CHOW: Yes we need clear legislation, we are very, very behind. We need to compensate artists, so that when people reproduce their work they get a portion of [the money], that’s a very important component. We also need to make sure that the students would not be hurt if they are studying and in need of sharing materials. But, yes, we need to, rather than suing people, we need to save the money and the lawyer fees and make sure the artists get paid. Our critic Charlie Angus has several policy components. One is fair dealing for the students, the other is for artists, so the fair dealing part is non-commercial for education proposes, the other is some kind of levy to make sure that writers, actors, singers, and songwriters all get a share, because artists are poorly paid. This is the key one. We have it in a private members Bill C-499, also with a kind of blueprint for the government. The Conservative government did a long consultation period across the country which we participated in, and we were willing to work with the government to have a copyright bill be passed in the House. But they didn’t see it as a priority, so they delayed it into bringing forth discussion or debate, so it got stuck in the committee and it didn’t come out on time. So we are working with singers, and actors, and different professional organizations representing these people.

BARNEY: That is a tough question, and it’s one that I have thought about a bit. There are competing concerns on both sides. On the one hand, it is very important that our artists, as they now get called “content producers,” get fair recompense for their work. That should be non-negotiable. Trinity-Spadina is a hub of our creative communities, and I know a lot of musicians, artists, and writers who are worried about how their work is going to be sustainable in an digital age where everything is out there. At the same time, it does seem clear that to really reap the rewards of all the new technologies out there, we have to have a bias in favour of liberalism, small ‘L’ I emphasize. It should be easy to do mash-ups and parodies, and easy for students to get access to work that they can learn from. I think it’s an incredibly difficult balancing act, and I don’t think that Bill C-32 necessarily can resolve it correctly. I don’t know how exactly to do it. We do need a lot of public deliberation and hard thinking about how to get that balance right, because I’m not sure that any country in the world has it right yet.

INNES: Copyright absolutely needs to be a priority coming back. This issue has been debated well over 10 years. Bill C-32, while not perfect, seems to be a consensus in terms of intellectual property issues that we need to get started. We’re laggards in the world on this issue. Other countries have a much better approach. It’s an economic issue and it’s an artistic issue. I would be a champion on getting something back on the table as soon as there is a new government, working to get the right balance. And I think we need to understand we are so far behind globally on this issue that we need to at least get some movement on it, and legislate some reforms, and keep working on it to ensure that the balance between users and the industry, the best balance is struck.

SIOW: Being an entrepreneur myself, I can sympathize with those who invested lots of money into it, and obviously I’m against it, and we should have a law to protect against the pirating. It’s certainly not healthy—I grew a tree and somebody is plucking the fruit, so I am against it. I am strongly in support of tougher laws against piracy. We have to put some efforts into it and, obviously, the corporations will probably demand what they feel should be done. This is an area that should be looked after, we should protect investments, and the same [protect] the artists. They spend all that time and effort, and it is their hard-earned right.

Back to top

5. Elder in-home care promises to be financially far more viable than any alternative. Is this a thought, AT ALL, in the future policies of ANY of the parties platforms?
—Walter Babiak, Albany Avenue resident

CHOW: Oh yes. Very much so. Families shouldn’t be separated because they don’t have in-home care. Some families just don’t have the loved ones to provide the support for the family member to stay at home. So a comprehensive home care program is the second phase of the Tommy Douglas medicare vision. That includes both homemaking, cleaning, shopping, these kinds of services and nursing care, plus daily support. So it’s a host of different services delivered in a comprehensive and affordable manner. I held a forum and brought together the Canadian Home Care Association, doctors who do house calls, and nurses to talk about a national home care strategy. It’s unfortunate that, just like child care, the government has promised action since 1993, and yet we still don’t have a national plan. We’ve put together one, but we need a government to make it a reality. Just giving tax credits or EI funds for relatives is not enough because sometimes they, most often the wife, are not able to collect or provide the type of nursing care that is needed. Or are not physically able to provide that kind of support, so we need a host of different people providing a host of different services, from shopping, and cleaning, to helping give a sponge bath. It actually saves money because it frees up the hospital beds, and people can be able to stay at home and it’s much more humane if couples can stay together, rather than one going to a nursing home.

BARNEY: Yes, absolutely. That is something we have detailed policies on, and it includes a “balance of care” model—trying to shift care from an institutional context to enabling people to stay in their homes, and continue to be in their communities. Walter is absolutely right, that it is more cost efficient, as well as being what people actually prefer. That is exactly the kind of thing where we think the government should be shifting funds in a big way, not necessarily taking funds away from hospitals and so on, but we need to accept that that’s not good enough anymore as a model of the national health care system. We need to start funding stuff that takes place outside the hospital, and things that can keep people out of the hospitals. This is an absolute prime example of that.

—Brian Shaughnessy

CHOW: The answer is yes. The only way we can overcome that is mass participation of the public in daily workings of the government, and a refusal to vote for people who bow down to the big pharmaceutical companies that just killed the NDP bill to send AIDS drugs to Africa because the Liberal-Conservative Senators did not approve the bill in time. They recently killed the GMO bill; another NDP bill to limit genetically modified food production. Again, there was good support from the crowd but the big corporations moved in pretty quick. The environment bill, the senate killed it also from the big lobbies from the multinationals, oil sands well, oil giants I should say. So there are many examples of how these huge companies—oh, credit card companies—we mounted a huge campaign and mounted a voluntary code of conduct and we are still getting ripped off by the big banks, the big companies that control credit card services. So small businesses get ripped off and ordinary consumers get ripped off. I can give you more examples. Cell phone and Internet fees, my God, we have one of the most expensive in the world, and fairly poor service compared to other parts of the world. All of this because, in some cases lack of competition, and government being in the pocket of these giant corporations.

BARNEY: I think the short answer is yes, even though it’s not as obvious as in the US, or not as bad here. I do think that our bias in the Green Party is very much pro-business, actually. This may not be what your questioner wants to hear, but we are big believers in free enterprise, entrepreneurship, getting markets to work, but with the way the system works, that puts us very much on the side of the small entrepreneur rather than the big entrenched business or the banks. These issues are close to our heart because we end up subsidizing those entrenched interests in various ways—we end up with a regulatory framework that favours them. Very often, those old entrenched interests are not serving the interests of society: they are polluting, and they’re stopping us making the transition we need to a green economy. This is a big worry for us. The very fact that the Tories would think they have some kind of a winning issue in corporate tax cuts in our current economic climate just tells you how distorted our political spectrum is. That’s a really lousy way to get an economy back on track coming back from a recession. In terms of what we believe in doing, we do have some strong and complicated policies on the media and ownership of the media. We want to reduce concentrations of ownership of the media, we want to beef up traditional safeguards to make sure we do have a free flow of information that isn’t too distorted by corporate interests.

INNES: I think our democracy has been seriously challenged. I wouldn’t say it fits into any of these categories now, but we are at risk and that’s why in this election it is so important, and why I am focusing on the streets and talking to people about the substantive issues. I’m finding people really understand that it’s about getting people to be engaged, and fight for the Canada that we want. I would say that our current government is really at risk of that, Liberal governments, of the past and moving forward—not a chance as long as I’m a member of a potential caucus. I will be a fierce fighter of any of that. One of my strengths is connecting with people and talking about engagement and not just in a partisan way, but actually getting involved in your community, and fighting for the shared vision we have for Canada.