to be viewing on the television sets in their homes.

One of the classic examples that comes up annually is with respect to the advertisements, which companies pay a tremendous amount of money for, exhibited during the Super Bowl. Many people in the U.S. actually watch the Super Bowl not for the football but for the advertisements, and certainly some of them are highly creative.

The fact that there is a restriction under the CRTC rules in this instance, where CanWest Global has bought the feed of the Super Bowl for distribution in Canada, basically means that CanWest Global can then realize the advertising revenue for the size of market that it has in Canada. I would have to guess that for every 100 million people who might be viewing the Super Bowl in the United States, one would think, theoretically at least, that there would be 10 million in Canada. Those numbers obviously do not apply although we are one-tenth of the market size. The fact of the matter is that people in the United States are overall more enamoured of the Super Bowl than people in Canada.

Nonetheless, CanWest Global will pay the producers, that is, the NFL and other owners of the rights that have been negotiated, with respect to that programming. They will pay for the privilege of being able to broadcast in Canada so that the advertisers who choose to advertise in Canada to the Canadian audience will then know that they have that captive audience.

Therein lies the problem. The problem is that the Canadian audience understandably wants to have the choice of whether it is going to see those commercials or not. As a matter of fact, I suppose it could be argued that in many instances Canadians will actually get some kind of zapper that will enable them to do away with commercials entirely with the exception of the Super Bowl. It comes down to a question of the rules and regulations made at the direction of this Liberal government; the CRTC then formulates the specific rules and makes sure that those rules are enforced.

Our position is that to put up some kind of an electronic wall or to attempt to put up some kind of an electronic wall is a facile and useless waste of time. It does not make any sense with the numbers of programs that are becoming more and more available as a result of technology. I am not just talking about television programs; I am also talking about things that are available on broadband Internet. It is only a matter of time until people in Canada are going to be able to get past the current restriction of satellite in any event.

This bill, which goes after the companies that are trying to bring in satellite equipment, would work if we were at a standstill in technology, but the fact of the matter is that we are not at a standstill in technology. As a matter of fact, technology is in an explosive state at this particular point.

According to the Liberals, Bill C-2 would prevent equipment from entering Canada. If the bill is to prevent the importation of satellite decoding equipment, satellite communication equipment and satellite receiving equipment, if it is to prevent those pieces of equipment coming into Canada, I wonder how the government is doing on the illegal importation of assault weapons, handguns and items of that type. How is it doing with the cigarettes that are coming across the border? How is it doing with the transportation of marijuana from British Columbia and the transportation of cocaine back into British Columbia?

The government is not doing very well, in spite of the fact that many resources are in place to try to interdict the importation of commodities like that which are seriously detrimental to our society and are not only costing our society money, but also costing our society in terms of lives and values of our country. We are not doing very well, because we do not have sufficient resources or sufficient technology to stop the importation of guns, drugs and other things of that nature. How in the world does the government believe it is going to be able to interdict the importation of the equipment that we are talking about in Bill C-2?

What it comes down to is this. We can have a theoretical big brother approach to this particular question, or we can be practical and pragmatic and realistic. Recognizing that Canadians want choices, we could work in concert with the United States regulator. The Canadian government could work with the U.S. government so that it could give direction to the CRTC and the U.S. government could give direction to the FCC. They could work out the technology of how this is going to end up working.

The beauty of that approach is that with United States viewers being ten times the number of Canadian viewers, we can imagine that if the CBC were to be broadcast not just in Canada but in wide distribution in the United States, we would be able to determine very quickly how many viewers would want to see the CBC. We would be able to determine how many viewers would want to see Canadian programming by Canadian writers.

I will ask the House to please bear with me as I go back to an example that does have some parallels. We had a totally protected wine industry in Canada. Quite frankly, the majority of the product was inferior. It was not a good product, period, full stop. And oh my, when the free trade agreement was negotiated and our wine producers were going to be subjected to the world market, they no longer had protection for their inferior product and people said the sky would fall.

But you know what, Mr. Speaker? Canadians are great at competition. If we give Canadians a level playing field, if we give them rational, reasonable rules to make sure it is a level playing field, whether it is France, the U.S., Australia or any other wine producing area, we will be superior because we are Canadians and we know how to do the job.

Basically that is what I am asking for instead of getting into more and more protection, just as we had the protection for wine producers who now without protection have a far superior product. As the heritage critic for the Conservative Party, I say that without protection we will end up with a far superior product in terms of the entertainment value that we can bring to the audience, not just the audience in Canada but ten times that audience, which we can have access to in the United States. We must have a broader vision, because I believe in Canada and I believe in Canadians' creativity.

