House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 30% of the vote.
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act December 1st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with the nature of the part of the bill that deals with the revisions to the self-defence portions. My concern is that without more clarity in that section, we may end up with potential vigilantism or potential erroneous use of force that would cause harm or damage to people because the bill would apparently give more breadth or power to individuals who believe they are acting in self-defence. Could the member comment?
Safe Streets and Communities Act November 29th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to the family of Mr. Cikovic, to whom the member referred earlier. We certainly do not disagree that we on both sides of the House would like to prevent crimes such as this. I guess that leads me to my question.
How would this bill do anything to prevent what happened to the Cikovics from happening again? Could the member explain that for me, please?
Safe Streets and Communities Act November 29th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made reference at the beginning of his comments to such terrorist acts as the Air India disaster. If this law had been in place then, what would have been different for the victims of the Air India disaster?
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, in his very thoughtful comments, my colleague mentioned at least two Quebec artists, Yann Martel and Leonard Cohen, who have flourished under the regime in place today. My concern, and I suspect it is his concern as well, is that the next generation of artists would be hamstrung and prevented from making a good sound living by some of the failures of the bill to adequately provide protection for the income of artists.
Would the member like to comment on their future under this bill?
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I believe the comprise solution is one in which the income stream of the content creator is protected. We have traditionally in our country found ways for the distribution mechanism to be the method by which content creators have been compensated. That is the method we should use now.
I am not talking about a tax or somehow making it impossible for Canadians to continue to do the things they are doing now. However, I want to ensure that when we use material that is provided by Canadian artists and professionals in the content-creation business, they in fact can continue to earn a living in Canada. One of the ways to accomplish that is to ensure the distribution mechanisms, as they evolve, continue to provide them with incomes. If that means there needs to be a 1¢ per month levy on an ISP, maybe that is something at which we should look. Nobody has had the opportunity to look at those kinds of issues because we are faced with a bill that talks about locks and only about prevention, not trying to create a mechanism where individuals will be properly compensated.
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Madam Speaker, that is a very apt question. Absolutely, we owe it to the Canadian public, consumers of the material and content providers. As newspaper and television broadcasters will say, content is king and the providers of that content need to be protected. The legislation does not do that. It does not protect their income streams, which is the issue.
The member is absolutely right. Nobody could guess what the Internet would entail when legislation was drafted in the 1920s to protect artists from radio stations using their material for free. We cannot anticipate whether we will have implants in our heads that will broadcast propaganda to us in the next decade, but we can and should ensure that what we design does the job for today, and this one does not.
Copyright Modernization Act November 24th, 2011
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join in this debate on a topic that has been near and dear to my heart for many years in my role as a union representative for broadcasters and, more recently, for newspapers.
We perhaps have lost sight of what the whole purpose of this legislation ought to be. When we talk about copyright, we are talking about the right of individuals to protect their intellectual property from being reproduced without their receiving remuneration for it. In other words, it is about protecting the rights of individuals to be fairly and properly compensated when they produce a work.
Some history may be what we need to remind our friends here in the House of how Canada has dealt with this issue over the past century and perhaps before.
In the 1920s, we discovered a new technology, and this appears to be where we are going with all of this to deal with new technology. The 1920s had a new technology called radio. Immediately upon the broadcasting of the first radio programs, radio broadcasters discovered a need for content and they discovered that a cheap and easy way to get content was to play recordings made by artists. They would purchase those recordings in record stores, which was where they were coming from.
Rather than broadcasting the artists live, they would broadcast the artist on record and the artist immediately said, “Wait a minute. We got paid when we were sitting in a musical hall and actually performing for you. We're not getting paid for our work when you are merely re-broadcasting something we've recorded”. Thus began the debate, almost 100 years ago, about how artists were to be compensated for their work when that work was not live and immediate.
Over many years, the debate raged between the artists who said that broadcasters were getting the ability to sell advertising on their radio stations as a result of their good work. The radio stations replied that they were giving the artists free advertising and making them household names so they should actually pay the radio stations for the privilege of having their music played on their radio stations. That debate raged on for several years until finally we have a system in Canada and the United States today by which musicians are rewarded by royalties that are paid by these radio stations, and, ultimately, other forms of distribution, for recorded works. That system worked quite well and was a proper Canadian response to a copyright issue.
We did not go around looking to make criminals of people. We did not go around looking to punish people. We went looking for a way to make the system fair. We discovered that the distribution mechanism was the best way to pay the artists, that the artists were now receiving money as a result of the distribution of their work. It created, and held dear to Canadians' hearts, an industry that flourished.
