Evidence of meeting #106 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 content.
3 p.m.
University Librarian, Dalhousie University, Chair of the Board of Directors, Council of Atlantic University Libraries
Form every small press in Canada, and everything that's published in Atlantic Canada.
3 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
So you are considerably aware.
Ms. Workman, you impressed upon us in your opening remarks that we should look after indigenous.... When you said “indigenous,” am I to assume that you only meant first nations, or would you mean indigenous like the types of writers whom Ms. Bulger says she represents, who are indigenous to the Maritimes?
3 p.m.
Communications Manager, Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers
Certainly ours would be to the Maritimes, but across the country I think it's important to deal directly with the first nations and indigenous communities.
3 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I want to understand whether you also see some need or interest in helping the indigenous who are not necessarily first nations.
3:05 p.m.
Communications Manager, Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers
Yes.
3:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
We'll get back to you.
We're going to go back to Mr. Lloyd for five minutes.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you.
I have one quick point to follow up on your very good explanation. You noted that printing has gone down. Wouldn't you say one of the primary causes of this could be that people are able to do these things at home?
3:05 p.m.
Board of Directors Liaison to the Copyright Committee and Director of Libraries and Educational Technology, Council of Atlantic University Libraries
No, I'd say the biggest cause is the change in landscape in the educational sector. Our users are expecting and demanding more electronic content. At NSCC, we're spending about 80% of our collections budget on electronic resources, which means journals and e-books, as well as streaming media content. It's not a correlation to fair dealing; it's a correlation to reality.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you. I appreciate that.
President Campbell, I could see you were chomping at the bit under my previous line of questioning, to have a chance to respond.
3:05 p.m.
Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell
I just wanted to add that the vast majority of our faculty members are authors in their own right. I am. I write copyright materials to be published. The idea that our faculty members would be interested in some kind of widespread abuse of copyright doesn't pass the sniff test for me.
We live in this world where we're writing materials that are copyright. It's impossible not to notice that a huge issue for universities across the country is open access journals, for example, where a copyright is established but not necessarily paid for. It's a really complex area. I don't envy you your task, but I would defend the university communities as a whole as wanting to be in compliance with the legislation that we have, and at the same time really wanting our publishers to succeed.
I guess where we might disagree with our publishers is over the role of fair dealing, so we don't think it's the right tool for our creative community, but we're not the creative community...except when we are.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I appreciate those comments and am certainly not accusing the university of engaging in deliberate copyright infringement. I understand that you and many of your faculty are creators, but wouldn't you say there's a clear distinction between people who are tenured or paid as members of a university, as opposed to the clients of Ms. Bulger here, who are private citizens? These publishers are not granted pay from an institution or from a government; these people depend upon royalty cheques for their living.
Wouldn't you say it doesn't affect the teachers who are professors creating copyrighted materials as much, because they have a source of income? By contrast, for the publishers Ms. Bulger is representing, this is their only source of income, or at least their primary source of income, so it's in their vested interest.
3:05 p.m.
Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell
I agree absolutely. Somehow for me it's like being boiled in oil to be sitting next to Ms. Bulger engaging in this argument. We generally don't think the issues you're trying to address are properly addressed through fair dealing. We think there are other vehicles through which the issues you're raising need to be addressed. It's never been easy to make a living as a writer at any time in Canada, or indeed in any other place. I guess I don't agree that the right vehicle for addressing that particular issue is fair dealing for educational institutes, but there are big issues here. We all want to have a creative community that's prosperous.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I'm sorry to cut you off. I'm going to give my colleague the last minute, but I appreciate that.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thank you very much.
Ms. Bulger, are you familiar with the syllabus service that UNB has? They explained it a little in terms of how they manage fair dealing.
3:10 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Oh, okay. I was banking on that, whether or not that satisfied some of your concerns. I guess if you're not fully aware of it, then the question's moot, anyway, so I'll hand it back over—or you might as well use up a good minute with that.
3:10 p.m.
Co-owner, Nimbus Publishing
I would say that the numbers aren't there. When I hear these lovely numbers with regard to what's happening at the institutions to support the creative economy, that wouldn't be our experience. I can't speak for every publisher on that. I don't know where they buy the books. They can buy their books from wholesalers. They can buy them from bookstores. I can't say that they're not purchasing the books. They purchase very little from us, and as I said earlier, we don't see the transactional licences. We don't see much of that at all.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to continue with my line of questioning. I'm going to make the assumption that everything I've heard is correct. I do believe you've all told me what you believe to be correct: that it's about $300 million, and out of that maybe, say, 10% has disappeared, in whatever way, from the publishers; and that the libraries and universities want to support our Canadian content creators. That's all I'm hearing about. I don't really care about content creators outside of Canada.
I'm also going to allude to what I hear from the libraries and universities, that you want to support them but you don't believe fair dealing is the right vehicle to support them. If you do want to support them—you'll all get a chance to answer the question—buying two books is not a serious way of supporting them. Let's call that truthful, too.
When I went to high school, I had to buy a lot of Canadian books, Canadian authors to read. Quite frankly, my class of 30 people had to buy 30 books, one class alone. If we want to support them, I'd like to hear from you now—and each one of you will have a chance—about how we can support our Canadian content creators in a meaningful way. If it's going to cost about $30 million, what's your share and how can it be done?
I'll start with you, Mr. Campbell.
3:10 p.m.
Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell
Essentially, we believe we pay for what we use.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I'm asking a question. Very specifically, how can we support our Canadian content creators? I'm not asking if you're paying.... I believe everything you said. You've said you want to. How can we?
You don't want the New Brunswick writers to disappear, I suppose.
3:10 p.m.
Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell
No.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
3:10 p.m.
Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell
Yes.
3:10 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
—but buying two books is not going to keep them alive. How can we do it?