[Radiocommunication Act, November 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, of course I agree with my colleague from the committee. The fact is that the people in Quebec are making a choice. The market is deciding. The viewers are deciding what they want and do not want to watch. In Canada they are making the same decisions.

What I find very frustrating is that this summer the CBC, which is supposed to be the epitome of Canadian broadcasting, in English Canada went to U.S. blockbuster shows just to maintain their viewership.

I agree with the member that there is a difference between the English market and the French market.

[Radiocommunication Act, November 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak against Bill C-52, an act to amend the Radiocommunication Act. According to the Liberals, we need this bill to fight the “financial and cultural damage that illegal satellite dishes and the piracy of intellectual property have caused in our country”.

It is interesting that just today the Minister of Canadian Heritage tabled the response of her department to the report that was put forward by the heritage committee, of which I am vice-chair, on the state of broadcasting in Canada.

What is interesting is that in spite of this urgency, the minister in her response was totally silent on this issue. Let me repeat this very serious thing that they are talking about, that they have to fight the financial and cultural damage that illegal satellite dishes and the piracy of intellectual property have caused in the country.

This line of reasoning happens to come directly from a June 2003 presentation to the Liberal caucus by the Coalition Against Satellite Signal Theft. The coalition made a presentation to the Liberal caucus, but it should not be too surprising that the minister was paying particular attention because the coalition members did, after all, donate 25% of her spending limit in the 2000 election, or over $15,000 to the election campaign of the Minister of Canadian Heritage. One would have to say that it obviously got her attention.

On page 18 of the coalition's presentation, it calls for increasing fines for individuals watching unauthorized television from $5,000 to $25,000 and a year in prison. It also calls for a restriction of imports of dish network and direct television systems and the seizure of such systems at the border.

Bill C-52 implements every recommendation of the coalition. It is interesting to note that Bill C-52 was first read on October 22 this year, roughly a month before the CRTC's November 14 deadline for public submissions on how to best support Canadian television drama. Presumably those submissions could have informed the debate on Bill C-52, as we struggled with issues about grey market and black market and the most important issue of all, how to encourage more Canadians to watch more Canadian programming, stories about Canadians by Canadians and for Canadians. However, the government is more interested in doing what it is being directed to do by the people who were the major donors to the minister's last election.

Our objective is to encourage Canadian programming. Bill C-52 is a big step backward and may in fact be counterproductive. Further, I do not believe that Bill C-52 is even necessary to solve the problems identified by the Coalition Against Satellite Theft to the Liberal caucus.

In Canada at present there are two authorized satellite service companies; Bell ExpressVu and Star Choice. The first of these, Bell ExpressVu, has a serious problem with people stealing its signals. For example, on October 21, 2002, Quebecor president, Pierre-Karl Péladeau, told the CRTC of a fall 2000 Léger marketing survey showing that fully 20% of Bell ExpressVu's 1.2 million subscribers were not paying for the service. He said:

ExpressVu's system is so simple, it possesses an irresistible attraction to hackers and signal pirates.

He went on to say:

ExpressVu should be forced to improve its system to deter hackers and pirates.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters agreed saying that ExpressVu should regularly report to the CRTC on the number of receivers it had sold and the number of active and inactive accounts.

We know that Bell ExpressVu has a much bigger problem with hackers and pirates than Star Choice, primarily because Star Choice uses Motorola's proprietary video distribution system DigiCipher II just as Canada's digital cable services do. I am unaware of a coalition to stop digital cable theft or major signal problems for Star Choice. Therefore, presumably a fairly significant part of the problem with people stealing Bell ExpressVu signals is within the company's own ability to fix it.

Bell ExpressVu and the Coalition Against Satellite Signal Theft are not just concerned about the people who steal their signals. They are also concerned about people who steal the signals of American satellite service companies like Dish Network and DirecTV.

Therefore, the Liberal government wants to crack on the people who are stealing the signals of Dish Network and DirecTV. Essentially the coalition says that if Canadians are able to get free TV channels by stealing from Dish Network and DirecTV, there is little incentive for people to subscribe to ExpressVu, or Star Choice or digital cable. Of course I agree. However before we agree to spend taxpayer money to solve the problem, we need to ask what the coalition members have done.

For example, this is really instructive. People who watch Dish Network or DirecTV need to know what is on. Many people subscribe to a magazine called Satellite Direct . It is a TV guide published “exclusively for owners of DirecTV system”. It is what one reads if one wants to find out what is on tomorrow night on HBO Showtime or ESPN. Here is the interesting thing. The magazine is published by Vogel Communications which is the same Edmonton based company that publishes Vu Magazine , the official guide for Bell ExpressVu satellite system. If one is looking for people stealing DirecTV or Dish Network signals, we might think that one of the first places to start would be the subscription list of a Canadian magazine that tells black market television watchers what is on next week. However, instead of going after Vogel, Bell ExpressVu contracts with it to publish ExpressVu's own TV guide.

