Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Michèle Clarke. I'm the director of government relations and policy research for the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. I'm accompanied today by Claude Brulé, the dean of the faculty of technology and trades at Algonquin College, here in Ottawa.
I would like to thank the committee for extending an invitation to our association to appear here to speak on this important bill.
The Association of Canadian Community Colleges, or ACCC, as it's commonly referred to, is the national and international voice of Canada's 150 colleges, institutes, polytechnics, CEGEPs, university colleges, and universities with a college mandate. With campuses in 1,000 rural and remote communities and urban communities, and 1.5 million learners and 60,000 educators, these institutions draw students from all socio-economic quarters and supply graduates with the advanced skills essential to Canada's economic growth and productivity. Canadian colleges host applied research and innovation projects carried out in partnership with Canadian business communities.
Colleges play a pivotal role in Canadian skills development and in building greater capacity for our Canadian economy. Copyright law is therefore important to them as both creators and users of copyright material.
Colleges understand the need for balance and clarity in the Copyright Act. Bill C-11 helps achieve this by providing a legal framework for areas of copyright law that are currently not addressed in our country's current written law.
Digital technology is rapidly changing the face of post-secondary education in Canada. New technologies are providing teachers and students with fantastic opportunities for teaching and learning in many new ways. Without a clear and modern copyright law, teachers and students may have to forego some of these opportunities provided by technological development.
We welcome the education amendments in the legislation, particularly those dealing with the educational use of the Internet. ACCC supports Bill C-11 for it passes two fundamental tests for our post-secondary community: number one, it strikes a fair and reasonable balance between the rights of copyright owners and users of copyright works; and number two, it has achieved, in large measure, being technologically neutral and meeting the needs of teachers and students today.
ACCC recommends some minor amendments to Bill C-11 that do not alter the essential balance that has been struck in the bill. A summary of these can be found in ACCC's brief addendum, which will be submitted to the committee in the days ahead. The addendum is relatively identical to the brief that was submitted last year by ACCC, with some minor modifications to reflect the new language in Bill C-11.
I would like to share three key points.
First, ACCC strongly supports the educational use of the Internet amendment. It is balanced, reasonable, and a necessary clarification of rights for teachers and students in the digital age. Bill C-11 is needed to provide a clear, modern, and balanced framework for educational use of copyright in the digital age.
Second, ACCC supports the addition of education to the fair dealing purposes. The fear that adding education will allow unlimited copying is unfounded. Copying must still be fair in order to be fair dealing, as set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004. Colleges are not trying to get out of paying for copyright materials. Colleges have paid and will continue to pay for millions of textbooks, periodicals, course packs, digital databases, and collective licences. Nothing in Bill C-11 will change that.
However, the bill needs to clarify that fair dealing can include making copies for a class of students, provided the dealing otherwise qualifies as fair. The U.S. has a fair use provision that is far broader in scope than what is proposed in Bill C-11. The U.S. fair use provision explicitly permits the making of multiple copies of a work for classroom use. Despite this broad fair use provision, the educational publishing industry in the U.S. would appear to continue to thrive.
Third, Bill C-11's digital lock provisions are unnecessarily broad. A better approach is to prohibit breaking a lock only if the purpose is to infringe. Breaking a lock to engage in a lawful activity such as fair dealing should not be prohibited.
We urge the government to enact this legislation. This is an opportunity to safeguard Canadians' learning objectives for generations to come.
I thank you for this opportunity. My colleague and I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.