Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to bring forward to the House today two petitions.
The first is signed by people from right across this country in regard to developing new copyright legislation that recognizes the careful balance between the rights of the creator and fair public use. Given that digital technologies have recently given copyright holders the ability to upset the traditional balance in the Copyright Act by preventing Canadians from accessing works that they should have fair access to, the petitioners are asking Parliament to ensure that users are recognized as interested parties in any future copyright decisions and to ensure that any material changes in copyright legislation preserve the concept of fair use and the rights of users to fairly access works.