Archived - Montreal — Town Hall and Public Hearings on Copyright

Date: July 30, 2009  1:00 p.m.

Location:
Montreal Room, Level 4-A
Centre Mont-Royal
Montreal, Quebec

Principals:
Host: Hon. James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages
Moderator: Jean-Pierre Blais, Assistant Deputy Minister, Cultural Affairs, Canadian Heritage
Webcast Liaison: Nicole Frenette, Director, Policy, Planning and Research, Copyright Policy, Canadian Heritage

Subject:
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Hon. James Moore hosts a town hall meeting, as part of the Government of Canada's national consultation on copyright.

See also: comments submitted online during the event

Transcript

Jean-Pierre Blais: Hello, welcome on behalf of the Government of Canada and particularly on behalf of Mr. Clement, the Minister of Industry and Minister Moore from Heritage and Official Languages. We have, we're holding a forum today, one of many to hear what Canadians have to say concerning copyright. There are people here in the hall and cyber participants who will be participating through a link-up and, and participate from their laptops or wherever they are around Canada.

First of all, I present myself, I'm Jean-Pierre Blais, I'm the Assistant Deputy Minister, Cultural Affairs in the Department of Canadian Heritage and I also present Nicole Frenette, who will be the voice of folks of cyberspace who want to participate in this, this event. And they will, she will be the voice, she will speak for the cyber participants at the same time as this meeting unfolds. (Inaudible) has developed a consultation process that was launched about 10 days ago. It's a process that's multi-streamed, there's a website with resource centre, discussion, online discussion, possible formal submissions. There have been already some roundtables. I believe Minister Moore will be speaking in a moment, will be explaining that a little more, what, what he's done so far and there will be more formal submissions that people can contribute as we move to about mid September.

This is our first town hall. There'll be another one later on in, in, in August. The point of this consultation, of these consultations over the next few months are to ask questions in real time concerning copyright, more specifically what ought to be the guiding principles in a copyright reform, how best to foster innovation and creativity, how best to foster competition and investment and how best to position Canada as a leader in global digital, in global digital economy.

My role as moderator is just to make sure that time is properly managed, that everybody has the opportunity to participate, be it the people in the hall or online, to ensure that, that what's said is relevant, manage traffic between the different groups and ensure that the discussion is constructive, balanced and respectful. In a few seconds, I will give the mic to Minister Moore. At the end of his speech, please start to line up at the different microphones.

So Mr. Moore.

The Hon. James Moore: Thank you everyone for being here today. I think we have almost 200 people who are online for our conversation today. Our government committed during the last electoral campaign to really commit concerning copyrights because we know there's a lot of concerns on the subject. So I'm here as the Minister of Heritage and Official Languages and Mr. Clement is also committed to this issue. We've already had, held many roundtables in Vancouver, Calgary, yesterday in Gatineau and today in Montreal. We will also have a forum in Toronto, Halifax, Quebec City and other places. There will, there's also a great discussion online right now with people who are very interested in this subject from the industry, from our creative community, libraries, archives, all the people who are interested in the act and who are taking part in this debate.

So it's something that's very important for the Prime Minister, Mr. Harper, for our government and for all Canadians. (Inaudible) invited here today. We have opened this up to the public, the media are here in the back as well, and we want folks to have the opportunity to go to the microphone. So if you already have a point of view that you want to express, the microphones are available now if you want to go to the microphones right now and prepare yourself. If you have comments that you have prepared that you want to deliver to the group, you're free to do so as well. Jean-Pierre Blais from the Department of Canadian Heritage here, he'll be moderating the debate and the conversation. And as we go through this time that we have here together, you can engage with others.

If you hear somebody putting forward a point of view that you don't agree with and you think a counter position needs to be presented, please do so. This is about having a debate. We don't want all these things to be, you know, Canadians were polite to one another, often to a fault, and, but a good healthy debate in the Canadian democracy is, isn't kind of, it ought not be seen as something that's uncomfortable and to be avoided, but it really is the best of Canadian democracy when people say no, I think you're wrong and here's why and somebody says no, let me rebut that and go back and forth. So we want to have that kind of an exchange here today.

My principal role here is to listen. Often politicians in the past, we know that around Bill C-61, the, I think the principal concern that people outlined with C-61 is that there wasn't enough consultation, that that legislation came forward and that people didn't have a chance to speak in the front end of the legislation before the cabinet had an opportunity to discuss and develop the legislation and that's what we're doing here.

These consultations started last week in Vancouver. We will be seeking out the opinion of all Canadians who want to commit and engage in this subject and we'll have a true discussion and a bill we'll be submitting to Parliament this fall and prior to Christmas, we should have a good healthy debate on this bill. The government is in a minority situation so the debate at the House of Commons will be engaged with all the MP's in the House so that we have a bill that takes care of the needs of all Canadians for the future.

