Matthew Dubé

[Copyright Modernization Act, December 12th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill once more because there are some very important points that we must discuss. I am very pleased that we have more time for this discussion. It is very difficult to follow a colleague such as the member for Timmins—James Bay, who is so well versed in this matter. He spoke eloquently abut a number of points, but I will nevertheless continue to talk about education.

Before saying anything about all this, I want to repeat what has been said many times by my colleagues. It is extremely important to remember that, contrary to what some members opposite have said, this bill is not necessarily black and white. What we are saying is simple but copyright, especially in the digital age and with all the technological changes that have taken place in recent years, is a complex issue.

It is understandable that some questions are more difficult to address, particularly if, like the NDP, you advocate a fair balance between protection of users and the rights of creators. This is the first very important point to stress, and it has been stressed many times already, but it merits repetition. As my colleague said so well, when we talk about the products we export, in Canada and Quebec, culture is a very significant product. It is one of our resources, one of our assets. According to Statistics Canada, in a research report from Laval University, in Quebec alone, cultural production amounted to $9.8 billion, an enormous figure. It is 4.1% of Quebec's GDP. That was in April 2010, and the figures may have changed a little, but clearly this is a very important resource. We strongly agree that it is a resource that must be protected and developed in a way that is fair to everyone, and creators must be remunerated.

On the question of fairness, I want to address the education issue. The last time I had an opportunity to speak to this bill, the hon. parliamentary secretary told me we were scaring students by telling them they were going to have to burn their notes. And yet the first time I heard the words "book burning policy" they did not come from an NDP member or someone trying to scare anyone. They actually came from members of the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d'université. Those people who work in education came to see myself and other colleagues of mine to convey their concerns to us and tell us that this aspect of the bill was problematic. It is very important to point this out. We are not trying to create a false context around the bill; rather, we are trying to convey the concerns expressed by people in the field. I think it is very important to point that out.

The other aspect I would like to address is the famous term “fair dealing”, which is called “fair use” in the United States. This is a point well worth raising, because the members opposite often say that we want to treat ordinary people like criminals, and so on. And yet that is exactly what they seem to be advocating here. This aspect is missing from Bill C-11, but it exists in the example of our neighbours to the south, in the United States Copyright Act.

There really are specific provisions that limit, for instance, the legal recourse that can be taken against people in certain situations. I am referring to librarians or people who use library services, which are offered to the public, services that, ideally, are funded either partially for fully by governments. Libraries enrich our society considerably. I am convinced that no creator would oppose that and, to my knowledge, none has ever opposed it. This also refers to students and educational uses, to teachers, instructors and so on.

I think those kinds of provisions need to be examined. We heard earlier about the kinds of concrete measures we would be willing to propose. This is just such a measure. We have talked about clauses that would allow for compromise. Once again, without rambling on too much and repeating the excellent points my colleague made, if we compare this to video games, which are at the very heart of this technological revolution in terms of creation in the 21st century, such measures already exist in that field. Some computer games already have provisions in place to prevent pirating: they have digital locks. What is different here is that we fully support these measures—except that what we propose is that the bill provide some degree of protection to someone who is going to use the creation honestly for educational purposes and not punish an honest citizen who uses these creations. This use is not only honest, but it enriches everyone. This use contributes, quite often, to our society and our culture. I think that is exactly the same principle as the American legislation. We are proposing a very practical measure.

I would also like to come back to the issue of fair dealing. It is easy to say that there is a fair dealing clause on education in the bill, but the problem is that there are other clauses and other aspects of the bill that cancel out the fair dealing. Think of the course notes that have to be destroyed, the documents from libraries and inter-library loan materials that have to be destroyed. This is extremely problematic. I mentioned this earlier. I studied in Montreal where there are several universities. There is a great wealth of material in the community. There are anglophone universities and francophone universities. Often, a great way of creating ties between the universities and between the students who attend the different universities is the ability, as a student enrolled in one university, to take advantage of loans from the other universities, digital loans or physical loans. I think that is the type of right that should be protected. It is such a great tool and it is extremely useful. We know very well that not every university has the same specialties and the same expertise. I think it is extremely important to benefit from that.

