Evidence of meeting #103 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rights.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
We can come back to that.
We're going to move to Mr. Longfield. You have five minutes.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I didn't realize I was next up. I'm enjoying the conversation, though.
Ms. Amyot, today is World Intellectual Property Day and we've gotten into a new intellectual property regime, so colleges will be taking part in helping with the move-out of the ideas from Canadian researchers. I'm thinking we have a similar challenge here in terms of managing our data in Canada, managing our information that we have. I think we've seen from this conversation so far today that we don't really know the supply chain impacts all the way down. I think part of this study will need to get into that more.
I'm very concerned, and I've been concerned in the last few meetings, around Canadian content, and it was great that Mr. Lloyd was bringing that forward because, if we don't get access to Canadian content, then the researchers stop researching and we eliminate the value out of our value chain.
This is a longer question that's a lead-up. Germany has looked at its regime and it's ready to turn it up. Some major changes have been proposed in Germany. I've been reading the Australian document from March 2018. It's talking about fair use with some specified exceptions.
Where would we go among...? We need everybody at the front of the table here to help us with how we make this fair and reasonable for Canada in terms of managing the supply—I'm calling it a supply chain. I apologize to the artists and creators but that's where things start. Maybe we could go right to left in terms of management of the supply chain and how we can understand better where it isn't working, because we've been trying for a couple of meetings now to get to the bottom of it.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers' Union of Canada
I'd go back to my earlier comment about the difference between individual and sectoral or industrial use. When we are talking about copyright in the context of industrial use, we have to consider markets, and when we are talking about user rights, which is a fairly new term, I believe we have to consider individuals. These are very different things and they exist on very different scales.
When we're talking about 600 million pages of work copied every year in the educational sector, that's an industrial use. That needs to be a market. Without it, my members are losing 80% of their licensing income.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers' Union of Canada
Absolutely, something ties to volume, and something ties as well to administrative or industrial use. It's often conflated in the fair dealing debate, that it's just a student doing a single photocopy. That's not what we're talking about.
4:35 p.m.
President, Association of Canadian Publishers
I'll step in, if that's okay. I'd first like to encourage you not to think of copyright as something that's adjusted to keep cultural industries within the lines. We're supposed to do well. We're supposed to be tigers for Canadian culture, Canadian identity, and looking at—
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
If can interrupt, we're also keeping value in Canada, in our economy. The creators are participants in the economy.
4:40 p.m.
President, Association of Canadian Publishers
Absolutely, yes, the information economy, the local economy, and the national economy.
The key thing when thinking about adjustments is to attach value to payment. Doing that keeps a functioning economy. When you break that chain, you break it, and that's why the principle of specialized exceptions only is so important, and why the constant attention to not prejudicing the rights of the creator is so important. If there's payment attached to value, it works.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thanks, and both Australia and Germany have very definite exceptions that they've really worked on.
April 26th, 2018 / 4:40 p.m.
Katherine McColgan Executive Director, Canadian Federation of Library Associations
There are a couple of things to touch on here. One is that the supply chain needs to be transparent in how it's doing business. Things are very opaque right now. We have talked about that already.
The second goes to supporting Canadian creators. There are other avenues that the government could be considering. We have the Canada book fund, which is managed by Canadian Heritage. We also have the Canada Council for the Arts, which manages a number of grants and strategic funds. They also manage the public lending rights program. These are areas where the government could look at increased sustainable funding that goes directly to the creators and bypasses what we're talking about, which is the publishing industry increasing and the creators' dollars going down.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much. You're out of time.
We're going to move to Mr. Clarke for five minutes, please.
4:40 p.m.
Beauport—Limoilou, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm very glad to be on this committee for the first time. I would like to start off with.... It seems very important to acknowledge ancestral ownership of territory, but it is very important for me to acknowledge ownership of territory at the present time. I would like to say that we are in British-North American territory, and that Ottawa is the capital of Canada, as chosen by Queen Victoria. It's the capital of all Canadians, including indigenous people, of course.
I felt I needed to say that. Thank you, sir.
I'm enjoying this examination today concerning the rights of authors, because I think it goes profoundly to the roots of our liberal democracy. I see two major interests unfolding and competing today in front of me. We can see two major paradigms. One is an ideal, access to knowledge, and the other is a legal principle from John Locke, of course, the protection of property, which is at the base of what you're asking for and which is very important.
If I correctly understand what you are stating this afternoon, our goal here as parliamentarians is to carefully find equilibrium between competing interests in democracy. You seem to be telling us that in 2012 we perhaps put too much emphasis on access to knowledge, compared to the protection of rights, in this case, authors' rights. This is perhaps true. Perhaps we did that, but my question is this. If we reflect on it, many more Canadians are currently in need of access to knowledge than the number of people that you represent.
I'm not saying that to be rude or whatever, but that's what we have to do here. I'm trying to understand why in 2012 we came to this kind of reasoning and conclusion. Maybe it's just an oversight. We always do that in the House of Commons. It's normal. That's why we always review things and that's how it should work.
What you're telling us today is that we should change it because we didn't put enough emphasis on the rights and interests of authors. That's what you're basically saying.
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers' Union of Canada
I think what actually happened in 2012, and before 2012, was that a false dichotomy was introduced into the debate, which is the idea that you describe, that users and creators are competing somehow over something.
I'm a creator. All my members are creators. We are also users of copyrighted content. We've all been students. We're all engaged in this interaction with content. To set it up as a competition, as some sort of a see-saw where we have to have a perfect balance, is probably not the right way to look at it. I think we need something that works for everybody, but not necessarily something that works for everybody exactly equally at all times.
If I'm a user as well as a creator, that means, as you said, there are far more users than there are creators. You put one giant group on one side of a see-saw and a small group on the other side of the see-saw, and we're to the moon. I just don't see that as a workable way of looking at it.
4:45 p.m.
Beauport—Limoilou, CPC
Thank you very much. That's a good answer.
I would like to put a question to Ms. Amyot.
What kind of a relationship do you have with the Copyright Board of Canada? How would you describe that relationship?
4:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
We don't actually have a direct relationship with the board.
4:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Colleges and Institutes Canada
Some of our members are authors or writers. They write books or articles. That said, the main task of those who work in colleges is to teach. A nuance should be made in the case of post-secondary education. We, as an organization, do not have a relationship with the board. Book writers have a relationship with it.
I will ask my colleague Mr. Hanna whether he has a concrete example for you.
4:45 p.m.
Associate Dean, The Business School, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and Representative, Colleges and Institutes Canada
Mr. Clarke, is it about our relationship with the Copyright Board?
4:45 p.m.
Associate Dean, The Business School, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and Representative, Colleges and Institutes Canada
We are the recipients of their decisions, which we always wait very patiently for.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you.
Mr. Masse, you have two minutes....
Sorry. You guys got me all mixed up.
Ms. Dabrusin you have five minutes.