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House Hansard - 209

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 8, 2023 10:00AM
  • Jun/8/23 11:14:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. As we know, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill, said, “All politics are local.” I am going to focus on what has been happening in my community, my district, in the last two weeks. At 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, two weekends ago, first responders in Halifax arrived in the Westwood Hills subdivision in Halifax. This is in my district, 10 minutes from my house. They were responding to reports of a house on fire. They were there in minutes. The fire was driven by winds of 40 kilometres an hour, and it was spreading rapidly through the house and moving to other homes in this family suburban neighbourhood. It was engulfing homes and hopscotching from house to house. It was missing some, burning others and skipping and bouncing over streets. Cellphones screamed with an alert for residents to immediately leave their homes. Over the next hour, as the wind drove the flames across neighbourhoods along Hammonds Plains Road, more than 16,000 people were evacuated. Many, not knowing what to do, went to the homes of friends and family outside the evacuation zone. Others went to the comfort centres, which were set up quickly by volunteers. Some were set up within an hour, such as the ones at the Black Point fire hall and Black Point & Area Community Centre on St. Margarets Bay and the Canada Games Centre in Bayers Lake. They were set up by volunteers, such as Janet Fryday Dorey, who opened the Black Point comfort centre and kept it open from then until this day. The volunteers at the centres were and are remarkable. They put their lives and families on hold to provide comfort, food, clothes, a place to sleep, a person to talk to, a place to help find accommodation and a place to regroup in this trying, confusing and emotional time. There were volunteers like my neighbour, Peggy Pippy, who ran food and clothing drives for victims. To give some idea of the desperation of the evacuation, I want to share an experience. Captain Kevin Corkum and firefighter Conor Scott were working at the firefighting command post on Hammonds Plains Road in Halifax on that Sunday when an emergency call came in. A family could not get to their elderly father, who has dementia and was at home on Yankeetown Road. This was inside the evacuation zone, where the fire was raging. Fire crews had retreated from the area because of the speed of the fire, which was making it unsafe for them to battle the intensity of the flames. Captain Corkum said, “When the 911 call came in [saying] that there was a person in the house, we knew that fire conditions were going to be bad on that road.... But that's what we do. We're the fire service. Our main objective is life safety.” Captain Corkum said that he and firefighter Scott, wearing only basic personal protective gear, and with no oxygen equipment, jumped into the chief's pickup truck to attempt to save the man. Firefighter Scott said, “There were moments when it felt like we were driving through a wall of fire”. Captain Corkum reported that “as they travelled toward Yankeetown Road, day turned into night, and visibility was zero.” They could not see the civic numbers and ended up passing the home twice before they found the driveway. “As we pulled up, everything around the house was on fire. There were trees on two sides, maybe 20 to 30 feet away, and everything was on fire,” the captain said. Captain Corkum was driving and instructed firefighter Scott that he had 30 seconds to check the house for the man. Both doors were locked, so Scott ended up kicking in the front door. Captain Corkum said, “The elderly gentleman was in his chair unaware of what was going on, unaware of the danger [around him].” Corkum and Scott grabbed the man, lifted him up and carried him into the truck, with only minutes, maybe even seconds, to get out, and “Captain Corkum said it was one of those moments that ‘you're there doing what has to be done.’” “It's the first time,” he said, “in my 22 years that I'm looking around...and I'm like, ‘I really don't know that I'm 100 per cent going to get out of this’”. According to Captain Corkum, “Luckily...they were able to make it through the smoke and embers to get the man to the command post, where he could be assessed by paramedics.” After, Scott said, “My heart grew a little bit. I was very, very happy when we passed him off”. He continued: And then it was just moments later before we're on to the next task. But there was this brief, beautiful moment where we knew he was going to get back to his family. Corkum and Scott “then went on to help evacuate a home in Upper Tantallon, where a family was still packing items” and could not escape. Captain Corkum said to the media, “It was an unprecedented fire for me, just with the speed and the forward momentum that fire had and just the sheer amount of fire”. He went on to say, “I've never seen anything like it in my 22 years, that's for sure.” According to Brendan Meagher, “even though the pair knew it was dangerous, they kept going.” He stated: They kept going, they got to the house, they got in and they got him in that truck and...they got out of there and they saved his life. I believe, as do most Nova Scotians, that what they did was remarkable and heroic. According to Captain Corkum, this was only one story of those told during these devastating fires. I'm sure there are many people with many stories of real heroism that we will hear from in the coming days. I would like to share with members another experience I had during this time in my riding last week. The next day after that fire, Monday, May 29, after attending the morning news conference with the Halifax deputy fire chief, I drove two hours south to the town of Shelburne. I went to the fire hall and command centre, which was managing the fire for the municipality. I met with Fire Chief Locke. He and his crew had just arrived back from Clyde River, where they were battling the spread of the Barrington Lake fire. It was quickly becoming the largest fire in the history of Nova Scotia, with 65,000 acres on fire. In Clyde River, the fire had jumped the highway, as it had jumped across the lake a few hours earlier. Chief Locke told me that the freight train speed