Industry Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2018

[Lui Greco]

As I understand it, and perhaps Mr. Rae can clarify this, if I attend a post-secondary institution in Canada, I buy the book from the bookstore. The university can then burst it, scan it, and give it to me in an alternate format without incurring any penalties or fees, or be in jeopardy of contravening its obligation.

One suggestion might be to better enable those institutions and others in the production business to be a better resource to do that. It's always a matter of resources. Scanning a book is not just a matter of pushing a button and away it goes, because technology often falls far short of doing a good job. There's always that human element that needs to go in and actually fix the text, so that if it's a chart, that chart should be properly described. That would be the only improvement that I would see.

[John Rae]

I think Mr. Greco is right. Even when you scan a book, sometimes scanning isn't perfect. If the publisher produced an accessible version to begin with, that would alleviate that problem. It would alleviate the need to spend time scanning, and it would presumably produce a better copy. After all, as far as I understand most documents these days started out electronically, so I see no reason why an accessible version in an electronic format can't be produced.

[Lui Greco]

No one is using the IBM Selectric to produce books anymore.

[John Rae]

That's right.

[Dan Albas]

The act specifies that if a work is available in the proper format in a commercially available form, it's available for a reasonable price with reasonable effort to acquire. It does not fall under the exceptions. Day-to-day tasks that we may take for granted can be very challenging for people with a disability. Should the act specify that reasonable effort is a different standard for the disabled community?

[Lui Greco]

In our opinion, sir, no. We don't apply reasonable effort to make buildings accessible. We don't say, “You must put in a ramp or you must provide a door opener only if it doesn't create an undue hardship”. We don't say that. We say, “Buildings must be accessible and usable by everyone.” Period, new paragraph.

Why do we provide those opt-outs for publishers?

We do the same thing with transportation. The Canadian Transportation Agency has similar language. Websites must be made accessible, provided that it's not an undue hardship. Terminals must make their facilities accessible to people with disabilities, provided that it doesn't create an undue barrier.

I call that nonsense. I'm not from Ottawa; I'm from Calgary. Mr. Simpson and I walked over from a hotel that I'm staying at, which is about four blocks away. Most of the intersections did not have appropriate accessibility accommodations. The ones that did were inconsistent. The beeping traffic lights or the accessible pedestrian signals, as we refer to them, didn't work.

Why do we allow that? Why is that acceptable? Bringing it back to this conversation, why do we say it's okay to produce things that are not accessible? Why is it okay that a book or a work of art that is produced with public funding is not made accessible?

Our colleagues from Toronto on the art side... Described video is not expensive, yet we have huge discussions with broadcasters and producers around the inclusion of described video. Why is it okay not to expect that content be made accessible to everyone, regardless of how they consume that work of art or media?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Now back to the Liberal side, with Ms. Celina Caesar-Chavannes.

You have five minutes.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Whitby, Lib.]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

I'll start quickly with the composers. I have a quick question in terms of the speed in which the digital era is moving forward.

It seems that we are far behind. You're giving us numbers from Netflix. You're quoting how much they're making year over year, and it's not getting into your pockets or your coffers at all.

Do you think a five-year review of the Copyright Act is sufficient, or should it happen more frequently?

[Paul Novotny]

I think something needs to happen faster than that actually, a lot faster. Things are moving at an epic pace with regard to technology.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Mr. Posner, do you agree?

[Ari Posner]

Yes, I would definitely agree. When it was last reviewed, it was, as I understand it, decided at the time that it would be five years before it would be reviewed again. Maybe that seemed appropriate at the time, but times have changed, and they're changing faster than ever.

I really believe that it's only going to be maybe in a century from now when people look back at this time and say, my God, look at what happened in the beginning of the 21st century. How did they weather that storm? It's just going up and up, the speed at which things are changing. And copyright is something that needs to keep pace with that, no matter what happens.

[Paul Novotny]

It needs to be agnostic, technologically agnostic. The copyright has to actually relate to the first ownership and to the work. It needs to allow for the technology to move so that it can basically be attached to the work, if that makes sense.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Thank you very much.

Now I'm going to move to Mr. Simpson, Mr. Greco and Mr. Rae.

