Industry committee  I don't know how many writers have told you that they've stopped doing various forms of writing. I used to do short freelance pieces quite a bit. I freelanced for different newspapers and magazines across Canada. At one point I went to the B.C. magazine awards. I can't tell you

Industry committee  I think it's really not common knowledge. A few years ago, I served on a B.C. awards jury. I think our awards were either $6,000 or $12,000. It was $6,000 for a less established writer and $12,000 for a more established writer. I was shocked at the number of big names in Canadian

Industry committee  I think universities, for a variety of reasons, are trying to become more student-centred. We see this with course evaluations. Student course evaluations really have an impact on instructors now, especially instructors who are in more precarious employment. One thing that seems

Industry committee  Well, not exactly, but if they have to go and buy books that are hundreds of dollars, there is a bit of push-back. I think instructors are very aware of that and are aware of that impacting students' satisfaction with the course.

Industry committee  Yes. The University of British Columbia at one point put out a press release that said they were decreasing student costs by making course packs free. When the Writers' Union of Canada saw this, they wrote them a blistering letter and told them they were doing this on the backs o

Industry committee  We went individually and spoke to our MPs.

Industry committee  Yes. When....

Industry committee  We said, “This is crap.” I mean—sorry—“This is going to torment writers”, which it did. “Our salaries are going to plummet”, which they did. “Universities are going to take advantage of this”, which they did. It was a prophecy that nobody wanted to hear at the time. No, no, no—i

Industry committee  Don't do this. Did we present a credible alternative? Hey, we liked what was going on before. We liked the Access Copyright structure in the sense that, yes, it is a pain to count individual pages that people photocopy for individual courses. It's difficult to track. As I thin

Industry committee  I'm not a big fan of digital, as most people who know me know. I've certainly tried it once because then I never had to do it again. I don't mind if my publisher BookThug is involved in e-books and I'm sure there's an e-book, but I like print. Christina de Castell, the acting chi

Industry committee  Thank you so much. My name is Carellin Brooks. I am a writer and a member of the Writers' Union of Canada. I was on the board of the Vancouver Public Library for eight years. I knew that I wanted to be a writer from the time that I was a very small child. I wanted to contribut

Industry committee  No, it's actually Carellin.