and the power of the fire overcame the firefighters, who had to abandon their hoses and gear and jump into their trucks; they barely escaped with their lives. He has been a firefighter for 50 years, and he had a hard time with his emotions as he described what his team faced. The flames they were battling reached 200 feet high and whirled around them. This happened time and again to crews battling this beast. Half the county was evacuated. Yesterday, the fire was only declared held; it is not growing beyond the 65,000 acres. More than 200 kilometres of the area has been destroyed. The Halifax fire is now 100% contained. The two fires incinerated more than 300 private property houses and buildings, destroying homes, dreams, family treasures, vehicles and everything dear to these families, and to us, including pets, dogs and cats, that were lost in the flames. The job of rebuilding for these families is immense. It is going to take time before everyone can return home safely. Knowing that the fire cannot resurface and restart is essential. The 190 professional volunteer firefighters who have kept the Barrington Lake fire out of the towns of Barrington and Shelburne are exhausted. They worked 18 hours a day. A member of my constituency team, Tyson Ross, is one of these firefighters; he slept in his own bed for the first time two nights ago. However, they know the work is not done. They need to get the 65,000 acres secure and fire-free before residents, who simply want to go home, can do so safely. They left their jobs to save their communities. They left their families to risk their lives to save others. They left their own evacuated houses in the fire zone to save the houses of their neighbours and strangers. The words “thank you” seem desperately insufficient for what they have done for our province and these communities, given what we owe them. Nonetheless, I will conclude by thanking the volunteer firefighters who fought and controlled the fires at Beech Hill Road and Pubnico. I want to send an enormous thanks to the hundreds of firefighters who fought, and got under control, the Halifax fire, and who have enabled all but a few thousand of the 16,000 residents to return home. From the bottom of my heart, I thank the 190 firefighters who have fought, and continue to fight, the largest fire in the history of our province, known as the Barrington Lake fire, and the Lake Road fires in Shelburne County, over the last 14 days.
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  • Jun/8/23 11:26:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as an MP who understands his riding and was on the ground during these fires and talking to firefighters, I know what started the fires. The reason I wrote that is because the Halifax fire was a fire in the suburbs. The minister should know this, but he apparently does not. It was not a forest fire. It ran through houses. Sixteen thousand people were evacuated, not in a forest but in a suburb.
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  • Jun/8/23 11:27:33 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member did not listen to my speech, or maybe he was having too many conversations. I did not criticize the government once during my speech. My speech was about a tragedy that is happening in my community. People are losing their houses and will not get back to their lives for years. That is what my speech was about. The member should have listened a little more to it. I did not speak about oil and gas. I did not criticize the government. In fact, I have been very public and very vocal in thanking the Minister of Emergency Preparedness for being so helpful and responsive in working with the provincial government, with me and with local representatives to fight this fire with the resources Canada has. Perhaps, in future, before a member asks a question, they should actually listen to the speech.
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  • Jun/8/23 11:29:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith and I served together on the fisheries committee, and she is very passionate about the fisheries issues, as am I. I am surprised she did not ask me about Bill C-365 from the 42nd Parliament, which was introduced by our colleague on the fisheries committee, the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap. His bill sought to amend the Criminal Code to establish specific penalties related to the theft of firefighting equipment. It also would have created an aggravating circumstance for sentencing if the mischief involved firefighting equipment. Finally, it would have established sentencing objectives in relation to the theft of such equipment. Rather than expressing support for the firefighters, which the member had a chance to do, the Bloc and the Liberals at that time, although I know the member is of the class of 2021 and was not there, all voted against the bill that would have penalized people for stealing firefighting equipment to help us fight these fires.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand here tonight to speak to the bill presented by the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Bill C-294, regarding interoperability, and the member who spoke previous to me, the member for Mirabel, who is my seatmate, spoke eloquently about the impacts and the structure of this on the agriculture industry, which I will come to. However, if you will provide me a little leeway, Mr. Speaker, as members know, the Speaker's riding and mine have had some dramatic forest fires these last two weeks. In the context of this bill and agriculture, I just want to stand up and thank a few people in the riding and in the Speaker's riding who have done an amazing job dealing with the issue of livestock that had to be evacuated. It is a huge issue. People do not generally think about that in these kinds of fires, but on Cape Sable Island in Shelburne County there was agriculture livestock, and a lot of it, that had to be quickly evacuated, because it is tough to move it slowly. They actually did not have an evacuation order, but they moved it out in case. They moved it to the exhibition in Yarmouth, in the Speaker's riding, and they were fantastic to deal with. They took in a lot of animals and kept them safe and healthy, as did the exhibition in Bridgewater, in my riding. It was a full house of livestock that had to be safely moved and stored, which