I will close simply by saying, once again, that we are proposing very concrete measures. We want measures in place to protect honest users, but at the same time, we absolutely are in favour of protecting the creators. We simply want to find a fair balance. It is not black and white. It is truly a very complex issue. We are aware of that. That is why we are calling on the government members to work with us on finding a fair solution that will satisfy everyone and contribute to the wealth of our society.

[Saint-Basile-le-Grand, December 12th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was extremely proud to attend the Governor General’s History Awards ceremony today, where the Saint-Basile-le-Grand historical society won the Award for Excellence in Community Programming for its “La Mémoire des Grandbasilois” project.

On behalf of the historical society, its president, Richard Pelletier, accepted a prestigious award created by Canada's History and presented by the Governor General to acknowledge excellence in history and heritage.

Mr. Pelletier and countless volunteers amassed a collection of 50 or so interviews with seniors from our region and thousands of old photographs, which were then filed, digitized and shared with the people of my riding in order to promote the wonderful history of Saint-Basile-le-Grand.

The Saint-Basile-le-Grand historical society has mounted a number of photo exhibits and first person accounts by seniors to help the people of Grand Basile discover their rich history. Every participant in the historical society's project can be proud of their tremendous work. I am proud of it as well.

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.

Indeed, that is where the problem lies. As I said in my speech, the goal of the Senate, its raison d'être, is supposed to be to protect the regions and to ensure proper representation of the various regional differences that exist in Canada.

Yet the provinces are not being consulted; they are simply being told that they will be able to elect senators. The caveat, however, is that the Prime Minister will still have the final say, which effectively takes away that power. It is indeed a big problem.

That is another reason to abolish the Senate. We must ensure that, as elected members who are perfectly capable of representing our regions, that that is what we do.

The provinces do not want this bill. Despite what we heard earlier this week from a member opposite, the provinces are more than just administrative regions. They provide a framework for the very specific differences that exist, which is another reason to understand this reality and take action accordingly.

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, which is in fact a very good one. In the time I have, I am going to try to discuss several points that I consider relevant.

First of all, I find it interesting that some people are saying that limiting the terms of senators will make them more accountable. However, as my colleague said so well, they will not have any election promises to keep. So this will not make them more accountable to the public.

In addition, there is another problem we do not hear much about, which is that setting term limits will mean that when the party in power changes, the new party will simply have another opportunity to appoint senators who will support it.

For instance, there used to be a Liberal majority in the Senate. When the Conservative government came to power, as soon as it could do so it took the opportunity of appointing Conservative senators. Shorter terms would simply have facilitated what happened, and appointing senators from his own party would be easier for the Prime Minister to do. In the Senate, this is very problematic. All of the points my colleague mentioned, including the related costs, are indeed shameful and are yet more reasons to abolish the Senate.

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, like my colleagues who rose before me, I am very proud to speak to this bill, which interests me greatly. We care about our democracy, which is what is at stake here today, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre so eloquently pointed out.

A lot is being said about the purpose of the Senate, and what it seeks to achieve. I was a political science student, so I will take this opportunity to provide an overview of the governing bodies of other nations, particularly the United States. Their experience, as it compares to ours, serves as a justification as to why the Senate must be abolished.

One of the things that the Founding Fathers said about the Senate in the United States was that it was important to have a division in government to protect against the tyranny of the majority. Like us, they have a system where the person with the majority of votes is elected. And yet, we know all too well from our experience here in Canada that there is a percentage of the population that votes for other parties. This is the case in the current Parliament, where 60% of Canadians voted for parties other than the governing party. The principle is, therefore, that with a Senate, the executive—the President, in the case of the United States—and the Supreme Court, it becomes possible to protect against what is known as the tyranny of the majority.

