The Conservatives released a radio ad yesterday accusing the opposition of supporting a levy on iPods.
The Liberals have protested, they point out their press release which states,
“The Liberal Party does not support the iPod levy. It is not sustainable in a world of changing technology, and is unpopular with consumers,” said Marc Garneau, Liberal Industry, Science and Technology Critic. “Canadians are already using multipurpose media devices to listen to music, like Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and computer livestreaming, on which the levy would not apply.”
Words in a press release are nice, but how have they voted on the issue?
Concurrence in Committee Reports
Pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), the House proceeded to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion of Mrs. Lavallée (Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert), seconded by Mr. Pomerleau (Drummond), — That the First Report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, presented on Wednesday, March 17, 2010, be concurred in. (Concurrence in Committee Reports No. 1)
You can see how the Liberals voted to accept the first report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage here (they voted for it).
And that report that they voted to accept is here.
It reads,
Pursuant to Standing order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the Committee on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, your Committee recommends:
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), that the Committee report the following to the House as soon as possible:
That the Committee recommends that the government amend Part VIII of the Copyright Act so that the definition of “audio recording medium” extends to devices with internal memory, so that the levy on copying music will apply to digital music recorders as well, thereby entitling music creators to some compensation for the copies made of their work.
This unfortunately is another case of the Liberals saying one thing and then saying another. Are we to believe their press releases or how they vote?
Michael Ignatieff signed his name to the Coalition agreement, then said he was against one, then famously said “a Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition”. His latest position is that there is no coalition.
He’s also flip-flopped on EI, the GST, and the Iraq war among other things. We must allow for people to change their minds but when it is done as unprincipled political expediency we have a more difficult time discounting previous words and actions.