This is your opportunity to let your point of view be heard, to talk about the right way forward for copyright reform so we can go forward and have the best possible legislation for all Canadians. And as I said, my role here today is principally to listen. There will be times when people speak when I may challenge you and ask you some questions about your point of view, have some follow-up questions and, and please this will be a good healthy two-hour session for people to have a conversation. And by the way, as I said, there's a, there are also folks who are watching online right now, who will be involved in this discussion as well. This conversation is being recorded. It will be available for Canadians to view online so the audience that you're speaking to isn't just those of us in the room. There are Canadians who are going to be watching us online who'll be taking your comments and debating your comments and it'll be part of the larger conversation as we go forward.

Our consultations are ending in the second week of September. We're then, Minister Clement and I are going to be getting together and as a government, we'll be deciding how we're going to proceed with actual legislation and we plan to table legislation in the House of Commons this fall.

So with that, M. Blais, it's, the forum is yours. And, and again, thank you all very much for being here. I really appreciate your time and I appreciate your engagement in what is really a very important policy discussion for all Canadians. So thank you very much.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: So despite two invitations, you notice Minister, so nobody has come up to the mic yet, but ma'am, please identify yourself, your organization, if necessary.

Maureen Baron: My name is Maureen Baron, I'm here representing the Canadian Network for Innovation Education. We are a bilingual pan-Canadian organization, approximately 500 members. We are teachers, instructors in K to 12, post-secondary, in the professional development area and continuing education. And copyright touches every single one of my members every day in everything they do. We teach, we create materials, we disseminate materials and we do that in what is often called on-site locations as well as off-site. And it is one of the key things for copyright for us that the distinction between on-site and off-site not be made.

Today, because of the internet, because of technologies, learning environments are not in the closed classroom of four walls, a ceiling and a door and a floor. Okay? Right now, we have what we call personal learning environments and virtual learning environments. So as a student, I can access my course and a discussion in my course at lunch hour from my office, at midnight from my home, anywhere I happen to be that my Blackberry connects to and so my learning classroom is now a global learning classroom. Copyright impacts on what my teachers and what I as a teacher can put forward as a learning resource and a teaching resource to my students in those two different environments. And they should not be considered two different environments. They should be considered one. It is a learning environment.

The other aspect to that is for those students who are distance education students, what are often called lended or extended or distributed education students. We should have access to the same legal and affordable learning resources that the students have when they are sitting in the classroom at the university or in an elementary or high school. We now have home schooled students. My particular school board, the English Montreal School Board, we are in charge of classrooms in prisons, in hospitals, in closed wards, students who are recovering from long term illnesses at home. As an elementary school teacher, I need the right, the legal right to give those students the same resources that their counterparts have in the elementary school classroom down the block from their home.

The other aspect to this in terms of fair dealing is the education sector does not have the same resources as the profit sector. Education and library resources are necessary for us. We cannot afford horrendous long term costs. And as a final point, as an instructor, the element of the 30-day time limit for maintaining of electronic records, if I'm teaching the same course three times a year, sorry, I cannot recreate those things three times a year. It is onerous. Thank you.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)

So we'll continue, we'll go from 2, microphone 2 to 3.

André Dumont: Hello, my name is André Dumont. I'm a member of the Executive Board of Independent Journalists, the Association du Québec. We represent approximately 125 members and other journalists who are not members who ask for our advice. Independent journalism, what's happening right now is that editors are asking us to renounce all our rights on our work. I'll give you an example. At Publication, which belongs to Quebecor, we are asked or we're in fact forced if we want to collaborate with them, to give up our rights concerning on work we've given in the past, in the present and the future on all supports, media, territories. It could be the galaxy, the planet and there's abuse because as independent journalists, we have a precarious living. We don't have any power compared to media corporations like Quebecor or others. It's quite generalized.

So we think that the act should be reinforced to give us the tools to negotiate. For instance, the act could keep publishers, to keep us from giving up our retroactive rights without any form of compensation. Another abusive thing is that by giving up all our rights, as a journalist, if I write a column and then want to write a book, in my contract, it's written that all forms of support or media, I can't publish a book because they mention all possible elements. In an act for instance, they could say that a publisher can't ask you to give up a right without having reasonably the intention of using that work. That would give the journalists a little more power, other authors as well, other creators who might not be able to make a film for instance because they signed an agreement.

