To look at the proposed section that's being referred to, what it says at the beginning is that:
For the purposes of this section, “lesson” means a lesson, test or examination, or part of one, in which, or during the course of which, an act is done in respect of a work or other subject-matter by an educational institution or a person acting under its authority
—and here is the key wording—
that would otherwise be an infringement of copyright but is permitted under a limitation or exception under this Act.
Just to be clear, what we're talking about here is the allowance of an opportunity to do something that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Everything else in terms of the way teaching is done is still allowed in the way that it always has been. Teachers will prepare their notes. My wife is a teacher. She'll still be able to prepare lesson plans and keep those lesson plans and use them in the future. What it allows is a situation wherein.... I'll use an example.
I don't know where Andrew Cash went to school, but he is a performer. If he decided that he wanted to, and one of the teachers invited him back to perform for a class—perhaps an arts class, or something like that—he could go back and perform. In our previous world, where there weren't distance learning opportunities, he would perform, everyone would watch that, it would be part of the lesson, they would learn something and maybe take notes on it—whatever the case—and everything would be okay. What is not allowed, and has never been allowed, is for a student to tape that performance and keep that performance forever, unless Mr. Cash gives permission to do so.
That's what this is trying to address. What it's saying is that it's necessary to make a copy of this performance, or a “fixation” as the rules call it, so that a student in Nunavut could actually see that performance and take part in the class and be able to benefit from seeing Mr. Cash perform and perhaps hear him talk about his experience. But it doesn't allow them to keep a copy forever of Mr. Cash's performance, unless, of course, Mr. Cash decides that he wants to allow that, in which case, according to the first paragraph here, it wouldn't be an infringement of copyright anymore, because Mr. Cash would have given people the right to do it.
That's an important clarification. I don't know whether you have any comment on that, but I think the focus needs to be on this as an opportunity that otherwise doesn't exist. And it takes nothing away from teachers' or professors' ability to teach the way they always have or prepare the way they always have, or from students' ability to take notes on those things and keep them forever.