Joe Comartin

[Copyright Modernization Act, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is completely right. That is what the government's bill does. It is clear that the government completely ignored the consultations and testimonies from the last Parliament.

As the hon. member said, the evidence and testimonies are there, but the Conservatives completely ignored them.

[Copyright Modernization Act, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, that shows a significant lack of understanding of what we are talking about on this side of the room and, more importantly, because this cannot be driven just by political parties but by the creative classes.

They are saying very clearly to us that they want to be paid. We are not talking about taxation here. They want to be paid for their services. The content owners are saying they have development costs and they want to be compensated for that, not only fairly but extremely generously.

All we are saying is the creative groupings, those content owners, go nowhere unless this work is done and it is only going to be done, and done well, if they are properly compensated. We are talking about people being paid for the work they do and being paid at least reasonably well, let me say “fairly”, nowhere near as generously as we hear from the content owners and the demands they have.

This not about taxation at all. It is about a fee that is being imposed. As a lawyer, I expected my fees were going to be paid for the work that I did. If I am creating a piece of art or a new piece of technology I would expect to be paid accordingly, fairly, in direct compensation for what I have done and for what it has contributed to my society. The whole question has a basic fallacy at its base. This is not about taxation. This is about fair compensation in the marketplace.

[Copyright Modernization Act, October 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-11 and I am going to address most of my comments to the issue that we were finishing with my colleague from Western Arctic around the flaws in the bill regarding compensation for the creative people in this country.

It is appropriate that we set the bill in historical context. There is absolutely no question, and it has support from every member in the House, that we need to bring copyright and laws on copyright into the 21st century. We are clearly not there now as a country. In fact, it is fair to say that in the developed world we are near the bottom of the list in terms of modernizing our legislation and our rules regarding copyright.

There is no issue around supporting the bill at second reading. The basic underlying philosophy of the bill, which is what we are supporting, is that we do have to modernize. However, we want to be quite clear, as the official opposition, that there are significant amendments that are required to make the bill palatable to ourselves as a political party, but more importantly, palatable to the Canadian public as a whole and in particular to the creative classes if I can designate them that way.

The other point I would like to make at the outset is that historically there have been various times when societies have made major leaps forward in the creative fields. Probably the most recent one from my perspective in terms of major leaps was the Renaissance period in the 1500 early 1600s. If we study other parts of the world there have been similar types of advances. There is a huge leap forward.

If we look at those periods of time and ask, why did it happen, did somehow magically people become more creative? The reality and the answer is no, that is not what happened. What happened is that society as a whole, both governments of the day and the wealthy members of society, came forward in a more extensive way than we see during other periods of time and supported their artists and creative classes.

We saw a major leap forward in Italy in particular during the Renaissance, certainly in England during the Shakespearian period in particular. When we ask how did that happen, it was a period of time when the wealthy and the governments or ruling classes of the day were much more prepared to ensure that those people within their society who had those creative juices were given the opportunity to expand their skills, talents and creativity.

When we are looking at a bill like this one, I believe we have to take that into account. Perhaps the greatest concern we have with the bill is that it will not enhance the financial viability of our creative people, but have just the opposite impact. There is a balance at all times between the owners of new technology, new developments in the arts, that has to be clearly balanced off against the actual creators of that new technology or new developments in the arts. It is our position that the bill is way too heavily weighted on the owner of content side than it is on the producers, developers and creative artists on their side.

I want to quote some numbers as to the current situation in Canada. The most recent figures we have, and this comes from the Canada cultural and arts industries, from ACTRA, the union that has great impact in that industry, indicate that the arts and culture industries contribute $85 billion a year. To put that in context of the total economy, it is 7.4% of all revenue generated in Canada. It is a huge part of the market. It supports approximately 1.1 million jobs, which is about 6% of Canada's labour force.

It is quite clear that some of those numbers, and we argue some significant part of those numbers, both in terms of the revenue generated and the jobs created, would be jeopardized by the legislation.

It is quite clear that there are other steps that could be taken, in terms of investment in this industry. I always have a hard time thinking of artists, sculptors, and writers as being part of an industry but, in fact, they see themselves that way. They certainly are, as these numbers show, a significant part of our economy, and they have historically been, in a number of societies.

It is true today when we see some of the advances that we are making, not just on the technology side but in any number of areas. For me it is one of the areas of art that I follow most closely in terms of the arts. Writers in Canada have demonstrated to not only create great writings for the domestic market but to have gone on to the international stage.

I was in Ireland recently. I remember talking to a member of its parliament who commented about how much, and I say this from an Irish background, the Irish of course have been producing for the world great writers for a long period of time, Canada now fits into that. In fact, the parliamentarian was claiming in part that it was because of the genes that came from the Irish ancestry that had settled in Canada.

However, we have dominated, in many respects, at the international level for a good number of years, going back certainly into the 1960s, when our writers moved on to the international stage, created a market for their writings and enhanced literature in the world as a result of the work they did here in Canada, and then took it internationally.