I am going to repeat that because it is so astounding that Bell ExpressVu contracts with Vogel for ExpressVu's TV guide and the same publisher publishes a magazine called Satellite Direct which is the way that the black market viewers can see what is on their black market channels. Therefore, we have a situation where Bell ExpressVu is calling on the taxpayer to solve a problem that is well within the corporation's own grasp, but it does not end there.

The Liberals at the coalition's urging are now planning to block the import of Dish Network and DirecTV systems and seize them at the border. Before we consider such a drastic step, we should ask what steps this government and the coalition will take to ensure that no Canadian dishes are sold in the U.S., which of course is zero.

Not only does Bill C-52 call for tax dollars to be spent fixing problems within the coalition's reach, it also discriminates against many minority groups.

What about the grey market? This is where Canadians use a fictitious U.S. address to subscribe to satellite channels that are not distributed by ExpressVu or Star Choice. Often these are minority cultural and religious programming for which there is not a large domestic market and subscribers are paying far more money for each channel received than either Bell ExpressVu or Star Choice would charge for a similar domestic channel.

In our view the deployment of any existing or new police resources to patrol neighbourhood for satellites rather than criminals is inappropriate and wasteful.

I watched a program last night that talked about the terrible scourge of child pornography and child pornography rings and the fact that the investigators were incapable, simply because of an overload of work, to get to this terrible scourge in our society. Yet the government is actually be thinking of deploying police resources to patrol neighbourhoods to find out what people are watching on their home television. That is disgraceful.

The Liberal government and the Coalition Against Satellite Signal Theft speak in terms of promoting Canadian culture and the potential unravelling of the Canadian broadcasting system. These are serious allegations so we need to look at both of them.

First, let us look at promoting culture. Bell ExpressVu's website prominently features the logos of ABC, Citytv, CBS, Fox, NBC and A&E, but only one of these is Canadian. The mailouts that Bell ExpressVu sends to subscribers highlights U.S. movies like Bringing Down the House, Chicago and Daredevil. The movie network is owned by Astral Media, whose chairman of the board, Andre Bureau, gave $5,000 to the 2000 election campaign of the Minister of Canadian Heritage. The network bills itself as a “Canadian premier pay-tv channel” and has written promotional materials that state that the movie network offers the “Best of HBO and Showtime”.

With all due respect to the government, the Coalition Against Satellite Theft, Bell ExpressVu and Astral Media, I do not consider The Sopranos, Six Feet Under or Curb your Enthusiasm to be very reflective of Canadian culture.

The fact is that the average English speaking Canadian can easily spend an entire evening watching TV without seeing a single minute of Canadian programming.

Quite simply, the past practices of giving Canadian satellite companies and broadcasters special TV channels exclusive rights to broadcast foreign, mostly U.S., programs in Canada in exchange for a promise to produce quality Canadian drama is not working. The two things are not related.

If we were to say to the U.S. that we would let its satellite companies distribute U.S. content in Canada if it distributes Canadian programming in the U.S. and around the world, we would face two problems. There would be huge opposition from Canadian companies that make big profits from distributing U.S. programming in Canada, and we would find out that we are really short on good quality content. That is why the CRTC is looking at supporting Canadian television drama.

In the study that our committee did, it was clearly demonstrated that the volume of Canadian drama has actually increased but that viewership has decreased. It is an issue of quality, not quantity.

Now let us consider the potential unravelling of the Canadian Broadcasting System. When we buy a Star Choice or ExpressVu system we can time-shift. In theory we could watch the same program five times in a single evening. In practice it means we can watch Law and Order at 10 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday night on any one of seven CTV stations. At the same time, viewers in Lloydminister, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Kitchener and Ottawa cannot find their local CTV station, even though Bell owns CTV.

Local news is a big part of Canadian content and it is being ignored by Canada's satellite companies. In the U.S., the satellite home viewer improvement act of 1999 prevents satellite companies from transmitting a national network signal into a home if that transmission would compete with a local affiliate.

No one needs seven stations carrying Law and Order but all Canadians have a real interest in local news from their community. Local news is part of what defines local communities and keeps them together.

Bill C-52 would focus taxpayer dollars on problems that Bell ExpressVu can solve by itself. It hurts ethnic and religious groups and does not offer an additional minute of Canadian quality drama. Finally, it ignores the erosion of local news.

