Copyright reform: the government fast-tracks the process

CCA Bul­letin 02/12

Feb­ru­ary 15, 2012

Just the facts

Bill C-11, known as the Copy­right Mod­ern­iza­tion Act,  was adopted at sec­ond read­ing yes­ter­day after the gov­ern­ment imposed a limit to the debate last week. All oppo­si­tion par­ties voted against, but the bill was adopted thanks to the gov­ern­ment major­ity. Barely hours after the vote, the spe­cial Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee met to estab­lish its work plan and once again, the gov­ern­ment major­ity could over­come oppo­si­tion par­ties’ objec­tions and set a very tight agenda for the hear­ing of wit­nesses and the arti­cle by arti­cle study of the Bill. The whole process will be over by March 29, whether or not the study is com­pleted. The Bill will then be sent back to the House for third read­ing and once adopted, sent to the Sen­ate where it is expected it will receive the same expe­di­tious treatment.

Com­ment

The gov­ern­ment jus­ti­fies the fast-tracking of the process by say­ing that a reform of the Copy­right Act is long over­due, some­thing with which every­body agrees. The gov­ern­ment argues fur­ther that since C-11 is the exact copy of Bill C-32, which died on the Order Paper in March 2011 due to the fall of the gov­ern­ment, it has already been dis­cussed at length. Those who have prob­lems with C-11 as it now stands, and they are numer­ous, may fear that this fast-tracking of the process will not allow for a thor­ough revi­sion of the Bill arti­cle by arti­cle. It does not appear either that the review by the Sen­ate, once called the house of “sober sec­ond thought”, will com­fort them. One must also note that set­tling the copy­right file, at least for the time being, is an impor­tant pawn on the chess board of con­clud­ing as soon as pos­si­ble the cur­rent free trade agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union.

Tell me more

Polit­i­cal par­ties have until 5:00 p.m. TODAY to give the Clerk of the Com­mit­tee the list of wit­nesses they would like to hear. The Com­mit­tee will meet tomor­row morn­ing at 9:00 a.m. to pre­pare what is sup­posed to be a pre­lim­i­nary list, but given the short period given for the hear­ings, the list is likely to fill up rapidly. Wit­nesses will be grouped in pan­els of three and each ses­sion will last one and a half hours. Open­ing state­ments will be given 10 min­utes, then Com­mit­tee mem­bers will have 5 min­utes each for ques­tions, until the time runs out.

The Com­mit­tee will not hear any­one who has already appeared dur­ing the hear­ings on C-32.  How­ever, wit­nesses heard dur­ing C-32 can sub­mit an adden­dum to the brief they pre­sented then. All doc­u­ments must be sent to the Clerk in both offi­cial lan­guages for pre­sen­ta­tion to mem­bers of the com­mit­tee. All doc­u­ments pre­sented and tes­ti­monies heard dur­ing the C-32 hear­ings will be given to the mem­bers of the C-11 committee.

The com­mit­tee will start the article-by-article study on March 14 at the lat­est. Each party will have five min­utes to address each arti­cle and each amend­ment. All amend­ments to be exam­ined must have been pre­sented to the Clerk 24 hours before the begin­ning of the study, in both offi­cial lan­guages. A list of twenty pro­posed amend­ments, signed by 70 cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions from all over the coun­try, has already been trans­mit­ted to the gov­ern­ment and to mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee under the umbrella of the CCA. The whole study process must be over by March 29, 2012 whether or not the article-by-article study is fin­ished. The hear­ings of wit­nesses and the delib­er­a­tions article-by-article will be pub­lic and broadcast.

Sched­ule of meet­ings (start­ing Feb­ru­ary 27)

Mon­day: 3:30 to 06:30 p.m.

Tues­day: 9:00 a.m. to noon

Wednes­day: 3:30 to 06:30 pm

Thurs­day: 9:00 a.m. to noon

What can I do?

If your orga­ni­za­tion wishes to appear, con­tact one of the mem­bers of the com­mit­tee imme­di­ately  with a copy to the Clerk of the Com­mit­tee Chris­tine Holke David.