Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes.

But isn't it a little worrisome that no such analysis was done? The consequence is that this could really hurt certain segments of the industry, rights holders in particular and creators.

It seems to me that when you draft a bill, you try to anticipate the consequences as much as possible.

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Yes, absolutely, but we are part of the evaluation process, as we speak.

I was involved in preparing Bill C-60, which led to a number of studies and, ultimately, Bill C-61. We held consultations for an entire summer. We followed the process in committee, and the fine tuning of the bill will occur right here. You will be hearing from the parties who will talk about its specific consequences for their business plans and their circumstances.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, but it's after the fact—in other words, once the bill has already been drafted, the committee is meeting, we're talking and asking questions and looking for answers.

This is a general question. I'm not trying to trick you. It seems to me that it is particularly worrisome that no attempt was made to assess the consequences of these changes on our rights holders, particularly since it's fairly easy to do that.

In some cases, you probably met with the same people that I did. You probably got the same answers that I did. We know that because of certain provisions or clauses, specific rights will be lost. That means a loss of income.

Let's go even further. If we conclude that there are income losses resulting from the loss of certain rights, will it be possible to amend the legislation as we go along to add something that is not there now? I'm not referring to anything in particular. I'm not necessarily talking about levies. I'm talking about some means of compensating rights holders. Will it be possible as we go along to add something that isn't already there?

[John Connell]

Perhaps I could address the matter of the studies that have been carried out and then underline the public service's work on this bill. I would say that it has been extensive. There's been extensive analysis and advice provided to ministers.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

My question is very precise. Can we add something to compensate that is not in the bill?

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

Mr. Chairman, I think that's a procedural issue that you and your team would be in a better position to....

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes. We'll discuss this later.

However, in your opinion--

[Jean-Pierre Blais]

We are not experts on parliamentary procedure.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

So you have not considered that. Fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

We just have a few moments left, and we'll move to Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you as well to our witnesses for coming.

I want to direct the short time I have to Ms. Downie.

As was mentioned by my colleague, Bill C-32 was developed after one of the largest consultations in Canadian history on copyright reform. Our government listened to stakeholders from coast to coast to coast, and we believe Bill C-32 represents what we see as a balance between creators and users.

Could you share a bit about what was heard at those consultations and how the bill addresses what was heard?

[Colette Downie]

I do have a long list of the many things we did hear from stakeholders that were addressed in the bill. I'm having difficulty finding that in my notes right now, for some reason. I apologize for that.

Here it is. The first thing is that we did hold consultations, as you said, and we heard from a very large number of Canadians. All of that material and all the input we received, including in the town hall meetings and the round table meetings the ministers held across the country, is all still available on our website.

Because of the time, I'll touch on some of the key things we heard during the consultation.

The first was that Canadians told us they wanted a technology-neutral framework that would stand the test of time. This bill, as you've heard, does include many provisions that are designed to be technology neutral and reflect the reality of an ever-evolving media and technology landscape.

Canadians also said they didn't think it was fair that they, as individuals, could potentially face huge penalties for copyright infringement, so the bill creates two categories of behaviour to which statutory damages—it's a special tool in the act that you'll hear a lot about—distinguish between the commercial and non-commercial. For non-commercial infringement, the penalties that are in the Copyright Act are significantly reduced.

Copyright owners told us they needed some new rights and protections to sustain online business models and bring us into line with our international obligations. As you've heard, the bill implements the rights and protections of the WIPO treaties, for that very reason.

Copyright owners told us that their online and digital models depended on strong protections for digital locks. Again, as you've heard, for the future the bill proposes protections for digital locks for those who choose to use them. It doesn't require, though, that businesses use digital locks.

Canadians told us they wanted to make reasonable uses of digital content. The bill legitimizes many common everyday uses of copyrighted materials—things like format shifting, for example, on our PVRs.

Finally, users said they wanted more flexibility when it came to using copyrighted material. As a result, the bill expands the existing fair-dealing provisions in the act to allow for education as a purpose for fair dealing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right. Thank you very much.

That's going to be it for today. The next meeting will be on Monday at 3:30.

I'd like to thank our departmental officials for appearing today.

This meeting is adjourned.