Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and I heard the word “balanced” being used time and time again, and yet the bill is very unbalanced.
We are not here talking about copyright, the right of creators and who has their copies. This bill is about corporate right, the right of a corporate entity to decide what right citizens have. It is a sleight of hand. It is very important for people to recognize that the bill is offering citizens' rights that they will not be able to exercise if a corporate entity puts a digital lock on the product.
Looking at how our WIPO compliant countries around the world have dealt with the issue of digital locks, and under sections 10 and 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty, it talks about the right to have exemptions of the digital lock as long as it is not being broken or infringed for commercial purposes, but in order to give citizens the right to access works to which under a legislative regime they have a right to access. However, under the bill, any rights that the citizen is granted in the bill are arbitrarily taken away with the digital lock provisions.
Will the government work with the New Democratic Party to fix the digital lock provisions to ensure they do not unfairly target students and consumers who are legally entitled to access works? If we fix the digital lock provisions, would the Conservatives be willing to work with us to ensure we are WIPO compliant but also responding to the needs that citizens have on this issue?