STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF TED REYNOLDS
June 8, 2009
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all colleagues in the House, I want to acknowledge with sadness the passing, on Wednesday, April 29, of one of Canada's broadcasting legends, Ted Reynolds. A B.C. native and Vancouverite, Ted's career with CBC Sports began in 1956 and spanned five decades. He called play by play for 23 different sports on television and radio, and covered marquee events including the Olympics, the Commonwealth and Pan-Am games, the Grey Cup, and four royal tours.
Ted was the first host of the Vancouver Canucks telecasts for Hockey Night in Canada on CBC when the Canucks joined the NHL in 1970. For his outstanding contribution to Canadian broadcasting, Ted was a two-time recipient of the Doug Gilbert Media Award, a member of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame, the 2003 recipient of Sports Media Canada's Achievement Award, and a 2007 inductee into CBC's Sports Hall of Fame.
I ask all members of the House to join me in celebrating and acknowledging the life and contributions of one of Canada's great sports broadcasters, Ted Reynolds.
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SPEECH ON CANADA-US RELATIONS
April 27, 2009
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, B.C. has taken over Ottawa in a bloodless coup and the citizens love it. From April 21 to May 3, British Columbian artists, singers, musicians, actors, dancers, vintners and chefs will hit the boards and the art galleries, the libraries and the pubs bringing with them some of the most innovative and avant-garde talent this city has ever seen. People should see the critically acclaimed aboriginal musical, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, or BIOBOXES and the Wen Wei Dance. or listen to Jim Burns, Ndidi Onukwulu and Alex Cuba, or view exhibits by Marina Roy, Abbas Akhavan and Brendan Tang. If that is not enough to fill people's soul, they can drink exquisite B.C. wine, taste delicious Pacific cuisine and be mesmerized by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Though we are young, the diversity of our arts and culture in B.C. shimmers with innovation and fusion bands, like Delhi 2 Dublin and DJ Spoon, testify to that. Ottawa is agog with delight. Events are packed. I urge members to go and be a part of the B.C. scene. It is a happening event.
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SPEECH ON CANADA-US RELATIONS
April 27, 2009
Speech on Liberal Opposition Motion: That, in the opinion of the House, the government has failed to take all necessary steps to ensure that the US Administration and the US Congress fully understand the critical importance of our shared border to trade and economic security in both Canada and the United States; and must ensure that the Canada-U.S. border remains an efficient gateway through which our national security, personal, and commercial interests are properly promoted and defended.
FULL TEXT OF MOTION UNDER DEBATE_>>>
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this motion which, if we boil it down to its essentials, talks very clearly about the fact that the government has failed to maintain an effective relationship with the United States.
We used to be proud to say that we shared the longest unarmed border in the world, and indeed it was. We are well aware that things have changed over time. The new world terrorism has made us more careful, which is as it should be, but building and keeping a mutually beneficial and respectful relationship is an active process. Anyone who is married or has a good friend knows that; anyone who has colleagues knows that one has to keep working at a relationship.
My colleague spoke quite movingly of our historic relationship with the United States. I remember when former U.S. president Bill Clinton was visiting, Mr. Chrétien stood in the House and said quite jokingly, “You know we are best friends, we are neighbours and we are allies, but we are not lovers. We do not get into bed together”. Mr. Clinton thought that was funny. Essentially that is what our relationship is about. It is a mutually respectful relationship.
We have trusted each other in the past and maybe we have not gotten along so well at other times. We all know that relationships were stressful between Canada and the United States when Canada did not go to war in Iraq. We smoothed that out. Mr. Chrétien was prime minister at the time. He maintained solid relationships and continued to build on them.
Those who are as long in the tooth as I am will remember the days when, flowing from every street and large building in the United States were banners with the message, “We love Canada”, because Canada had protected some Americans for three months in the Canadian embassy in Tehran, Iran.