We in the Canadian Alliance believe that the legal reception of Canadian satellite signal in the U.S. would open up a market 10 times the size of the Canadian market and expose Canadian content if we were to enter into a reciprocal agreement with the U.S. that the legal reception of American satellite signal could be received in Canada legally.

What we would give for the ability of Canadians and Canadian content to have 10 times the exposure is the issue here. What we should be doing is entering into an understanding that there is no conceivable way that this law or any other law will enable the government, the regulators, to stop Canadians from accessing the programs that they want.

We propose that the government negotiate with the U.S. to allow signal reception on both sides of the border. We are aware there are program ownership issues and copyright issues but we are also aware that there is technology that would permit control of reception of signal. We want Canadians to have choice. We want the market to decide. Technology continues to evolve that will not permit the control of signal. Canadians want choice.

The bill is an ill-thought bill. The bill completely ignores technological reality. The bill is unenforceable unless we are prepared to deploy many hundreds of millions of dollars to a police force to go up and down our streets to find out what people are watching in their own homes.

The argument that the government will propose, of course, is that it will stop the equipment from coming in across the border. What happened with cigarettes? When the government increased the taxes and said that it would be creating more of a barrier to cigarettes, although they are very small they come in very large cartons, those cartons continued to come into Canada.

If we are in the business of creating law in Canada, we must create law that is actually enforceable. We must create law that has the support of Canadians, otherwise we simply encourage anarchy.

I say again that what will happen is that technology will overtake the ability to regulate the theft of satellite signal.

The bill, as I stated, is an ill-thought bill. The bill is one that is simply reflective of going after the end user. The bill is simply reflective of where the government wants to go in some kind of a world that really in fact does not exist.

We want there to be a proper control and proper regulation within the marketplace and Bill C-52 does not cut it.

[Disaster Assistance, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, by the time the fires were ripping through the Kootenays, the Prime Minister decided to drop into Kelowna for a photo op, never to be seen again.

Those funds that the minister is talking about may be in British Columbia at this point, but his office has been unable to answer our questions. What will qualify? When will the funds flow? When will he get on with helping our constituents?

[Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, October 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, when raising the point of order just a few minutes ago, I said that I am in favour of the passage of the bill. I am making that recommendation to the members of my party.

The bill is something that is necessary. Certainly in taking a look at Canada's heritage structures, excellent work has been done by many museums with respect to the structures. One example is the great Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook. The amount of volunteer work that has occurred there has been exemplary. We have to be very conscious in Canada of ensuring that we maintain our heritage and structures so that we can go back and physically touch them and certainly see them.

My concern is not about the bill itself. I have had an opportunity to review the clauses in the bill. I am certainly not a legislative expert but it seems to me it would not require a tremendous amount of amendment in order for it to be a very good bill. The issue of people being able to consult, get information back and have input is a very transparent process, and one which the public at large could buy into.

My concern is on two levels with respect to the fact that the bill has come to us from the Senate. The first one which I have just explained is that this is a Senate bill and one which in my judgment, and I will leave it to your wisdom to decide, Mr. Speaker, will require the expenditure of public funds. Therefore, it is very likely outside the ability of the Senate to propose, particularly as a private member's bill. And this is a private member's bill.

This is very important. It is not just a whole bunch of detail. It is not arcane. It is not unnecessary. It is indeed vital that we make sure that we maintain the relationship between this House and the other place. This House has the legitimacy that all its members were elected in a free and democratic vote. It is our responsibility as members of the House to come here and to represent our constituents and to make good legislation in the best interests of Canadians.

If we do not make legislation in the best interests of Canadians, then we deserve to be defeated. If we do not speak up for our constituents or watch what the government is doing with respect to its expenditures, again the people of Canada have the ability to hold us accountable. That is the essence of democracy and I am very pleased to be part of that democratic process. Therefore, the House of Commons must remain supreme in the process, which leads me to the second point.

The difficulty that we have is over a number of years, and particularly most recently as we have been going through a process of trying to update the ability, to advance the ability, to refine the ability of private members to bring matters before the House for the consideration of the whole House, we have been going through in some ways has been very much a learning process.

Bill C-250 is a classic example of an item that was brought forward by the member for Burnaby—Douglas and which the House became gripped with. It was an issue of a tremendous amount of interest to people in Canada. It was an item on which we as members of Parliament were, and should have been, held accountable for our position because it made some very substantial changes. Interestingly it was not a bill that was in the cross hairs or in the focus of the government, in spite of the fact that at the end of the day the government ended up voting in favour of the bill. All members ended up voting in favour of the bill.