However, think of all the other writers who did not get that chance because we did not create enough opportunities for them. I am going to quote another figure here from the 2009-10 fiscal period. The median earning of an artist in Canada that year was $12,900. I do not even think that takes them to the minimum wage, the legal minimum wage in most provinces in this country. We have to do better in that regard.

Again, coming back to the bill. Because of this shift in balance favouring the content owners, we are at some risk that the $12,900 figure in subsequent years is going to go down. The estimate is that millions of dollars are going to be taken out of the hands and control of the creative classes and shifted over to the content owners.

If that is in fact the result, we know we have to move significant amendments. We have had pressure internationally from both multinational corporations and some governments to use the U.S. model in this regard. In terms of protecting both our sovereignty of not wanting that kind of interference when we legislate but also in terms of protecting those artists we absolutely must have amendments to the bill in this regard.

[Business of the House, October 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping you would go ahead with the point of order so that when I made my points it would be somewhat quieter in the room.

It is my first question as the House leader for the official opposition. I want to thank the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada for placing her confidence in me to take on this role.

I would also like to note that as the deputy House leader, I had the opportunity to sit in many meetings with the current government House leader and the current House leader of the Liberal Party. From those experiences, I expect that we will work out a co-operative, collegial relationship. We will not always agree, but I believe we will attempt our best to make this Parliament work for all Canadians.

I would like to ask the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons about his plans for next week. We know that the government has decided to cut off debate on Bill C-18 on Monday and that there will be an NDP opposition day on Tuesday. What other bills does the government intend to have us debate for the rest of the week?

[Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, October 20th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, before I ask my question, I would suggest that you should probably not let the minister answer anything so we can use up some of the time on meaningful comments rather than the responses we will get from him.

My question for the minister is fairly straightforward. How many more of these time allocation motions are we going to have? We have sat for 25 days and I think this is the fourth time allocation motion on bills that are extremely important, this one at least as much as some of the other ones where time allocation has been moved.

The effect of time allocation is to end all debate at second reading stage on a bill that is extremely important. It is a historically important structure within the Government of Canada going back many years. The government is limiting debate to what will be a little over three days on a very important bill.

How many government members want to speak to it? I know many of our members want to speak to it.

How many more times is the minister going to do this?

[Points of Order, October 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the final point that the member makes, there is certainly no objection to the member who authored this bill being given the opportunity to speak to it and present whatever argument contrary to the motion I made.

However, as members know, private member's bills, and this is the very first one on the list, will start Thursday evening of this week. I would ask that the member bring forth his arguments as quickly as possible.

I would then ask you, Mr. Speaker, to make your decision as quickly as possible.

[Points of Order, October 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding Bill C-317, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (labour organizations), standing in the name of the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale.

The bill proposes to amend the Income Tax Act in an effort to force labour organizations to submit for all to see, that is complete public disclosure, an incredibly onerous level of detailed financial information about their work on behalf of their members. While labour organizations already abide by financial disclosure rules, mostly imposed at the provincial level of government, they do that because it ensures they are accountable to their members and not just because they are driven by legislation.

The bill, which is mostly ideologically motivated, would seek to expose virtually every last detail of a labour organization's financial books. The risk of this is that it gives access to other business organizations in which members may be involved in labour negotiations or labour disputes, exposing their knowledge base to some risk in that regard.

Aside from the privacy concerns over making this level of financial detail available to the public, it shows the thrust of the government, as we have seen with the labour disputes, back-to-work legislation recently and more threats of it at this point, but that culminates now by a government member bringing forth as a private member's bill what should in fact be a government bill, and that is really where my point of order lies. By imposing these types of conditions Conservatives, they are precipitating action that should only be precipitated by a government bill.

The measures set out in the bill include a threat of delisting the labour organization for non-compliance. One of the points that has been missed in this regard about its consequences, because we are not just talking about national labour organizations or national unions, is it includes a local labour council, a union local, even a small one of say 20 or 30 members, a national labour organization, or even a federation of labour. It covers all of them. My concern with the admissibility of the bill is it would have the effect of raising taxes, which is the exclusive prerogative of ministers in the House of Commons and cannot be done by private members' business. At page 1114 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, it states:

The power to initiate taxation rests solely with the government and any legislation which seeks an increase in taxation must be preceded by a ways and means motion.

As a result of this and the reasons I will set out in greater detail shortly, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to rule that the proceedings on the bill to date, namely its introduction and first reading, which it already had, have not respected the provisions of our Standing Orders and are therefore null and void and further that you direct that the order for second reading of Bill C-317 be discharged and the bill be withdrawn from the order paper. Those are the two orders I would be seeking from you, Mr. Speaker.

To begin, I draw attention to Speaker Milliken's ruling on November 28, 2007, at pages 1463-64 of Debates. Therein he references page 896 of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice 23rd edition, which states quite clearly, ”

—“the repeal or reduction of existing alleviations of taxation” must be preceded by a Ways and Means motion.