In the United States, they determined that the best way of using the Senate in this instance was to provide regional protection. We are well aware of our history here in Canada and the same principle applies. Essentially, the Senate was created to protect the distinctive features of the regions. Of course, certain provinces are huge, such as Ontario—not necessarily in terms of land mass, but population—contrary to territories or provinces such as Prince Edward Island, which may be smaller, but which, like any other province or territory, are entitled to be democratically protected, in the sense that the opinions of their people are expressed through elected representatives—in an ideal world of course.

The same thing is apparent here. It was true of the United States, where the states, which vary enormously as far as size is concerned—in terms of both population and land mass—each had two senators. And yet the United States learned something far quicker than we did. Unless I am mistaken, it was in the 1950s that the U.S. decided that in order to benefit from this equitable regional representation, and to fulfill the mandate of the Senate, senators had to be elected. The U.S. moved forward by overhauling the constitution, which led to an elected Senate. That was 60 years ago and, of course, we are terrible laggards in this area.

The difference, however, with Canada is that in the United States it was the governors of the states who appointed senators and not the President. The comparison can therefore be drawn with Canada, where the Prime Minister appoints senators, which is very different. How do you achieve regional representation when the Prime Minister of the federal government chooses the senators? It is quite difficult and, in some ways, is a conflict of interest.

So we see that this is the first lesson that has not been learned, and this is something that is still going on today in spite of the intentions of this Prime Minister, who stated that he would never appoint senators. And yet we have people who were defeated in elections who have been appointed to the Senate. This is a huge problem. They are talking about electing senators; they say it will be democratic, that they will respect democracy. It is one thing not to elect senators, but what is worse is to appoint someone whom the public refused to elect. Appointing someone who was not elected is a problem, but it is a more serious problem when the people have said no to those representatives. They have flatly refused to be represented by those individuals, and yet they are appointed nonetheless, and they expect that those individuals will provide the same representation as a person who was elected. That is essentially very illogical logic.

I recall a Liberal member who was just saying that we had a very simplistic position.

I take that as a compliment, because what we are saying is very simple: abolish the Senate. There is nothing complicated about that. There is no point in embarking on debates about very complex bills with huge flaws, like the main flaw that allows the Prime Minister to choose not to appoint elected senators, which is completely contrary to what is supposed to be the nub of this bill. Our position is very simple, and I agree that it is a simplistic proposal, but in the positive sense of the word. It is a solution that will enable us to solve all these problems of patronage and lack of representation, particularly as they relate to the various regions, once and for all.

I also want to talk about a few points that have already been raised by my colleagues, but I want to say more about Bill C-311 in particular, which my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and other colleagues have addressed, and which deals with climate change. We introduced an opposition motion concerning climate change earlier this week. It refers to the withdrawal from Kyoto and this government's lack of vision in that regard. In fact, this House, by a vote of all parties, had passed a bill that was going to strengthen our principles and our fundamental values in that regard, so we could take concrete action on climate change. But that bill was killed by the Senate. The very problematic thing here is that we are not just talking about a bill passed by the House of Commons, a chamber composed of elected representatives, we are also talking about a bill that many ordinary people worked hard to get passed.

I was an activist at the time myself and I worked hard to communicate with members of Parliament about the importance of that bill, and I was by no means alone. People from all across the country worked to make members of Parliament understand the inherent merits of that bill. The organization was very successful because the House passed the bill. The Senate, unfortunately, disregarding the will of the people entirely and with no justification, killed the bill. That is one of the basic problems that Bill C-7, which we have before us today, is not going to solve. The problem will be solved by abolishing the Senate. It is not complicated.

I am going to make an important connection with a debate we had earlier this week on democratic representation. The connection is important because we are talking about democracy again. I am referring to Bill C-20, which deals with redistributing the seats in this House. We know that the Liberal Party's concern was about the costs that would be incurred. But I spoke on the bill and I raised the same point today. Let us talk about reducing costs and about how to pay for that bill so that we can have more democratically elected representation. I repeat once more: it is not complicated. Let us abolish the Senate; we will save millions of dollars that we can use to pay not only for better representation for all provinces, Quebec included, but representation that will take its place in this elected House.