We have a history of close relations and strained relations. The point is there needs to be an active process in which we can maintain relationships and deal with the things we do not agree on.
The Conservative government has a tendency to sit passively, not merely with the relationship with the United States but with everything. Whether it is an economic crisis or a recession, the government likes to sit passively and wait and see what happens. When the house of cards falls down or when things get really bad, there is a huge panic and suddenly there is activity, but quite often it is too little too late.
We have had a very long relationship with the United States. Eighty per cent of our trade is done with the U.S. When we talk about borders, we talk about the smart border initiative that was brought in by Mr. Chrétien and strengthened by Mr. Martin, which the current government has failed to keep going. The smart border initiative recognized a few things. It actually survived 9/11. It brought about the NEXUS pass and quick passes. It also recognized that a porous border brings in good and bad.
We were very quick to deal with 9/11 and work with homeland security on a mutual basis. We worked together. Whenever congressmen or senators stood and said that all the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada, the Canadian government was quick to say that the facts did not actually prove that and, indeed, many of those people came from the United States. We have always been quick to ensure that misunderstandings do not occur.
When we say the government has failed, we talk about it failing to maintain the smart border initiative, but we also talk about it failing to maintain the western hemisphere travel initiative. The 2010 Olympics will be occurring soon. This is an important initiative. People are going to be coming across border, hopefully, to the 2010 Olympics and they are going to have problems because the government has failed to make sure that the western hemisphere travel initiative is maintained.
We saw the passport debacle in 2006. People were waiting in lineups that were 6 to 10 blocks long to get passports. One would have thought the government would have learned from that mistake and would have hastened to take steps to make sure that Canadians had easy access to passports. This has not happened. When there is a run on passports again, there is going to be the same problem all over again.
We talked about the failed ability to make a case of the thickening of the border for security also stops the movement of goods, trade, families and business. In my part of the world, British Columbia, there is an initiative that involves Alaska and the states along the Pacific coast all the way down to California. It is called Cascadia. The Pacific coast states have kept in touch with Canadian provinces. We have built a strong relationship. We know that Canada and U.S. trade interests are strong and the border needs to facilitate that.
We can look at the auto crisis and the country of origin labelling, the COOL legislation, the international trafficking in arms legislation. Canada cannot bid for aerospace industries any more because the government has failed to stand up for Canadian interests when it comes to relations with the U.S.
I have talked about the fact that only 30% of Americans have passports. When the western hemisphere travel initiative, WHTI, comes forward, many people will not be able to cross the border. It is not only trade and business. It is not only about security. When it comes to public health, I do not know how we can tell mosquitoes or viruses such as west Nile, SARS and the swine flu that they must recognize the border. Viruses cross borders. Insects cross borders. We need to talk about how to share strong public health information. We need to deal effectively and cooperatively when things such as the swine flu and SARS occur.
There is no strategy. There is no plan. There is no active working to stop bad rumours, to build strong relationships where important and to enable a secure and porous border.
I am really disappointed in the government. We thought it would have had a very good relationship with the U.S. We thought it would have understood especially since so many members of the government come from the west where there are very strong relationships with the U.S. The government should have taken the steps necessary to maintain that relationship in an appropriate manner and to work hard on it.
We only have to look at tourism and the drop in the number of United States tourists coming to Canada. One could argue that the dollar was a problem a long time ago, but we now have a real problem. Every single day 300,000 people cross the border. Over $1.6 billion in trade occurs every single day and 70% of that trade involves trucks going back and forth across the border. Our exports have dropped very much since February of last year. Tourism is falling month after month, year after year. We have to be concerned. It is not merely the dollar. The border has to be one in which people are able to cross. The border is not just about tourism, not just about business, not just about public health, not just about trade. Families cross the border regularly to visit with each other. Many of us have children who are living in the U.S. Many people from the United States have family living here. There is a human relationship. The government has failed to keep that relationship strong and alive and to take the steps necessary to make any relationship work. It is not only on this issue.