It is not a discretionary call. It is a must situation.

It is clear to me and I suspect that you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that the income tax exemptions that apply to labour organizations and the reduction of taxable income as a result of writing off the dues paid by their members would easily qualify as alleviations of taxation. Further, the provisions of Bill C-317 would repeal those alleviations by terminating the labour organization's Income Tax Act exempt status.

Furthermore, while the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 900, lists four limited categories of charges on the people, which would require a ways and means motion before tabling in the House, if you trace this passage back to the primary source of the reference, Mr. Speaker, you will find what seems to be much more clearly worded guidelines. I would ask you to pay particular attention because there seems to be, and I will not say a contradiction, greater clarity if we go further back in our history in this regard.

Citation 980 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms sixth edition, on page 265 states that a:

Ways and Means motion is a necessary preliminary to...an extension of the incidence of a tax so as to include persons not already payers.

“Persons not already payers” is a much more specific restriction than creating a new class of taxpayers, which is the guideline set out at page 900 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which I cited a moment ago. It is the difference between finding that a bill creates a new type of taxpayer and finding that a bill creates taxpayers out of those who did not pay tax before.

In the case of the 41st Parliament Bill C-317, examples are readily available to illustrate how the incidence of the federal income tax on dues-paying members of a labour organization might be extended under the proposed changes to the Income Tax Act to make federal income taxpayers out of persons who previously were not. Therefore, we are creating new taxpayers.

Consider if you will, Mr. Speaker, the hypothetical case of a dues-paying member of a labour organization who pays no federal income tax because the member's taxable income falls just short of the amount covered by the personal income tax exemption. If this person's labour organization were to lose its ITA exempt status for failing to meet the conditions set out under the provisions of Bill C-317, his or her membership dues would no longer be excluded from personal taxable income. This increase in taxable income could easily push his or her taxable income to an amount over that which is exempt, effectively creating a federal income taxpayer where there was not one before, which is the very definition of Beauchesne's description of what is not permissible in this place without a preceding ways and means motion, which only can be brought by the government of the day.

I am anticipating an argument from the government side on the private member's bill, so I reviewed a precedent on this matter. I fear there may be a temptation to use Speaker Milliken's decision of March 15, 2010, on Bill C-470 from the 40th Parliament, as a relevant precedent to the question on hand today, so I will ask you, Mr. Speaker to take extra caution when reviewing the decision. While there are some similarities between the two bills, I would submit that the many differences will lead you to rule the opposite particularly when using the much more specific delineation of the rule in question as laid out in Beauchesne's.

I am not sure it will be necessary in your deliberations, Mr. Speaker, but I would draw to your attention just one of the many important differences between the two bills, the one in the 40th Parliament and this one today, which is the stark contrast between labour organizations and charitable ones. In particular, members of labour organizations would continue to have an obligation to pay their membership dues, as they do under provincial legislation, even in the event of the organization's delisting from ITA exempt status, whereas charity donors' contributions are completely discretionary. Finally, labour organizations are selected, supported and held accountable by the very dues-paying members who make the financial contributions in the first place. Charities are not.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would again ask that you rule that the proceedings to date under Bill C-317, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (labour organizations) standing in the name of the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale namely, the introduction and first reading, have not respected the provisions of our Standing Orders and are therefore null and void and that you direct that the order for second reading of Bill C-317 be discharged and the bill withdrawn from the order paper.

It is quite clear that the bill should be presented, if it is going to be presented at all, by the government of the day. It would bring forth a ways and means motion and then the proper bill would flow from that. This attempt to do it through the back door by way of a private member's bill is really a serious breach of the Standing Orders of the House.

[The Economy, September 30th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, two million Canadians are unemployed and will be for a long time because the Conservatives' economic inaction plan is a disaster. This particularly holds true for young people. There are approximately 200,000 more unemployed youth than there were before the last recession. This is mortgaging the future of our country, but the Conservatives are satisfied.

Why do the Conservatives refuse to admit that their policy is not working? Why not invest in people?

[The Economy, September 30th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government's priorities are quite clear. It wants to give $60 billion in tax cuts to mostly large, profitable corporations. As we have just heard, it is using the bogus argument that this will result in jobs for Canadians. At the same time, the government is imposing a $16 million EI tax hike on the payrolls of small businesses and the paycheques of workers.

It is rewarding corporations for non-performance and is overcharging Canadians for an employment insurance program that the Conservatives are using as a deficit-fighting tool.

When will the government put middle-class Canadian families first?

[The Economy, September 30th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that the government's fiscal plan is unsustainable. Its ill-conceived corporate tax cuts are responsible for the fiasco we are facing.

The cuts, which amount to $15 billion a year in lost revenue, are almost exactly the same amount as the PBO's estimate for the structural deficit. That is further evidence of the Conservative government's mismanagement of the economy.

When will the Conservatives listen to reason and cancel the next gift to profitable corporations?