Since I am running out of time, I will conclude my remarks by saying that the Senate was conceived as a way to represent and protect the unique regional features of our country. I can state, specifically as a representative of Quebec, a province that is very aware of the importance of protecting those unique features, such as our language and culture, that I have seen no evidence, especially in recent years, that the Senate is doing its job of protecting that uniqueness. That is one more reason for abolishing it, and one more reason for us, as true elected members of this House, to protect the unique features of our various regions with our actions and our legislation.

[Senate Reform Act, December 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments.

One of the arguments that we have heard about the Senate pertains to how it was conceived. I think one of the reasons, in theory, that the Senate exists is to represent the different regions more fairly, given that some provinces are bigger than others.

Recently, we debated Bill C-10. Despite the very clear will of the Quebec National Assembly and Quebeckers, one senator became the government's puppet to a certain extent. He said that Quebeckers and the National Assembly were wrong not to support the bill. So, clearly, the Senate does not really represent the regions. Would the hon. member care to comment further on this issue?

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it will be somewhat difficult to ask a question after all that, but still I am going to try. I would like to thank my colleague for his comments.

Under the other opposition party’s plan, we would see a reduction in Quebec's seats. And yet they often quote the prime minister who said, at the time, that Canada was a country where people were overrepresented. I do not know whether it is the government that did it, but someone mentioned the example of the United States Congress. As a colleague pointed out, members of the U.S. Congress are often away from home and have large teams of staff.

Is it really a problem to have the chance to represent people well? Why do the people in the other party think it is a problem for people to be well represented by their elected members?

[Fair Representation Act, December 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak about this bill since there are several issues that I would like to address.

The first is the issue of Quebec. I may not be as eloquent as the hon. member for Hamilton Centre was this morning, but I would still like to give it a try.

A little over a week ago was the fifth anniversary of the date the House recognized Quebec as a nation. As I said before in a debate on another bill, no member took this decision lightly. The hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques also pointed out, when we spoke about the way humanities defines a nation and what that means, that this is not the type of thing we should support without taking into account the resulting commitments and considerations, particularly in the House of Commons.

These commitments involve more than just respecting the French language. They also involve respecting democratic representation. The Minister of State for Democratic Reform asked what concrete measures we have. It is simple: we have the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead's Bill C-312, which seeks to protect Quebec's political weight.

In this case, we are talking specifically about 24.35% of the seats in the House. The Conservative members often argue that, although the percentage will decrease under their bill, the number of seats that Quebec has in the House will increase.

Unfortunately, although there may be an increase in the gross number of seats, there will also be a decrease in Quebec's political weight in the House. I would like to do a little math. For example, if there were 100 members and 24.35% of them were members from Quebec, then if the number of members were increased to 200, 48.70% of them would be from Quebec. There would therefore be a relative increase in Quebec's political weight. I think that is very important.

In 2006, as has been indicated a number of times, this government recognized the Quebec nation. There needs to be an understanding, however, of what equity means in relation to fairness. In his speech, the member that rose before me said that it was not a question of equal representation but of fair representation. I could not agree more because I think that that is very much in line with what we are proposing. We are not talking about equity purely in terms of population—five representatives for every five representatives, six for every six—we are talking about what is truly fair, we are talking about a province that has been recognized as a nation, and we are talking about a concentrated francophone population that is a minority in North America. It is very important therefore to ensure that we have significant political weight.

The upshot of having a francophone minority is that the issues are often different. Therefore, we need different representation, and in this case, greater representation. We are not asking for major change, just that our political weight in relation to the rest of the House remain the same. I think this request is quite reasonable.

The other issue that I wish to raise is the proposal made by the other opposition parties regarding the cost of the bill. It would increase the number of seats in the House, which would cost more money in a period of economic uncertainty. And yet, we are asking all our fellow citizens to tighten their belts. It would not be fair to increase the number of politicians while services are being slashed.