This is just another example of the government's failure to take active steps, to have a plan, to have a strategy, to do what it must to prevent problems from arising. The government has been asleep at the switch. The government's passivity is extraordinary. I can name the things in which this passivity has occurred. The softwood lumber deal is one of them and Omar Khadr is another one. The government sat around and waited. I do not know what else to call it but incompetence, a lack of ability to look forward, to recognize that it has to stand up for Canada, which the Conservatives said they were going to do when they ran in the election in 2006. They said, “We stand up for Canada”. Standing up for Canada means standing up for a relationship with the U.S., our strongest trading partner, and standing up when people say that Canada is a terrorist hotbed and that it is not as safe to come from Canada as it is from Mexico, where illegal migrants cross that border every day. There are some facts that we need to tell the new administration, which may not understand the strong relationship. It is the government's duty to do that, and it is not doing it. I chalk up one more failure of the government to have any plan, to do any strategic thinking and to act in any way, shape or form.
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, the member has just made some very important points about the government and its inaction over the last number of years. I believe 600 miles of fence has already been built at the U.S.-Mexico border. Drones are flying in the sky there. If we do not watch out, we will have the same sort of applications apply to our border as that applied at the Mexico-U.S. border. The government has to get more active in opposing this kind of action. Recently drones have been flying over the Manitoba border with North Dakota. One of the Conservative members of the legislature made that an issue. We need more action like that, not less. I would like to echo what the member said and applaud her for making those statements. Does she have any other observations that she would like to make at this time regarding the inaction of the Conservative government on this file?
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, there were some other things which I did not even get to talk about. We share a freshwater treaty with the U.S., where our rivers run south from our mountains here. We share certain waterways, the Niagara waterway is an example. We share the Columbia River Treaty with the U.S. We share a lot with our neighbours. It will be difficult and dangerous for all of us in Canada if we break this relationship. It will be harmful for jobs. It will work against people with families or friends moving across the border. The point is the government, when asked a question in the House, cannot just stand up and say that it captured the first-ever terrorist. That continues to say that we have so many terrorists here that we must keep looking for them because Canada is an unsafe country. We are friends and allies with the United States. We are not an unsafe country. We are working together to make this thing work. It would be a pity if we saw barbed wire along the borders, as people have in Mexico.
Mr. Mark Holland (Ajax—Pickering, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, could the member comment specifically on the issue of the Olympics? I am deeply concerned about this.
In June all U.S. citizens will need a passport, and less than 30% of Americans have one. Most of them are unaware that this requirement will be in place. I have talked with U.S. legislators and governors, including Governor Gregoire. I have raised the idea that we need them to push this requirement off until after the Olympics. They are amazed that this issue has not been raised by the Canadian government, that this argument has been put off. They share the concern that we will have an absolute mess when Americans try to come up and enjoy the Olympics but get turned away because of the Conservative government's refusal to act and stand up for Canadians.
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, if the government was thinking strategically, it would have postponed this for a year until after the Olympics and deal with it then. The only person speaking out on this issue is Congresswoman Slaughter, and she is speaking out loudly. She says that we have to deal with this issue and move forward.
My hon. colleague's question was well put. I hope the United States might be a little more efficient at issuing passports to people who want to come across the border in 2010 than our government has been. I hope it will take less than a year and a half to get that thing going.
Mr. Jim Maloway:
Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the NDP have asked for the development and implementation of a national tourism strategy, which would contain several elements.
We have looked at extending the passport expiry time from five years to ten years, increasing accessibility to passports and photos by making them available through licence bureaus and other government locations and reducing the price to obtain a passport to make it more cost effective, such as free passports for people under the age of 18, free passports to veterans and half price passports to seniors. I have even suggested that the government might want to have a 90 day moratorium on charging and maybe have free passports for everyone as of—
The Deputy Speaker:
I will have to stop the hon. member there to allow time for the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, who only has about 15 to 20 seconds.
