I would just say it's quite different from blank tapes, where I would make a mix tape for someone and utilize content from my own private collection to give to someone else. We're past blank CDs. Again, simply adding more cost to consumers—you're a consumer, I'm a consumer—I don't think that's right. But as parliamentarians, what is fundamental to us is government cannot tax without the consent of the people. And that's where any of these changes have to come from this committee.
When you bring forward a proposal from here, we do expect there to be good answers for this. It can't just be “we're hurting”, because everyone out there is challenged by this new technology. I would say that if you're going to come to a committee and ask for us to ask Canadians to pay more for something that they may not use, we should have good reasons as to why it's a special case.
We've heard at this committee that some of the publishers have suffered greatly. That might compromise the ecosystem for producing new materials. I'm concerned about that. We have to have those kinds of things fleshed out.
I appreciate that you don't have all the answers. I certainly don't myself. But when you come to a committee and you're asking us to use that ancient power to tax the people, we need to have good reasons.