Evidence of meeting #20 for Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was education.
A recording is available from Parliament.
March 24th, 2011 / 12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here this morning.
I'll start with you, Mr. McGreal, if I could. You're the associate vice-president of research at Athabasca. What's your academic background?
12:45 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
Computer technologies and education.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Excellent.
When was Athabasca University first established?
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
So you've seen this transition to the digital age, and you've obviously needed to have your mandate of online and distance education unfold and move with the transition to the digital age.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Do you see advantages in Bill C-32 in further assisting the move to the digital age within the context of online?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
Absolutely. I think it's a good bill. I'm just talking about minor amendments, one of them in proposed section 30.01, I think, about recognizing that distance education is the equivalent of classroom education. This is really important for us.
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
So yes, I do support the bill. It's just that there are some very small things that don't seem to make sense to me.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Understood. So just briefly, how does the addition of education to fair dealing help Athabasca fulfill its mandate of providing online and distance education?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
Sorry, but how does what...?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
How does the addition of education to fair dealing help Athabasca University fulfill its mandate?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
Well, I think it gives it clarity. Right now, it's just our researchers who can avail themselves of fair dealing, or so we think. If you add education, then we could use it in the learning context. We wouldn't feel guilty about moving from one website to another with students, sharing limited amounts of material, and taking advantage of the fair dealing rights available in the distance education scenario. Before, we were in limbo: we didn't know if we were legal or not legal.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Lastly, you spoke earlier in response to a previous question about this notion of a fair dealing economy. Could you just elaborate a little on that? What is the fair dealing economy and why is this so important?
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
There's a recent report. If you look up “fair use” and the digital economy in the U.S., you'll probably find it, or I can get it for you. The digital economy is an economy of about $2.2 trillion, as compared to the IP economy, which was around the same, at $2.2 trillion. It's all these industries that I mentioned: web-hosting companies, search engines, software developers, device manufacturers, news agencies, etc. They all use the fair dealing, and they're stronger in the United States because fair use is a broader concept than fair dealing.
But we have all of these industries. They're growing in Canada. I'd like to see a study of it in Canada, because I think people would be shocked. People are putting on their blinkers in saying “we have to protect IP, we have to protect IP”, and I agree with them--
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
We have to protect IP, but there's another economy that depends on fair dealing, and it's just as powerful and just as important for all of us.
12:50 p.m.
Associate Vice-President, Research, Athabasca University
Not only that, it's the right thing to do.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Great.
Ms. Moore, thank you very much for being here today. I have a CNIB office in my riding of Waterloo. I'm very familiar with its importance and the valuable work and services you provide.
Bill C-32 clarifies the rights of persons with perceptual disabilities, as you've also concurred with. Could you just briefly explain why that's so important? Secondly, what are the practical day-to-day uses of the exceptions that we've provided for in terms of alternate formats?
12:50 p.m.
National Director, Consumer and Government Relations, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
Proposed section 32 really needs to be understood as an interim measure. The context is that it's interim.
What it means is that it allows associations working with persons with perceptual disabilities--the associations typically are non-profit or under-resourced, as there's very little private industry there, unfortunately--to be able to afford, in CNIB's case, to have a library that has 86,000 titles; to be able to do all of the manipulation, etc., required in order to create an alternate format of that material and house it, store it, deliver it, host it on a web; and to be able afford that without having to incur the additional expense of paying royalties.
Now, we buy the books--I want to be clear there--but we have the option of being exempt from buying more than one copy, etc.
In a perfect world, in a world that would work much better and really increase the equity between the availability of accessible library materials versus regular print materials or the print versions, be they digital.... Because right now only about 10% is available in alternate format through a library service, ours or Quebec's or otherwise.
A perfect world would be publishers that were able to work out a business model that worked for them, that worked for the rights holders, outside of the framework, necessarily, of the legislation, that allowed for the production of accessible files, master files or whatever, that we could simply receive; or, even better, publishers that simultaneously produced accessible alternate format along with their mainstream format so that in fact the two become one. Mainstream format becomes alternate format at the same time.
There are examples of that. Technologically we're moving there. Technologically, in terms of not the material itself but the device to use it, the iPad tablet....And I have no stock in Apple--
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Or the RIM PlayBook, which will be released in just a matter of weeks.