Thank you. Programs and program segments recorded without a public audience such as spots to promote Canadian musicians on CTV's "Canada AM" and so on state in this letter that because the exception tries to restrict itself to event programming and does so by requiring a public performance at the same time as a reproduction is made, this also constitutes lack of qualification for this kind of programming.
The broadcasters talk about some other absurdities, as they call them, in the bill. They are highlighted by a requirement that copies of these ephemeral reproductions can only be kept beyond 30 days if an official archive accepts their deposits on the basis of their exceptional documentary character.
Broadcasters really should be allowed to keep their own archival copies in house. I think this would be a great loss to Canadian society if we were to create this kind of concern. They would like to reuse them possibly in the future and they would be quite happy to pay a licence fee at that time. This would also of course create quite a burden for national archives should this kind of provision remain.
The bottom line of what the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is saying is that unless these flaws are corrected, programming would remain at risk because of the administrative burdens and the economic burdens through trying to clear this hurdle on rights clearance.
This would affect Canadian viewers who want to have a good look at programs about their local area. It would affect charities relying on broadcast based fund raising. It would have its impact on Canadian talent and there are other provisions that would be detrimental to French language music and programming. These would be the main people who would suffer the neighbouring rights provisions.
I find this whole episode this morning of most concern. I know this bill and these amendments are of great concern to many Canadians. Sometimes what goes on in this place ends up in the form of partisan gamesmanship or something quite non-productive. It is my hope and my wish that we can move forward, make the enlightened amendments that are required in order to make this a bill that Canadians will find progressive, productive and that will indeed assist Canadian broadcasting, Canadian artists, Canadian recorders and so on.