I only need a small fraction of time. I thought my friends had more time.
They're asking for a $40-million per year taxpayer handout until an iPhone tax can be implemented, not to mention a recent proposal that would subject broadband data to a copyright tax.
It's more than time enough to kill off this levy scheme in part VIII of the act. There's no “value gap” in the copyright system. There is a “values gap”, however, in the fake news that's being disseminated these days about IP in general and copyright revision in particular.
My last point, which we might have to come back to in questions, is that the elephant in the room is whether copyright tariffs are mandatory. I say they're not. I convinced the Supreme Court of Canada three years ago that they're not, but there's a lot of denial and resistance to that ruling.
For example, a tariff that sets a maximum for a train ticket from Ottawa to Toronto is fine. We used to have tariffs such as that. However, even in those days, passengers were always free to take the plane or the bus, or drive their car, or ride their bicycle, or use any other legal and usually unregulated means. It should be no different with Copyright Board tariffs.
Thank you. I'll defer to questions.