Mr. Chair, members of this committee, my name is Jean Lachapelle.
I am both a publisher and the owner of an SME that publishes educational teaching materials for early childhood, primary and secondary, in particular.
We are her to review the law passed in 2012. In 2012, at no time did all the actors in the book chain ask to upend one of the very foundations of our Canadian democratic society, namely respect for copyrights. That right protects the creators of intellectual content of all other types. All the exceptions that were included in the law in 2012 had a harmful, devastating effect for the publishing sector. Our profession has suffered a lot and is still suffering.
It has been discussed before me, the famous exception for fair dealing for educational purposes alone is responsible for $30 million in losses for the reproduction of excerpts of works in school systems in Canada and in Quebec.
I just want to draw a link to Copibec, the collective copyright management company, which also has a partnership with Access Copyright, which you surely know in the rest of Canada. Copibec royalties paid to authors haven fallen by 15% since the beginning and, in the rest of Canada, royalties paid by Access Copyright have fallen by 80%. So I think those kinds of numbers show that the education sector must be protected.