Thank you.
I want to start by making a general observation. Our clerk came here this morning and described the staff as being diligent, which is high praise indeed, given its source. It's a bit like the Buddha appearing and telling you that you are contemplative.
I was going over this stuff, and I was trying to think of when House of Commons copyright rules have ever come into effect that have had some kind of influence in causing it to banish the Internet. The example that occurred to me was this. I believe that on the Wikipedia pages, all of us have articles written about us, with varying degrees of relationship to the truth. At any rate, we all have articles about us on Wikipedia. Pictures are posted. On my own there was a picture put up that I'm pretty sure was the House of Commons photograph of me in probably the 38th Parliament, and then it disappeared. I think it was because they were going along trying to get themselves fully compliant with the various copyright rules. I suspect that this happened, although I haven't actually gone through and checked, to many members of Parliament on the same basis.
Several thoughts come from that. One is that what would seem to be a reasonably harmless use of copyrighted information is now being prevented. The second thought is that still images are, in some respects, different from video. There may be cause to consider these things separately as we design some kind of generic notice. There might be cause for having several of them.
That was just an observation.
In terms of questions, though, with regard to the italicized words in the proposed generic notice, it does refer to distribution or use for electoral or partisan political purposes, and also for satire, for that matter. Doesn't that represent an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? I realize that there is no protection for commercial speech. That's a matter that could be debatable in the United States but is not under our charter.
It is one thing to go from general copyright restrictions to saying that we are now moving to a different world. You can use this for all kinds of purposes, but not when it comes to actually trying to influence people's behaviour in voting. And that does not apply just during a writ period, when you have the normal rules about attaching approval based on official agent criteria. It is actually saying that I can never use this if my goal is to influence people's behaviour. Surely what we say and do in this place is a relevant consideration. If I want to refer back and explain that this person deserves your vote or doesn't deserve your vote, or that the content of what they are saying deserves or doesn't deserve consideration, it seems to me that if it were taken before the courts, it would be seen as being a restriction on freedom of speech. And I would argue that section 1 of the charter would not save it.