Go ahead, Mr. Bell.
Evidence of meeting #132 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #132 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
Director, External Relations and Research, Universities Canada
—and also what happens if you find an example of it not working out so well?
11:45 a.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia, Universities Canada
Yes, absolutely. We've done quite a bit to be able to do that. Our goal at the university is to remove the incentives for anyone to do inappropriate copying. We take that responsibility very seriously.
We educate the faculty, staff and students. We provide compliance assistance services, such as the e-reserve system, where trained staff look at the content to make sure that it actually follows the fair dealing guidelines. We negotiate transactional clearances for those. We negotiate the rights to post electronic content onto the LMS and we have policies that clearly require compliance with the law, with consequences if they do not.
11:45 a.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia, Universities Canada
The process is outlined in the university policy of scholarly integrity—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
It's very intricate and complicated. I was asking where the gas cap on the car is, and you're reading me the full manual.
11:45 a.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia, Universities Canada
We take copyright compliance very seriously. We've invested heavily in it—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Well, unfortunately, Mr. Bell, although I don't want to talk for everyone in this committee, it's becoming quite clear, even for the Conservatives—
11:45 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
That's why I was smiling. When Mr. Blaney was asking you about this, the reality is that his predecessor, Peter Van Loan, was under the impression that this fair dealing exception had been abused.
Bizarrely, with collective bargaining—we will be fighting all weekend on collective bargaining and the postal system—collective bargaining is a right in Canada, and the publishers have organized this the best way they could to make this happen. In Quebec, it works, but in the rest of Canada, it doesn't seem to work.
This is why if I ask you if there is any fair dealing for hydro or insurance bills, you're going to tell me, well, it's.... Yes, I understand, but the principle is that they don't get the money anymore. That's it, period. Pfft. They try to make a living. So do the hydro guys and the cafeteria people in the university. That's the point.
I think that as politicians—I've been here seven years—we've heard all the typical lobby talk from everyone: “No, we'll stand on this; this is so important”, etc. The reality is that we'll have to get together and the reality is that we saw five years ago that the fair dealing exception has created big damages. Everyone was well intentioned, I would say, but the reality is that we have to talk and we have to reach a settlement.
On that point of view, if I have some time remaining, I will ask Mr. Hanson and Mr. Swail to tell me more about the K-to-12 nuances that you come here with. There is, of course, paying the copyright, but also, for me, when it's the K-to-12 period, it should be only Canadian literature, period.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Then you evolve, and when you've finished your master's, if you've only read Canadian literature, personally I'm worried.
11:45 a.m.
President, Canadian Publishers' Council
Absolutely.
I won't make this a history lesson, but our sector has evolved very much as a result of moving from a business that was largely based on importing foreign product—American largely, but also British—to today, when not only are we leading in terms of providing the Canadian marketplace with educational resources but we're recognized globally, especially for our creative artists and creative writers, for their work right across the globe. That transition has been a result of our building a sector that tells Canadian stories by Canadian authors with Canadian voices, and it's been just as important in education as it has been with trade publishers, such as Simon & Schuster.
The best example I could probably give is Oxford University Press. When they decided to exit the K-to-12 publishing sector because of concerns over the interpretations of fair dealing, they had a Canadian history manuscript on the books. They shopped it around to the rest of the sector to see if anyone wanted to take that manuscript off their hands for publication, and nobody touched it.
There's a very real example of a Canadian history textbook that died on the vine because of a major leading global publisher having concerns about the integrity of the Canadian marketplace, and voila, we don't have another Canadian history textbook to replace it. That example can roll through almost every discipline you can think of.
Then you think about STEM—science, math, etc.—and how critical it is that our students be competitive in those fields. Our business, again, has been built on creating Canadian examples and Canadian relevance for K-to-12 classrooms, and that's seriously at risk. When something as small as 30 million bucks is taken out of the system.... It's not a highly lucrative, highly profitable business to start with.
Education is different in British Columbia from what it is in Newfoundland. I can build a beautiful textbook for Ontario; I can't sell it in Manitoba. I have to build a whole new one. It's very inefficient to start with; therefore, it's not a highly lucrative, high-margin business. Then when you slap fair dealing interpretations on top of it, it's no wonder firms make the decision to exit. That hurts everybody, but most of all it hurts students.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Randy Boissonnault Edmonton Centre, Lib.
Thanks, Madam Chair.
I wish I had 17 minutes. I've only been here for three years, and this may be one of the rare times when the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Conservatives are finding some sort of consensus on the matter.
I'd just like to clarify one thing. Yesterday we announced an aid package to assist journalists in their creative work, and today we are discussing authors and copyright.
I sympathize with Mr. Blaney and his then-government in 2012, which likely worked really closely with authors, very closely with the copyright officials, and with universities and educational institutions for a bargain. The bargain was to be fair, to respect fair dealing and to respect the 10% rule. I remember copying the chapters, but I remember paying the fee to do so.
