Madam Speaker, I would first like to commend the hon. members for Winnipeg Centre and Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for their excellent remarks about Bill C-11.
I have the opportunity to once again speak specifically about Bill C-11, which was introduced to amend the Copyright Act. The Conservatives named it the Copyright Modernization Act.
In summary, the Conservative caucus once again introduced this bill, which proposes amendments that have been needed for a very long time. These amendments would adapt the act to take into account new technologies and to make it consistent with current international standards. However, this is a very complex issue because it involves the conflicting demands of stakeholders in artistic communities, universities, the technology sector, business and consumer protection groups.
Bill C-11 is identical to Bill C-32, which was introduced previously. It had the same name, the Copyright Modernization Act. Specifically, the bill creates powerful new anti-circumvention rights for content owners, preventing access to copyrighted works. In addition, these new provisions are supported by fines and prison terms.
In this bill, the Conservatives have deliberately avoided addressing the issue of a possible extension of the private copying exception, a measure proposed by the NDP several times and supported by a number of experts.
In this regard, the NDP believes that it is high time to modernize copyright rules, but that this bill has too many major problems. The NDP believes that Canada's copyright rules could balance the right of creators to appropriate compensation for their work and the right of consumers to have reasonable access to content.
We will study every possible amendment, including those mentioned by the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, that could be made to the bill in order to create a fair system of royalties for artists.
It seems that all Canadian efforts to modernize the Copyright Act have really been attempts to meet the demands of big U.S. content owners. That is the situation. When will Canadians finally have a law that meets their needs?
We want to amend the bill so that it better reflects the interests of Canadians. Many organizations, individuals, lawyers and legislators share our position.
The list includes Michael Geist and more than 80 organizations working in the arts and culture, in Quebec and throughout Canada, such as the Writers Guild of Canada, the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. It also includes eminent lawyer Howard Knopf, the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada, Jeremy F. de Beer and Cory Doctorow. I wanted to mention just a few of the people who have something to say about the NDP's proposals and support them.
Once again, I would like to point out that we should perhaps listen again to the excellent speech by my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. She was very explicit in her speech, which clearly captures the need to make these changes to Bill C-11 introduced by the Conservative caucus.