In principle, I agree that it is not appropriate to have more government spending at a time of budget cutbacks. I do not agree with the current cuts. I do not want to start debating other bills that will be discussed in the upcoming days, but there is a very simple solution to getting the resources needed to fund appropriate elected representation, representation that is accountable to the public: the abolition of the other place, the Senate. We would then have sufficient additional resources to fund an increase in the number of elected representatives in this House, who would be transparent and accountable to the Canadian public. That would be a very simple solution and it would kill several birds with one stone: the problem we are discussing today and the problem that will be discussed in the upcoming days.

I would now like to talk about the issue of Quebec's representation. It is crucial that we respond to an argument that may be made by our colleagues opposite regarding what this means as far as the representation of the other provinces is concerned. I have already answered that question in part by saying that we are not calling for an increase in the number of seats; we just want Quebec's political weight to be maintained.

Moreover, the increased political weight of other provinces with growing populations does not necessarily go against the interests of Quebec in this instance. We completely understand that in certain provinces, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta, the population is growing and requires increased representation in the House.

It is quite correct to say that Quebeckers—a very reasonable people who are well acquainted with how political representation works—will understand why other provinces' representation is being increased. The NDP members in particular are working very hard and campaigned on this issue. Our late leader, Mr. Layton, said on several occasions during the election campaign that we were working on maintaining Quebec's political weight while giving the other provinces their due. These two notions are not in conflict and need not be considered separately.

The other problem with this bill, which specifically affects my riding, has to do with boundary changes and the readjustment of ridings. This issue will be addressed at the start of next year, in 2012. I represent Chambly—Borduas, which is the third-largest riding in Quebec in terms of population. This means that we will certainly see a change in our electoral boundaries. This past year, provincial ridings were changed, including my own riding. These changes were not easy. A number of municipal, provincial and community bodies worked very hard to ensure that these changes were fair and that they did not harm the public interest or representation.

That is why I was so proud to second the motion by my colleague from Hamilton Centre this morning. This motion aims to delete the government's clause that would reduce the time period for notices in the Canada Gazette and would enable people to sign up to participate in redoing the electoral map.

It is very important to give all community bodies the chance to speak up in order to maintain some regional equality, as was the case with municipalities in the Richelieu valley and the Chambly basin, in the provincial riding of Chambly, and as will certainly be the case with this region's federal riding.

This is something we will examine. I think it will be very important to look at this issue very carefully in the coming months and to allow all stakeholders to speak. That is why I support the opposition's work plans.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. That is the kind of issue we need to examine in the legislative process. There are so many factors to consider. Each case must be looked at individually, because the needs vary.

Like other members here, I talked about the police's ability to respond in my speech. That must be taken into account, because it will have an impact on what people decide to do. Knowing that help is not coming right away could push them to act, as in the well-documented case of Mr. Chen. However, knowing that help is on the way soon might prevent people from doing anything, even in a case where it might have been better to act. No one can know. In situations like that, adrenalin takes over. It would be really hard to come up with a perfect law that takes all these factors into account.

Our responsibility is to come up with the best thing to do in order to give the best possible tools to ordinary Canadians, to police officers and to judges so that they can deal with these situations. After that, whatever happens happens. Things will never be perfect. These situations are often dangerous, but we can at least try to come up with a compromise that will be acceptable to all communities and everyone involved.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, December 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and comments. Thanks to him, I am going to put off the members of this House even more with the term “reasonable”.

As my colleague from St. John's East said earlier today in his speech, when we want to make changes to the Criminal Code, one of the challenges we face is this idea that once the law has been changed, we cannot refer to the jurisprudence to the same extent. That is a risk. It is for that reason that this word can be very specific in certain contexts and very broad in others. It is our responsibility, as parliamentarians, to ensure that the legislation is flexible enough for the legal sense of the word to be clearly understood.

As for the sections that my colleague quoted, there is a slight imbalance in some cases. We could be more specific about some things and broaden certain provisions. That is the sort of work we hope to do in committee. We could really fine-tune this aspect by hearing from experts, which we all seem to want to do.