is no small effort. I would like to thank both those organizations for all the volunteer work they did to protect the animals. In Bill C-294, the summary says that the enactment would amend the Copyright Act to allow a person, in certain circumstances, to circumvent, or get around, a technological protection measure, TPM, which is a technical term, to make a computer program interoperable, or in other words to make a computer program work with any device or component, or with a product they manufacture. On this bill, we need to start with what the purpose of the Copyright Act is, and the member for Mirabel touched on it. The Copyright Act provides exclusive rights for authors and creators of works. It can be an artistic work, a dramatic work, a musical work or a literary work, and the latter category encompasses computers and computer programs. These exclusive rights are collectively referred to as “copyright”. Copyright provides the rights holder, the person who created the work, the sole authority to perform specific acts vis à vis the product. They control what happens to their product. That is the purpose of copyright, and these rights are listed under section 3 of the Copyright Act and include the sole right to reproduce the works, so that the owner and creator is the only one who can reproduce that work, or they can choose to rent that work out to somebody else, and that includes a computer program, like when we sign up for or buy Windows. We buy a licence, but we we do not actually own the software. That is owned by the manufacturer, but the manufacturer can license those out. A copyright generally lasts for a person's lifetime plus 50 years. Other persons may use a protected work under certain circumstances. The owner of a copyright may assign it to another person. They may also license the use of the work with or without conditions, often in return for a payment or royalties. What is this act doing on artistic copyright related to the issue of technology and specifically farm equipment? An important part of that is that section 41 of the Copyright Act defines circumventing a TPM, which I referred to earlier, as descrambling a scrambled work, decrypting an encrypted work or otherwise avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating or impairing the TPM. In other words, circumventing it is trying to find a way to use that computer program or work that one was not authorized to use as a person who is not the original rights holder. This is an important part of what this is trying to get at. The member who is putting this bill forward worked quite extensively with people in his riding who are concerned and having trouble delivering their businesses. With increased computerization in the development of everything that we buy or do, whether it be a cellphone or even a fridge now, as everything has computer chips the technology can be used to actually be anti-competitive. It can be used to make it exclusive so that nobody else can access or connect another device to that device, in order to make someone buy their other devices and not be able to buy a competitor's device. It is becoming more difficult over time for manufacturers to market their innovative products if they cannot connect to the original product if it requires that. Large companies such as John Deere, which the member for Mirabel mentioned, have introduced what are called digital locks on machinery. This move restricts access to repair or interoperate the tractor or equipment with another manufacturer's equipment. One cannot even go in and repair it, whether it is on warranty or not, unless it is through an authorized dealer. That is a primary concern as to operating farm equipment because when a repair of this type of equipment needs to be done, it is not done when one is not harvesting, but done when one is out in the field. It is very difficult often to get those who are the only authorized repair people to actually be able to come out, repair that equipment, get the parts and do it all in a timely manner so that one can get back to one's work in farming. Every day lost is an important and costly loss for that farmer. As a result of all that, those who are significantly disadvantaged by this have been calling for changes that would safeguard both the right to repair and the right to connect one manufacturer's equipment to another manufacturer's equipment. One may prefer a different combine from the combine that John Deere has one's equipment hooked up to. That is a big issue. What this bill attempts to do is allow, in certain circumstances, an individual who owns that equipment to seek repair from suppliers or even on their own by accessing it and getting it repaired without having to go to that authorized dealer only. That “authorized dealer only” concept is a sort of monopolistic trait that says that if I can only go to that dealer then I am sort of held captive to what that dealer is going to charge me for those repairs. It prevents a free and open market. We are going to see this not only in farm equipment but with everything in our lives. Try to buy one's home appliances from different manufacturers. If they are all computerized and one is from one manufacturer and the other from another manufacturer, although they are supposed to be able to “talk” to each other they will not be able to because of these restrictions around TPMs and the inability to do this. The member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands began working with all of these groups and put together, as the member for Mirabel said, a very simple bill. It is not very long. It is two clauses and it repairs that simple clause in the act. I would commend the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands for tackling this. Sometimes it is confused with the right to repair, which is another private member's bill before this House, which is the right for us to repair a certain thing in a certain way. This bill makes sure that, if one wants to connect two pieces of equipment together that have technological protection, one will be able to get that done without breaking the law. As we consider this going forward, I will be supporting the bill. We studied it at the industry committee. It is now here for third reading. I would encourage all members of this House to support this important bill, which is pro-competition.
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