HERI Committee Report

DISSENTING OPINION FROM WENDY LILL,
CULTURE CRITIC FOR THE NDP

I would like to begin by congratulating those who made oral and written submissions, my colleagues on the Committee, and especially the Committee Chair, for their on-going interest in this critical cultural endeavour the production and distribution of Canadian books. This dissenting opinion is not being written to diminish the work of the Committee but to touch on a few issues which were not addressed in the report, and to comment on issues which the Committee could not find the appropriate consensus to address.

I support the main Committee report sections which would decrease book returns to publishers, improve our libraries, improve copyright, and update the technological capacity of the industry to deal with the changing marketplace for books. I hope the government acts on these reforms with dispatch.

The shortcomings of the report fall into three areas:

1) the lack of recommendations concerning the need for a cultural component, implemented by the Competition Bureau, under a revised Competition Act,

2) the lack of a direct comment on why the hearings were called in the first place: the creation of Pegasus by Chapters and how this has effected the financial viability of independent bookstores and small publishers,

3) The lack of a government strategy to protect the considerable investment Canadians have made in Canadian books, authors and publishers if the "dominant player" in the industry finds itself in financial trouble.

The government has already conceded that our international trading agreements, especially NAFTA and the WTO, do not adequately protect the unique creations of Canadian culture. In response to this situation the government is proposing that a separate cultural mechanism be created on the international scene to protect a country's cultural diversity.

Curiously, there is strong resistance to suggestions that we apply the principle at the domestic level. It is imperative that the Competition Act be changed to allow for a cultural component within the Competition Bureau while examining cultural sectors. The goal of this component would be to safeguard the availability of diverse Canadian opinions, Canadian books and to a wide variety of Canadian cultural products to Canadians.

A recommendation, which would have addressed this, would have read:

(Not included) Recommendation 3.2

The Committee recommends that the Departments of Canadian Heritage and Industry Canada together draft the appropriate changes to the Competition Act to change the criteria used by the Competition Bureau to make consideration of national cultural objectives mandatory when dealing with the Canadian book industry. And this recommendation could serve as a model for other cultural industries.

The Committee tried to deal with structural problems in the book industry without addressing the most serious concern that many witnesses brought to our attention: that the Chapters/Pegasus relationship, and their dominant position in the market, threatens the future economics of writing, publishing and selling books in Canada. When near-monopoly situations have developed in other industries -- such as telecommunications or the airline industry -- the government reacted by enacting some form of public safeguards. This report fails to suggest such actions for the book sector, and that weakens other good recommendations.

Finally, there was a scenario given to the committee by several presenters, including publishers and retailers, which the report failed to address; namely the crisis our publishers, authors and the book buying public would face if Chapters/Pegasus should ever find itself in financial difficulty.

While the main report calls for the Investment Act to continue to protect against foreign domination of the book sector, the power that Chapters and Pegasus currently have over the industry requires stronger solutions.

It is our responsibility to insure the protection of the $1 Billion government investment (over the last 30 years) in Canadian books. The paramount goal of maintaining Canadian control of this sector should be an over-riding theme of government policy at all times.