Industry Committee on May 7th, 2018

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

Right.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

As we're studying the Copyright Act, I want to reference another piece of work the government is doing.

This was announced by our justice minister, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, and the Prime Minister on the creation of a working group of ministers that is reviewing the laws and policies related to indigenous people. The objective of this is to look at the colonial laws that exist and their impact on indigenous people in our country, to make sure we are going to be able to implement the recommendations coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and be respectful to the UN declaration, etc.

Can you help us understand? Share with us the very barriers that actually exist right now, so we get to look at it as a committee in consideration of our recommendations, because we know this other working group is doing something different but connected.

Help me understand that, or talk to us about that, please.

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

I'm almost wanting to turn the question around and ask what you know is being discussed by this other committee in terms of copyright issues. We don't hear any of that, right? Whether you do, I'm not sure.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

No.

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

The problem for us is that it could happen that the copyright law doesn't get changed, so our barrier would still be the same. In order to publish these stories, we might end up having to go to court if we are sued for infringing the claimed copyright of the collector.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Right. I'm trying to look at it from an understanding of what the issues are. I don't know what the group is studying. It has a broad framework, but for sure this committee is studying the Copyright Act. Clearly, the Copyright Act in its current form has an impact on our indigenous people.

I'm trying to understand the various forms in which it has that impact. One is the right belonging to the content creator, and it being taken away.

Can you give me other examples and help us understand a bit better?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

I've been so immersed in this struggle that I don't know a lot of other examples, but I do know that there have been other cases.

There was a case I'd heard of some years ago in B.C. where a similar experience was had by the first nations community. I'm not sure if it was Daughters of Copper Woman, that collection of stories. All I know is that others have been dealing with the same problem and trying to stand up and fight it, but as far as I know nobody has really.... Perhaps your committee has heard from some of these communities where this has happened.

I guess I would be interested to know if others have come forward. I do know that Listuguj, a Mi'kmaq community in Quebec, also had some of their stories taken by others and published, as far as I know from grumblings from those communities.

I think it's basically the same story, where stories are being picked up.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

You talked about essentially 60 lifelong speakers now of Maliseet, from more than 7,000, I think, was what you said. You said there are a lot of stories already in there that you would love to be able to tell. This goes to the preservation and the future flourishment of the indigenous language and culture.

This is getting in the way because no one wants to do that at this particular juncture. Why do it if there is really no protection for it? Am I understanding correctly?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

Yes.

I'd say, too, that the families did not want to just simply retell the stories that were told on the tapes. In that way, they could have had the copyright to themselves, or we could have worked it so that we could have claimed copyright, or at least claim that they were still our stories. The families really felt very strongly that the words of their elders were important.

Our language has declined so in the last 45 to 50 years. We've had the grandchildren of some of the storytellers working with linguists on transcribing these tapes, and they are shocked at the number of words that are no longer known, even by the linguists or the dictionaries that are out there. There's that little and very important element of the language that is within these exact tapes. That's why we feel the whole prevention of our people from being able to make copies and give them out to students in class, or to even be able to play them in class, which is what we were warned against, is really sad. I guess that's the barrier, really.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

It seems to me that if we can try to crack this a bit, then it is one step further toward that reconciliation.

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

I would say that perhaps the storytellers need to be treated as performers as well.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Good. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Mr. Jeneroux. You have five minutes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Long, I'll go back to you briefly. The life plus 70 years, is that working for you? Is your membership happy with that?

[Scott Long]

I think so. I was actually curious. Was it you who said life plus 50 years? Is there a difference?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, it's 20 years.

[Scott Long]

Yes, I didn't know. I assumed that life plus 70 would go across all industries.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

No, it was only put in with respect to the music industry.

[Scott Long]

I guess I'd have to say that we're happy because we have 20 more years than these folks do.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Perfect.

That gets to my other question. Mr. Westwood, let's get you commenting on some stuff here. You said you were happy with the life plus 50 years. Is life plus 70 years something your faculty association would be advocating for?

[David Westwood]

No, I think we're happy with life plus 50, at least in our industry. I also was not aware that there was a difference between music and education.

From our standpoint, we find life plus 50 preserves the balance of enabling royalties to flow to the families of the people who've passed on, but it keeps the material current enough that it's relevant from an education standpoint. We're in favour of maintaining life plus 50.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

If it were consistent across the board as 70 years, would you still be okay with it?

[David Westwood]

I'm not sure what you mean by “across the board”. Do you mean equalizing across—

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes. So if everybody was life plus 70.

[David Westwood]

I'd have to hear the arguments for and against. I don't know why, actually, there's a difference. Do you know?