I have to say that I appreciated your testimony, Mr. Greco. Stories are sticky. Your opening story about your project management course failures at the end, after you've paid your fees, was frustrating to listen to.

Mr. Rae, you talked about reinforcing human rights. If we pull away the curtain of this copyright review, I would say that a lot of what you are talking about, especially with regard to publicly funded material, is not just about copyright, it's about the right to access. If we expect to have access within the federal jurisdiction of materials in French and English, you would like it in either French or English, but you'd just like to have it, period. Is that a fair assessment of what you would want?

[John Rae]

It probably goes a bit beyond that.

We have a lot of indigenous languages in this country. There's a growing amount of literature and artistic performance in these various indigenous languages. I think we need to do more to promote that. Making some of that accessible to folks who need their languages in a more accessible manner should also be included. After all, the incidence of disability among indigenous communities is very high. I think the needs of indigenous peoples need to be considered in this context.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Are there any comments from Mr. Greco or Mr. Simpson?

[Lui Greco]

I'd say that you found it frustrating listening to it; imagine living it. Whether that be a professional career step that someone is trying to take, whether it be buying a book on gardening, or some hobby that people want to leverage to improve the quality of their life, I don't see a difference. Mine was professional. But fortunately, we have more in our life than our job. It's about not continuing to encounter those types of barriers that prohibit people from exploring, growing and contributing to their world and their families.

[John Rae]

I have a slightly similar story.

When I retired, I decided I would go back to school. I applied to Ryerson. I was accepted. Some of their courses are done by distance learning, and they used this thing called “Blackboard”.

I'm not 100% sure whether it was inaccessible or if it was just so complicated I couldn't figure out how to use it, but it was a barrier, so I withdrew. I felt I had to withdraw before I even got started, and that was a great disappointment to me. I actually had a reason for wanting to go back to school, and Blackboard at the time was a barrier to me. I think it has been changed a little bit since then, but I don't know if it's accessible now or not.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Again, going along the same lines here and understanding that we're in the context of the Copyright Act review, in terms of the ability to create inclusive spaces, inclusive workplaces, or inclusive places within the federal jurisdiction or anything that uses public funding, Mr. Greco, you said that no federal funds should be awarded to programs that further perpetuate barriers.

We use something called gender-based analysis plus. I find that often we focus on the gender lens, and the plus—the intersectionality piece—seems to come in but not as fervently as the gender.

You might not know specific numbers, but can you talk to the economic downfall of not having those accessible materials that you need in a timely fashion, as you said, when books are born or when material is born.

[Lui Greco]

I think the short answer is no. I don't think anyone really has studied that, but I would simply point to the situation around employment of persons with disabilities. Can you tie that back strictly to barriers around copyright? Probably not, but is the ability to obtain accessible materials a variable in that equation? Definitely, yes.

[Thomas Simpson]

The economic potential of persons with disabilities who are unemployed, should they become employed, is in the millions. To get there, we need to ensure that persons with print disabilities have access and the right to reading and information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

[John Rae]

If you consider the stat that Mr. Simpson gave you earlier, that only 28% of blind Canadians are currently employed, think of the costs that society is incurring for the extent of our unemployment. That is impacted on all aspects of life. If we don't have more money in our pockets, it's pretty difficult to participate in community life. It's more difficult to put decent food on our tables. It's difficult to find decent housing. These are all impacted by our low rate of employment. Certainly, if one has difficulty getting the training that is necessary to acquire credentials like those Mr. Greco talked about earlier, there's a vicious cycle here. We are excluded from equal access to so many aspects of life.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move back to the Conservatives. Mr. Dan Albas.

[Dan Albas]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd actually like to speak to the screen composers. Thanks for being here today.

In regard to your plan to tax Internet users above 15 gigabytes, how exactly did you arrive at that number?

[Paul Novotny]

Basically, it was a consideration for Canadians who do not have the money to be able to pay some sort of a levy. If we look at the extent of use by people who live in remote regions where they might have dial-up service, we felt that they likely would not be doing any sort of streaming, so the idea was to create some sort of relief if a system like that were to be looked at.