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, we all discussed this issue when we had the big debacle on passports in 2006, when people could not get passports. People were concerned and worried because they could not even make travel arrangements to go to funerals or weddings.
The member's suggestions are all ones that we can agree with and I think they should be implemented.
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SPEECH ON CREDIT CARDS
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Speech on NDP Opposition Motion: That, in the opinion of the House, the government should take action to protect consumers who are particularly vulnerable in tough economic times; and therefore, this House calls on the government to introduce, within 6 months, comprehensive legislation, similar to the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 introduced by the Obama Administration in the United States, that would: (a) protect consumers from “any time, any reason” interest rate increases and account changes; (b) prohibit unfair application of card payments; (c) protect cardholders who pay on time; (d) limit abusive fees and penalties; (e) prohibit issuers from using a consumer’s card history with another creditor to raise interest rates (“universal default” ban); (f) prohibit issuers from charging interest on debt that has already been repaid; (g) ensure that cardholders are informed of the terms of their account; and (h) protect young consumers from aggressive credit card solicitations.
FULL TEXT OF MOTION UNDER DEBATE_>>>
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Madam Speaker, I rise to support a well-intentioned motion. The motion has some very key components, to which other members have spoken, but I suggest that some of it does not really pertain to the Canadian environment, especially the mention of the credit card accountability responsibility and disclosure act of 2009, American legislation that does not pertain to Canada.
As members well know, the Canadian banks and financial institutions that control much of the credit card fees, et cetera, have been pretty stable in Canada because the Liberal government set out in 2001 to ensure that there were strong regulations and that we had good control. Had it not been for the Liberal government of the day ensuring that we had good control and good regulation of financial institutions, we might have had the same problems that we see in the United States and in other parts of the world.
We do have some pretty good regulations in place that are making banks accountable. We have credit card databases and profiles of clients and credit cards to look at how the system is working and how people are accessing credit. At the same time, while this is not particularly pertinent to the solution, the ideas that are being brought forward by the motion are worth thinking about.
One of the things most heinous that we see today is that many Canadians are in debt. In my part of the world, in Vancouver, British Columbia, buying a small 1,000 square foot condominium is enough to crush a small family. We have young families with university and college educations who are making what, at one time, people used to consider a reasonable income, both making say $70,000 or $80,000 each. A couple with a small child who buys a $500,000 condominium in my riding will not be able to afford to pay the mortgage if one of them loses their job. Those are some of the points that I would like to bring forward as I support the intent of the motion.
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Denise Savoie):
The hon. member may continue her comments after question period.
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The Speaker:
Before the question period, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre had the floor and there are seven minutes remaining in the time allotted for her remarks. I therefore call upon the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, before question period, I talked about supporting the intent of this motion but felt that some of the ways of implementing the objective in the motion were impractical, one of which, as I mentioned, has to do with the United States legislation, which does not pertain to Canada as we have different legislation.
I also went on to point out that we had gone a long way when the Liberal government was here in 2001. We secured financial institutions, looked at regulations and set up the credit card database in which we have a large amount of data that has prevented us from
going the way that the United States and other countries did. It was because we had secured our financial institutions.
The motion also talks about the aggressive targeting mechanisms used by credit card companies to ensure young people have credit cards. They offer them low interest rates to hook them in and then, when they get these young people in, they raise the interest rates, which is why so many people are now indebted.
As I said earlier on, we talk about the indebtedness of people and we need to do something about it. This is one of the reasons the Liberals took a leadership role in the Senate. We wanted the Senate banking committee to look at some of these issues and to aggressively look at solutions. The problem is real. The debt of most Canadians at this time, especially consumers, is huge. In my riding of Vancouver Centre, the cost of homes and everything else is so high. We have young couples in their thirties who are university educated. Some have MBAs and some are lawyers. Together, these couples are making a reasonable income but they cannot afford to buy a home. They have stretched themselves to the extent that they can but when one of them loses a job in this climate, they are within two pay cheques of bankruptcy. We need to be concerned about these people who also have large credit card debts that they need to pay.