Glenn Rollans, who has been here, has said that $26 would cover off all of Universities Canada's tariffs. That $26 per student would help to reduce the $50 million that isn't in the system. Maybe it's $50 million; I heard $30 million and $50 million, but I have documents here that say it's $50 million.
I'm a proud university grad. I went to the University of Alberta. I went to the University of Oxford. I have represented universities across the country as a student leader. What has happened is that the government, copyright and authors got into what has turned out to be a Faustian bargain with a sector of the economy that I respect greatly. The deal that was made in 2012 has not been respected by universities. Why would you choose to pay lawyers and go to court, and have no risk in doing so, and not just pay authors?
You could go to student leaders and say, “Put two cheap bottles of wine on the table, or a really good one, or put half a video game on the table to make sure the authors who are writing about LGBTQ people, indigenous people, people with disabilities, people of colour, and Canadian stories can have those books on university shelves in courses, digitally or not.”
We lead the world in AI. The Chinese are trying to beat us. We're not going to have Canadian textbooks in AI unless you fix this and start respecting the bargain that you made in 2012.
Now we have a similar conundrum in the 2017 review. Why would you choose to go to court, when there is no risk? Let me share this with you, because we can be selective in court judgments, Madam Therrien. At Federal Court in 2017, Justice Michael Phelan wrote, and I quote:
There is no explanation why 10% or a single article or any other limitation is fair.
Qualitatively, the parts copied can be the core of an author’s work, even to the extent of 100% of the work.
Equally importantly, listen to this. This is shocking: “allowing universities to copy for free that which they previously paid for” is not fair.
Help me square the circle. Why are you going to court, where you have no risk, instead of mobilizing and getting the $26 per student so that authors can be paid?
11:50 a.m.
Director, External Relations and Research, Universities Canada
I'll start.
Thank you very much for your question. I really appreciate the passion and the energy that you bring to it. I say that in all seriousness.
This is a question of balance and it is a question of transition. This is a time of transition. It started before 2012, and it has accelerated since then. Back in 2011, did we know where we would end up in 2017? Not exactly.
I think one of the challenges that the committee has before it right now—and that we all have before us as a sector where, as you say, we are interconnected with one another—is to try to predict where we need to be in the future and to set up a business model that would allow us all collectively to make the best use of taxpayer dollars. Let's not forget that education is completely taxpayer-funded in Ontario and Canada, so where are we using those resources, and to what end? To what extent should we be paying for resources?
Of course we should be paying for resources. We continue to pay for resources. We talked about that, so I'm not going to reiterate it, but we do continue to pay to clear copyright.
The business models are changing. We needed to change the way we acquired resources. We needed to change toward digital collections. At the same time, Access Copyright probably needed to change its repertoire. It sounds like there's an evolution that's happening there as well. The publishing companies also changed the way that they do business.
We need to continue to evolve together in a way that works for the Canadian taxpayer, for Canadian students, but that also respects the right for fair dealing.
11:55 a.m.
Edmonton Centre, Lib.
I need to pause you there because I want to give Mr. Tamm a minute and a half.
I understand the underfunding at the provincial levels. I come from Alberta. The province now has a big deficit, so some of this is downloading. However, it seems as though we've chosen the authors to run the bus over, and then by going to court it's like driving the bus over them again. That's not fair.
Mr. Tamm, I want to know where the balance of power is between the author, versus payment, versus universities and publishers. Who has the power? Who's the dog and who's the tail?
11:55 a.m.
Chair, The Writers' Union of Canada
We're definitely not the empowered ones on the author side.
To answer that question about litigation, why would you litigate—
11:55 a.m.
Chair, The Writers' Union of Canada
—especially when the courts are very clear?
The reason is that our advocate is Access Copyright. It collects the royalties and it has cash. We're The Writers' Union of Canada. We're a leading Canadian arts organization. However, we don't have deep pockets. Access Copyright is our advocate, meaning they pay our advocate in court.
I believe that the education sector is out to drain Access Copyright and kill it off. Once Access Copyright is killed off, we've lost our advocate to fight against universities. It's very clear, from my point of view, that it's a game of time and litigation. They can drag this out in the courts even longer and have reduced payments into Access Copyright.
The game plan from my perspective is clear.
11:55 a.m.
Edmonton Centre, Lib.
Thank you very much.
That's the first time we've heard the argument that clearly, so thank you for your passion.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
That brings us to the end of this panel. We will be continuing the discussion with our second panel.
We're going to suspend briefly to give us time to get the next set of witnesses set up.
Thank you all for your testimonies today.
Noon
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
We're going to start again.
By video conference, we have William Harnum from the Canadian Copyright Institute.
Also by video conference, we have Paul Verhaegh from the Professional Writers Association of Canada. In person, we have Doreen Pendgracs from the Professional Writers Association of Canada.
We also welcome Mr. Arnaud Foulon and Johanne Guay, from the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres.
We will begin with the witnesses who are presenting via video conference.
Let's begin with William Harnum from the Canadian Copyright Institute, please.