Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to get on the record some of the differences we have.
Here we're talking about the empowerment of consumers with regard to information, but at the same time, we have a government that has not moved on Crown copyright since 1911. For those who aren't familiar with Crown copyright, it was first brought to Canada in 1909 and was amended in 1911. What that means, which is really important to businesses, educators and general society, is that all the information the government has is basically suspended or not provided to the public. That is different from what our U.S. counterparts and other Commonwealth nations have. I find it difficult when the government wants to continue to have control of publicly manufactured and basically publicly expensed information when the United States doesn't do this, Great Britain doesn't do this and the other Commonwealth nations haven't done this.
Mr. Schaan, with regard to Crown copyright, what country out there is equivalent to ours? The argument is being made that the government wants to defeat this amendment to allow the public to have information and control. At the same time, this government continues to block Crown copyright renewal, which is actually providing information to the general public that they've paid for. Where in the world is there a consistency of Crown copyright?