Scott Simms

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, November 17th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I noticed the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville, during the presentation of petitions, put in a petition to completely cut off CBC/Radio-Canada. What was astonishing was that sitting next to him was the member for Calgary West, gleefully applauding the fact that the Conservatives are going to eliminate CBC/Radio-Canada.

My question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages. He talks tough to us about how he wants to support the CBC, but it is not us he has to talk to, it is the people behind him. They are the problem.

This is a simple question. The member for Calgary West--

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, earlier it was said that it is not closure the hon. member is talking about here, but time allocation.

Certainly, the way it is playing out right now is an affront to anybody who is elected, no matter where they sit in the House.

There are so many new members in the House from both sides. I have heard many Conservative members speak eloquently about this particular budget; they made their views known.

Yet there are many other brand new MPs who would also like to speak on this budget and this measure. Why does the hon. member not provide this opportunity for his new members to continue the debate and allow them to have their say, based on the fact that their constituents voted for them to do so?

[Petitions, November 16th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition brought to me by the residents of Bonavista North in my riding.

The petitioners would like to call to the attention of the House the community partnership office with Service Canada. The agreement in place is to help out smaller rural areas with Service Canada, but the partnership offices will no longer exist after the end of March 2012.

This is a vital service, especially for seniors and those most vulnerable, but now it will to be an outreach program with Service Canada in Gander, which is several hours away. The problem is that the government will be closing the processing centres as well for Service Canada and services will be diminished in these areas.

The community partnership that the petitioners speak of is a vital service and becoming increasingly vital now that these cuts and measures are about to come.

I thank the constituents in Bonavista North in the areas of New-Wes-Valley, Deadman's Bay, Badger's Quay and other areas of the riding of Bonavista North. I hope the House will find this in good position.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 15th, 2011]

Sure, it has great representation. On division, right?

I want to follow up on a comment that was made, because I think there are some misconceptions in the debate. I do not think I ever went against the government because it was not consulting enough. I always thought that the consultation process, which was there prior to this government and others, was always substantial enough. Access to one's member of Parliament has always been substantial enough to affect any budget. The problem is, if we are looking at certain costs, and we want to bring the deficit down to a manageable level, we start cherry picking. We have to face up to the fact that we are not going to invest in other things that Canadians want because we cannot afford it.

For example, we would love the volunteer firefighters tax credit to be a refundable tax credit, but it is a non-refundable tax credit. Yet let us not pretend that all Canadians want it. It is the type of thing where we say that we will do this when the deficit is down to zero.

The other issue occurs when we do not fulfill a promise. We might as well be honest and tell people that we cannot do this at this time. A certain amount of respectability needs to be brought back into the level of debate in the House, and certainly in the way the government is acting upon this particular issue.

There are great things in this budget, but the problem is there are a lot more things that need to be done. That is what we debate in this House.

I assume my time for debate has now expired, Madam Speaker.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I see some members are not that enthused that I am delivering this speech. I swear that I will not take any offence.

Since I only have a few minutes, I would love to talk about my riding of Bonavista--Gander--Grand Falls--Windsor. It is the most beautiful little gem on earth. In fact, a lot of the commercials about Newfoundland and Labrador are shot in my riding, with its beautiful cliffs.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the quote my colleague used was from Dan Demers, who said:

We welcome the tax credit and other measures in the budget as a step in the right direction.

However, the second part of it reads:

But looking forward, we need to continue to work collectively to ensure more is done so that all family caregivers in Canada get the financial support they need and deserve.

Unfortunately, with a non-refundable tax credit not everybody will benefit. Here is what the society said:

The Society also believes that a non-taxable, monthly Family Caregiver tax benefit should be established to help family caregivers with costs.

It also talked about more flexibility and a timeframe for financial benefits.

Obviously, the step in the right direction should be taken a little further according to the Canadian Cancer Society. I wonder when the next step will be taken. Perhaps the member could comment on that.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, November 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the negative nabob caucus, I will ask a question, and God forbid I delve into the world of negativism.

I want to ask about the tax credits that the member has been talking about. When the Conservatives talk about these non-refundable tax credits, they talk about them in the sense that they will benefit all Canadians, when, as our leader, the member for Toronto Centre, the one who the member picked on, quite rightly pointed out that many of the vulnerable members of our society will not be able to benefit from this credit because it will be non-refundable.

Why can the government not make these non-refundable tax credits to caregivers, firefighters and so forth, refundable? It is a specific question. It is just about that.

[Copyright Modernization Act, November 14th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, a lot of the conversation earlier centred around the issue of the iPod tax, as the government likes to call it. We like to call it essential revenues for many of our artists and musicians.

One of the situations that we had just prior to the last election dealt with that. A lot of the media put that out as being just a myth.

What ends up happening here is that there is a relinquishing of revenues as a result of technology change. One of the things that we wanted to do, as part of the Liberal Party, was to provide that funding through general revenues.

Is that something that the NDP would consider in light of the fact that we keep talking about this levy? Sometimes a debate gets misconstrued.

[Copyright Modernization Act, November 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I actually agree with my hon. colleague from the NDP. Not only that, I would add that the Conservatives did not seem to flinch when it came to the money that was potentially lost from the auto sector. It seems there was very little debate there.

The parliamentary secretary talked about the technological protection measures, TPMs, and this model that is out there to protect all of them. I will give him several examples of countries, including Australia and the United States, which looked at ways of circumventing TPMs for the reasons of education. As a matter of fact, they went fully into using TPMs and digital locks but backed away on several measures simply because they were too strong. Therefore, some exemptions were made.

I would humbly suggest using something like the three-step process by which we can judge TPMs as a way of circumventing them for instances such as education. That would be one of the measures. However, certainly he speaks truth to this matter by saying that it is just an all or naught measure that simply should be looked at once again, and in committee.

[Copyright Modernization Act, November 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, by way of illustration, one of the major issues that would come out of this would be digital locks. There is not a lot of talk about the cultural arts and how this would be one of the mechanisms by which artists could protect their crafts.

I think, quite frankly, that the government is focusing way too much on this digital lock idea, and, of course, it is really just favouring a business model. When it comes to individual songs right now, digital locks are going by the wayside. We can see how the evolution of technology is basically indicating that we cannot afford to have an inflexible bill.

I am not too encouraged by the fact that there will not be a lot of changes and that the government will not be open to a lot of changes when the bill gets to committee.

I would ask my colleague about the cultural arts sector in Quebec that he spoke to in reference to the money that would be lost from the use of this levy. The government has tried to turn the debate around to this iPod tax idea, but this is still a lost revenue for artists.

What would my colleague propose that the government do to help get some of that revenue back and help our most vulnerable artists?