The ability of a member of this duly elected, representative place to bring forward a bill or motion is a very vital part of how we function as a democracy in Canada.

Therefore, with respect to Bill S-7, the other place has a different way for senators to bring forward private members' bills. As I understand it, from advice that I have received from the Table of this House, once the bill has gone through the Senate process, it basically has the ability to then advance that bill to this place. It then goes into the same order of bills as ours do, as private members' bills. It goes to the bottom of the order of precedence and works it way up through the order of precedence.

In a way, somebody might choose to argue, that means it is treated in exactly the same way, but the fact is that it starts in the other place and goes through a totally different process and, in fact, because of the practices of the other place, this gives more freedom for those members of the other place to get their bills through, to have them advanced. I submit that it in fact ends up interfering with the ability of the members of this place to be able to carry out their duties and responsibilities to their constituents and to the causes about which they are talking.

Therefore, as I said, I stand in favour of the bill. I speak in favour of the bill. I think it essential that we continue to focus more energy on our history. Certainly, as my colleague from the Conservatives said, lighthouses form a part of the story of who we are as Canadians and of what our great nation stands for. Therefore, to have a bill that is a responsible bill, a bill that enables us to protect those properties, is essential.

In summary, the reason why I raise my point of order is this. I want to see that as we take care of those places and as we invariably incur costs on them, they come under the proper scrutiny of the Government of Canada, and that we do not end up in some way getting past the whole concept of getting royal approval for the expenditure of funds, that we do not suddenly find ourselves locked into a box.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to your ruling on this matter and I certainly will continue to encourage my colleagues in my party to vote in favour of the bill.

[Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, October 22nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about the propriety of Bill S-7 as it relates to the relationship between the House of Commons and the Senate.

I would like to make a brief presentation because I want to get onto the debate of Bill S-7. I am in favour of the bill. That is not the question. The question is the relationship between the House and Senate. The question is whether it violates the financial privileges of this House and the constitutional requirements of responsible government.

Standing Order 80(1) states:

All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought to begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit, and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.

Section 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867 provides that:

Bills for appropriating any part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any Tax or Impost shall originate in the House of Commons.

Section 54 states:

It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the Appropriation of any Part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any Purpose that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of the Governor General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed.

Marleau and Montpetit, on page 711, states:

--private Members' bills involving the spending of public money have been allowed to be introduced and to proceed through the legislative process, on the assumption that a royal recommendation would be submitted by a Minister of the Crown before the bill was to be read a third time and passed.

Bill S-7 originated in the Senate and on that basis may be in violation of the privileges of this House.

Mr. Speaker, the reason why I raise this issue is that I would like you to take a look at the need for a ruling on whether there is the need for a royal recommendation with respect to this bill. If we look at the provisions of Bill S-7, subclause 3(c) refers to the fact that there must be “requiring that heritage lighthouses be reasonably maintained”.

There is another reference in clause 17 which states:

The owner of a heritage lighthouse shall maintain it in a reasonable state of repair and in a manner that is in keeping with its heritage character.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention subclause 19(e) which refers to what presently is in place and that is:

national parks, national historic sites, historic canals, national battlefields, national marine conservation areas, heritage lighthouses, heritage railway stations and federal heritage buildings;

As the heritage critic, I am very much aware of the fact that the government has a budget for all of those buildings and all of those properties.

Although the bill does not specifically state that money shall be spent, clearly it says that if this bill were passed, it is only logical and reasonable that if lighthouses are in the environment that they are in, which is near salt water and extreme weather, that those buildings would probably require expensive renovation.

Therefore, prior to this bill coming to a vote in the House, I would like to ask for a ruling as to whether there must be a royal recommendation included with the bill.

[Infrastructure Funding, October 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, under the regime of the former finance minister, Canadians pay $7 billion in federal gasoline taxes each year. This averages out to $222 per Canadian, of which only $9 is directed back to infrastructure funding.

For years the Canadian Alliance has attempted to get the former finance minister to treat municipalities with respect. He changed the meaning of the phrase “all politics is local” by attaching federal and provincial strings to municipal infrastructure spending.

Now that he is one of two prime ministers in Canada, he has been embarrassed into supporting the Canadian Alliance motion calling on the federal government to initiate new discussions with provinces and territories to provide municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax.

Last month the Liberal leader was very vague and noncommittal when he announced he would consider such a transfer. In contrast, the Canadian Alliance is specific. We would give annually $2 billion of tax room to municipalities so they could make intelligent local decisions about their infrastructure requirements.

[Points of Order, October 7th, 2003]

He can put it on the Order Paper.