Many of my colleagues have made the point that many retailers right now are in a credit crunch. This is all a vicious cycle. We know that when people are indebted they are not spending. They are hoarding and saving. They are indebted to credit cards companies. They have reached their maximum limits and therefore cannot go outand buy. The retail sector is suffering because of the inability of consumers to spend money on anything that is not basic. Shops, retailers and small businesses are hurting a great deal by this recession. They have their own credit crunch to deal with.
On top of that, the credit card companies are charging the retailers 11% and 12% interest rates, which does not allow the retailers to make a profit. Many of them are trying to bring about sales so they can encourage people to buy but they cannot do that and stay in business if they do not make a profit. They now have a choice. They either go out of business or they bring down their funds. However, if they do not make a profit, they will go out of business at the end of the day.
The financial institutions, which govern much of the credit card debts and the interest rates charged by credit card companies, need to show a sense of responsibility by making the credit card companies understand that by charging high interest rates and changing interest rates without enough notice to people who cannot afford to pay off their full balance, which will only increase now when people are counting their pennies and can only afford to pay the minimum amount, they are creating a huge problem. People's indebtedness will hurt this economy and any economic stimulus package or any development that we try to make to turn the corner.
This is a vicious cycle that we see happening, one that is creating a worsening situation all the time.
Now we know that typical of the Conservative government is a promise that it will do something about it. The Minister of Finance said that he would go off and deal with the credit card companies and get them to do these things voluntarily. However, when they told him to take a hike, nothing happened. We continue to see promises made in stimulus packages, in budgets, in all of these declarations by a government that never actually come to fruition. Nothing happens. Talk is cheap.
We, on this side of the House, knowing that we did not want to play politics with a difficult fiscal climate in this country, cut the government some slack. We said that we would support its package but that we put it on probation.
Time after time, we hear the verbiage that we are working on it and that we do care, but nothing happens. We have put the government on probation because at some point in time we need to find out whether it is just talk. We need to see the money flowing. We need to see the work being done to get the credit card companies to look at the problems. We need to see that the promises to spend money in certain places comes to fruition. We need all this shovel-ready stuff to occur. We need long term investments.
Those are some of the things that we are looking to the government to actually make good on and we are keeping our eye on the government on that basis. However, at the same time, we do not wish to be irresponsible. We know we are in a difficult time but we need to see something happening.
The motion brought forward by the NDP basically says that we need to do something. We have taken the bit in our teeth and have taken the initiative. We have started to do the work at the Senate by pushing this very aggressively in the Senate. We need some studies and we need some information. When I say studies, I do not mean studies in the manner in which the government speaks of studies, which is some kind of two year plan to do something that never comes to fruition. We mean that we need to get some data quickly. Time is moving and we need to get this thing sorted out now.
Good intentions are fine, and I hesitate to say this because it is very well-intentioned, but we know that the NDP have a tendency not to implement their good intentions and come up with some way-out ways to do this. However, we do agree with this motion because it is a good motion. The objectives and the intent are great. We have taken the initiative to do some work to ensure we have the right and most effective solutions to this problem.
I support the motion from that perspective.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, a Senate initiative is going on. In the budget, the government promised that a task would be coming soon. A motion is before the House that calls for introducing legislation within six months, which will take some time thereafter.
My concern is that the problem is a today problem and we need a comprehensive approach to dealing with the identified problem. One of those problems, to which I think the member alluded, is the need to get the banks on-side now. I do not think we need to wait until we study something and get more information. We can start now, if there is a political will within Parliament, to step forward, to get those consultations with the banks going and to deliver a solution that will save these people who are going to lose everything. Many people will lose everything within a matter of weeks and months.