However, we fast forward to the 1970s, and maybe the 1960s before it, when it became clear to regulators in this country that Canadian artists were suffering. Canadian artists were not flourishing the way we thought they would when they were going to get paid because there was a discovery by Canadians that the American television and radio systems were easy to receive over our close border and, therefore, because of that, artists were not getting the royalties they needed to stay alive.
Therefore, the Canadian content regulations were created in this country, that, again, did not make criminals out of anybody, but made it possible for a Canadian music industry to flourish, and not just flourish but become world-renowned as one of the best music industries in the world.
We have world-renowned performers who have been paid for their work as a result of the Canadian content regulations developed in the 1970s that forced radio stations to ensure their broadcast contained a percentage of Canadian original works. That concept flowed to television as well, and Canadian television companies were also forced to play Canadian content.
Then we had another wrinkle in this mix. It was becoming easier for consumers, the listeners, to not listen to the radio station and therefore provide royalties to the performers but, instead, to record those radio broadcasts themselves. The performers rightly said, "Wait a minute", as they did in the 1920s with radio. They said that the radio stations' works were now being copied by other people and that they needed a way in the Canadian model for that to pay them. They said that they needed a way for the Canadian system to ensure that the copyright owners would get money for this.
One reaction would have been to just ban it and say that it was illegal to copy it. However, in the good Canadian way, we do not like making criminals of law-abiding citizens. We like to find ways to compromise. So, a levy was created and administered by an arm's-length agency that would provide funding for the artists for their material that was put onto cassette tapes and, ultimately, CDs and DVDs. We found a mechanism whereby the distribution system for the artists' works paid the artists. That worked. We did not make criminals. We made artists prosper in this country. We ensured that the artists got their royalties and were fairly compensated for their works.
Those two historical events have led us now to a new system whereby the distribution mechanism has changed. People are not copying onto a cassette tape, CD or DVD. They are recording material that is available on the Internet. It is sometimes put on the Internet by the artists themselves, but it is often by other more nefarious means. I believe that we need to find a mechanism whereby that distribution system is in fact a way of providing royalties to the artists so that they can continue.
Instead, the legislation we have in front of us purports to make criminals out of ordinary citizens who might use this system to record material. It provides for locks, handcuffs, to prevent people from putting themselves in a position of being able to use and reuse Canadian artists' material in a way that pays those Canadian artists for that use. We are creating a system, which has now gone away from the traditional Canadian method of compensating artists, of making the distribution mechanism pay them. Now we are moving to a system of forbidding, a system of locks, of chains, of protection for essentially the distributors, not the artists, and preventing the free and easy use of this material. That prevention now threatens to make criminals of ordinary Canadians who, for whatever reason, want to time-shift a radio program or a television program or listen to a piece of music that they might be particularly interested in and are quite willing to pay a fee to listen to. Now they will be prevented from doing that.
The chaos that will result of lawsuits, charges and countercharges can only be imagined but it will happen and we will have a system that does not protect artists or pay them appropriately but rather chases ordinary Canadians and turns them into criminals. That is not the Canadian way.
I will also briefly comment on the notion that disabled persons, particularly blind individuals, would continue to have access. I have had representations made to me, as deputy critic for persons with disabilities, from members of the blind community who suggest that their current software would become invalid, that they would not be able to use it and that this law would prevent them from having books read to them.
Senate Reform Act November 22nd, 2011
Mr. Speaker, even in the guise of reform, the bill is not really reform. We have heard several times that the Prime Minister would retain the right to decide who gets appointed. Therefore, it is really an appointed Senate.
The only real reform is the term limit, which would go from life to age 75, or now nine years. However, even that is a dog's breakfast of mixed up rules and regulations depending on when one was appointed. By my calculations, the number of people who could theoretically be elected over the next six years would amount to only 36 people. Therefore, 64% of the Senate would remain an appointed Senate in six year's time. Does the member have some comment on that?
Senate Reform Act November 22nd, 2011
Madam Speaker, I found that to be a very enlightening and interesting speech.
It is clear that the member on the other side of the House has not read the bill. Whether a person runs for election or not, it does not mean that the person would become a senator. It means the person's name would be put on a list which the Prime Minister could look at. The Prime Minister would have the right to say no according to this bill. The Prime Minister certainly would say no if somebody on that list was someone with whom he vehemently disagreed. He would never appoint the person to the Senate.
Would the member like to comment further on that?
Senate Reform Act November 22nd, 2011
Madam Speaker, absolutely. We have a situation where members of this chamber have strict limits on who can donate and the parties that we represent have very limited access to financing, made more limited still by the government's recent budget. And yet, for a senatorial election, the bill is silent except to say that generally speaking the rules of a provincial election, should the province choose to hold it in that fashion, or the rules of a municipal election should the municipality choose to hold it in that fashion, would apply. That presents huge inequities. The Senate elections could then have large donations from corporations, unions and individuals.