International Trade committee  I don't know if I would quite phrase it that way, but we have agreed through certain conventions, including the Berne Convention, where we were supposed to be aligned with our international trading partners. I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons why they decided not to proceed, including the point that copyright is kind of a complicated subject.

International Trade committee  I would also add that—

International Trade committee  Who would I say are the winners from not extending the copyright term? I'm not sure that there are any winners, to be honest. The songwriters themselves, of course, are not the winners because what happens when you extend copyright is that we are able to continue to receive revenue on hit songs and songs that we have been publishing for many years.

International Trade committee  Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members, for this opportunity. I'm sorry I'm not available to be there in person. I've had the pleasure of owning and running a Canadian-owned independent music publishing business for almost two decades. I'm here today with Casey Chisick of Cassels, who is external legal counsel to both Music Publishers Canada and my companies.