There is a need for short term action, as well as medium and longer term action, but there is nothing on the table now to deal with the short term. I really think Parliament must indicate its concern about consumer debt problems.
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague. I would refer to the fact that we have students who have huge debtloads. We have students who have now taken out credit cards because of aggressive marketing. The interest rates are going up. When they cannot pay even the minimum payment, they are suddenly being assessed huge fees.
I raised the issue of young couples who are literally two paycheques away from bankruptcy if one of them loses his or her job. I am talking about people who are university and college graduates. I am talking about lawyers and young MBAs. They are in a difficult position.
People in my province cannot buy a 1,000 square foot condominium for under $600,000. Some people do buy them because they need a place to live but if they lose their home because they cannot pay the mortgage, then they must look for rental accommodations. However, there are no rentals in my city.
I am not exaggerating when I say that we will be seeing people, maybe within two months, who will be out on the street because they are bankrupt. There is data to support this increasing risk to middle income families, what we used to call good, solid, middle income families, that may lose absolutely everything in this recession.
Studying things alone, as the government is doing, hoping that the banks will come on-side, is not good enough. That is why we support the intent of this motion. We have work going on in the Senate to make it happen quickly.
Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP):
Madam Speaker, former Liberal MP, Don Boudria, said that the government seeing fit not to act on a cap was consistent. It has consistently defended the interests of big business. He said that there needed to be an interest rate cap. He was commenting on a study that was done by the standing committee on credit card cost.
When was that study was done? In March 1990 and it recommended that the financial institution not be allowed to go higher than eight percentage points above the bank rate, but no action was taken between 1993 and 2006.
Could the member opposite tell us why the Liberals, when in power, did absolutely nothing to cap credit card interest rates?
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Madam Speaker, that is such a broad statement that it is funny. In fact, Canada has done extremely well in the world. We are solid. Our banks have not had the fate of the banks in every other G8 country in the world. Canada was solid and it was because a Liberal government moved in 2001 to put in the structures that regulate banking institutions and make them accountable. That is why today everyone is boasting about Canada's solid economy. However, that is not going to remain for long. The hon. member already mentioned that and, in fact, there is need for quick action.
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SPEECH ON THE CBC
March 31, 2009
Motion: That this House recognizes the indispensable role of CBC–Radio Canada in providing national, regional, and local programming including news coverage and services to linguistic minorities throughout Canada, and therefore regrets the financial hardship and substantial lay-offs that CBC–Radio Canada currently faces; and urges the government to provide CBC–Radio Canada with the bridge financing it requires to maintain 2008 staffing and service levels.
FULL TEXT OF MOTION UNDER DEBATE_>>>
Hon. Hedy Fry (Vancouver Centre, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, I am standing here today to support, with some passion and vehemence, the opposition motion which is asking some simple things.
It is asking the government to recognize the indispensable nature of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada. It is asking the government to recognize the essential mandate of the public broadcaster and to give it the bridge financing it needs to continue its work until, as we have heard everyone here say today, advertising revenues return to normal and the CBC can go back to boosting its own coffers through advertising.
Everyone has talked about the loss of $171 million in 2009-10 by the CBC. This is spread 50:50 between the CBC and Radio-Canada. There is a loss of 800 jobs which is also going to be shared almost equally between the CBC and Radio-Canada.
The CBC, as a result, is going to have to cut services and programs. It is going to scale back regional radio and television programming, all of which is part of its mandate. It is going to have to decrease current affairs, drama, music, special events, all of which is part of its mandate. This is happening just at the time when the CBC is in fact increasing its viewership and its listenership over its main competitors in private television and private radio.
The point is this, and it is ironic, that in February 2008 an all-party committee, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, made some very important recommendations which the government actually refused to even read or listen to.
The all-party committee stated that there was overwhelming support for the CBC as a national broadcaster across this country. I was on the committee when we travelled across the country and there was overwhelming support for the CBC.
As a result of that support and the things that we heard, the committee recommended some very important things. It recommended an increase of money for regional programming which is now having to be cut. It recommended an increase in variety, drama, news and public affairs, all of which is now going to have to be cut. It recommended an increase in programming for official language minority groups, all of which is going to have to be decreased. It recommended an increase in funding toward the development of new media. It recommended a one time capital cost for high density television for the CBC. All of this was going to be special one time funding.
The all-party committee was very clear, the CBC needed more money. It also said that the CBC should have stable, multi-year funding over seven years. Currently, the CBC receives about $33 per capita from every Canadian, so that it can continue to be the public broadcaster.
That funding over seven years was going to increase to $40 per capita. That is not a very large amount of money, but this special money for high density and new infrastructure is needed in radio and television. As we know analog is going out right now and the CBC is going to have to go digital across this country.
There were strong recommendations and a strong support for the CBC just barely a year ago from the all-party committee.
Now the CBC is being forced to do exactly what we know the government has wanted of the CBC all along. I have been here for almost 16 years and time after time after time we sat at the heritage committee, we sat in the House, and listened to the fact that the Conservative government was not supportive of the CBC, not supportive of a public broadcaster, and was waiting to do this kind of trickle down, subtle burying of the public broadcaster.
Let me speak about public broadcasters. We looked at 18 such public broadcasters in different countries in the industrialized world and Canada ranks 16th out of 18 in terms of its funding for its public broadcaster. Yet, most of the studies done by Nordicity have told us that Canada, of all the countries that have a public broadcaster, needs a public broadcaster most.
Why does Canada need a public broadcaster most? It is because Canada in fact lies close to a larger country that speaks the same language. That was one of the indicators that was used to define whether a public broadcaster was necessary. In fact, a public broadcaster was necessary in such situations to promote culture and to give a shared value system. Especially in a diverse country like ours, this is absolutely important. Diverse by region and diverse by demographics, we have to have that kind of shared value system and that promotion of our diverse cultures.
Second, the development of community and social cohesion, again in a country with such a large landmass and a sparse population, public broadcasters are absolutely necessary to form that kind of communication infrastructure to reach small communities all across Canada, linking these communities and offering a sort of universal virtual highway and coverage.
We also know that in a place where there is a small domestic market, there is not enough private sector investment in domestic programming because there are not enough people to buy that domestic programming. So a public broadcaster, in cases like this, is not compelled to realize a profit and therefore should be able to provide that kind of domestic and regional content that we talked about.
However, this is not happening. We see that the government is prepared to let the CBC die. The interesting thing is that we are talking about bridge financing, so the CBC could go back to looking at advertising to supplement its operational budget. Yet, one of the most important recommendations of the committee in February 2008 was that in fact the CBC be weaned off advertising revenues, so that it could truly function like a public broadcaster.
What do we see now instead? We actually see the government initiating slow and very subtle cuts: in 2006-07, $32 million; in 2007-08, $26 million; in 2008-09, another $26 million; and in 2009-10, $63 million in cuts, at a time when the CBC can ill-afford to have that. Talk about death by a thousand cuts.
Bridge financing is important now for the CBC to keep its head above water, but when we see all the indicators and we understand the reasons why public broadcasters are in fact very necessary, Canada is probably, as I said earlier on, by all of the studies done, the country that most needs a public broadcaster.
I am hoping that we would not only look at giving the CBC the bridge funding it needs, but heeding the recommendations of the heritage committee of February 2008, and in fact increasing funding for the CBC. This could be seen as a stimulus package because culture is an industry, because in a country like Canada, we need to hear our stories, listen to our drama, see our films, hear our music, and watch our dance.
The BBC has shown us how it can be done. The BBC has spread British culture around the world. It is now an industry that brings a great deal into the GDP of Great Britain, and also trades an enormous amount of cultural products around the world.
This is CBC's role and instead of watching CBC die a death by a thousand cuts, I am hoping that the government would heed this and do the bridge financing and then actually follow the 2008 committee report and all of its recommendations.
Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I am having a hard time listening to the hypocrisy in the House from the Liberals. It was in 1995 that they cut the CBC by $400 million and 4,000 jobs were lost. I remember how much we lost in the communauté. That is not taking into consideration the Conservatives' not helping the CBC today. I will be speaking later on that.
At the same time, how can Liberals stand in the House and say how horrible it is that this is happening when they already cut the CBC by $400 million saying it was because we were in financial difficulty? They cut health care and employment insurance, took $57 billion from working people that loved their jobs, including the CBC Radio-Canada. How can they stand today and act like nothing happened?
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, I know how difficult it is for the hon. member's party to understand what is done in times of fiscal crisis or to even understand how to balance books.
Yes, indeed, that was a time of a very bad fiscal crisis, left once more by a Conservative government for a Liberal government to clean up. It cleaned it up but to do so everyone had to tighten their belts. It did not gut the CBC. Cuts were made and those cuts were slowly brought back year after year, including in 2002 when Liberals brought in a $60 million yearly stipend for the CBC that in fact was almost not given by this government this year.
At a time of surplus, it is unconscionable that a government would begin to cut a public broadcaster. In a time of surplus when the government has money to spend, the government tells us very clearly by cutting that it has an agenda, which is to get rid of the public broadcaster.
Mr. Dean Del Mastro (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, to pick up on what the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst was just speaking about, the member for Vancouver Centre has been in the House since 1993. She was here when the Liberal Party gutted and cut $414 million from the CBC. There is no rationale for that. It promised it would not do it. Then in 1997, with red book 2, it made the same promise again and said, “It was tough and we made cuts but not next time”. It cut the CBC again and 4,000 jobs were lost. The evening news was gone, the regional broadcast was gone. The Liberal Party says one thing and does another thing when it is in power. The hypocrisy is astounding.
The member should pay attention to what the CBC has said. There has been record funding: $1.1 billion in support, $60 million in new money from this government to the CBC. That is our record. The Liberal Party record is one of cuts. The CBC indicated these jobs would have been lost regardless of bridge financing or not. Its board has a plan. She should listen and put some confidence in the board. It has a plan moving forward. The Liberal plan was to cut, axe and kill the CBC.
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the hon. member speak about the history of things when we see that this is a government that did not even recognize that we were going into a recession. It kept believing there was no recession then changed its mind. It didnot have a stimulus package. It did not know what to do and stood paralyzed with fear or what else it was paralyzed with, and waited until we got to this point, having spent all of the surplus it had.
I do not need any lessons in financial planning as a political party from this member. However, the bottom line is that the CBC was not gutted because it was still able to do its regional programming. The CBC was still able to do drama and some of the things that its mandate asked it to do. That is the important thing to remember.
What is happening now is that the CBC will die because of the cuts that have been made by this government.
Hon. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Minister of National Revenue and Minister of State (Agriculture), CPC):
Mr. Speaker, since the member is blaming us, I would like to add something to this debate. CBC/Radio-Canada is cutting 800 jobs. Nobody here is denying that a lot of jobs will be lost. Nevertheless, this is an independent Crown corporation. Unless I am much mistaken, the member's party cut $400 million a few years ago, and CBC/Radio-Canada lost 4,000 jobs as a result.
The Conservative Party, however, gave CBC/Radio-Canada $1.1 billion this year. Yes, the corporation has been losing advertising revenue, but so have private-sector broadcasters. Whatever funding the government gives out, others might also demand. They might ask for similar help from the government. In this case, CBC/Radio-Canada has to figure out how to manage this temporary difficulty.
Can the member justify the cuts her party made not that long ago?
Hon. Hedy Fry:
Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member's math is correct and the government says it gave $1.1 billion to the CBC, it is my understanding that the CBC would then have a little over $2.1 billion in its budget. This is absolutely untrue and the hon. member knows it.