Another thing that could be changed, we could perhaps do like in France where the moral right is not renouncable. That's what associates my name to a work. Quebecor and others ask us to renounce our moral rights, which is to say to take off my name and they can use their text for another use, let's say an advertisement product evaluation and we've seen this in the past. And I think that if we want to encourage innovation, we have to allow authors to get additional revenue when their work is used more often and for the quality of information. As well it has to be credible that journalistic work not be used for advertisement and for other ends. Thank you.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much. Nicole has some online comments.

Nicole Frenette: Yes, I have two comments. I'd also like online participants to submit their comments. (Inaudible) Victoria from Toronto. I work for the music industry. I am also a user of intellectual property content. I hope the consultations will result in a bill that will ensure that rights holders are guaranteed the right to monetize their content if they so choose. You will hear from many members of the public who believe it is their right to access content without paying for it. Doing so without permission from the owner is theft, pure and simple. Please foster creativity and the significant contribution it makes to the GDP and to the livelihoods of Canadians. Without adequate copyright protection, we will lose investment in Canadian intellectual property.

Now, our second comment is about graduate students. Graduate students in Canada occupy a unique position in the debate on copyright modernization. We are creators, users and owners of copyright. One element of particular relevance to the graduate student community concerns the legislative definition of fair dealing.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. So we'll go to mic number 4 now.

Marc Dufour: Concerning copyright, this policy should be a vehicle that would allow media companies to promote unfair practices such as market segmentations or allow companies to spy on consumers basically. For instance, locking down by region as we see with DVD's, mostly keeps North American residents from seeing European or Asian films. New high definition Blue Ray devices should be updated and can be put out of service, out of, at, remotely if the media company doesn't like the use the consumer is making of it.

In terms of immigration, can we accept that media companies forbid people from French origin of looking at French movies or Chinese people from looking at Chinese films, or British people from seeing British films. It's unthinkable and yet, the acts that have been suggested up till now have that perverse effect by forbidding, getting around locking devices in a given region, a region not decided through a legislative means but by a private company that has no, doesn't have to be responsible to anybody. And concerning fair dealing, the ability of copying small extracts to use them in different ends, not being able to get around locking devices means that you can cancel,

Jean-Pierre Blais: Sorry, I don't want to interrupt you, but there is simultaneous interpretation, so please take your time. They're having a hard time because you're reading.

Marc Dufour: I just don't want to take time.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Please take your time.

Marc Dufour: The prohibition of getting around locking devices is basically cancelling a democratic right and this is given to a private company. And an act should not allow for the censorship without judicial review of for instance the American act which can do so by having taped on notices without there being any judicial recourse. And what ends up happening is that a company is criticized. And they use the take down provision to get rid of criticism basically. Refer to chillingeffects.org. That will give you some examples. And the copyright infringement is an infraction having to do with civil law. Does it, is it necessary to criminalize this in the context where states have less and less funds to help populations and the different public security services do not need to have to run after a whole new category of artificial criminals.

This is not an issue of national security but rather of copyright applied to companies that are nothing more than public amusers. Give them a new legal protection would be giving them more importance than they deserve.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much for your comments. We'll now move on to microphone 1.

Jean-Pierre Lefebvre: Mr. Minister, my name is Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. I am the Chairman of the Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec, Quebec Directors in Quebec. We have more than 600 members working in Quebec and also it's languages other than English. We, we cover films in all sorts of other languages, Chinese, Ukrainian, whatever other than English. According to you, the people here, is the director an author? Is he the author of the film that he signs? We don't seem to exist however under the act, the current Copyright Act in Canada. For decades, we've been fighting to have the right to be registered as authors in, under the Canadian Copyright Act.

So as you can see, we're starting from the bottom, from the bottom of the ladder, if you will and this leads to many different problems that I won't go into. But as we don't exist as authors under the act legally speaking, this leads to sort of indirect measures taken or mistaken. I'd just like to say that it, it would be difficult today that politicians shouldn't be paid because they're, they work for the public good. And I think that directors are also working for the public good, an essential issue, the culture, and that they should be compensated. If there are, is no copyright, there's no money and there's no culture and if there's no culture, there's no identity and with no identity, we all know what happens.

So this act has to recognize this first of all because cinema has become very important in Canada and in Quebec in particular, that all the measures necessarily be taken so that all creators in Canada and directors be able to benefit from sufficient revenue or to continue to contribute to our culture.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much Mr. Lefebvre. Nicole, are there any online comments?

Nicole Frenette: We can wait a bit more.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Okay, I'll give you the floor in a second. Microphone number 2.

Marie Denise Pelletier: Minister, my name is Marie Denise Pelletier, I'm a singer-songwriter. I'm also the President of the Société de gestion collective de l'Union des artistes. I am not here this afternoon to talk to you about technical aspects of the act. I'm sure others will do a much better job than I. I'm here to tell you about the consequences of a bad act on creators and on the music industry generally. Twelve years ago approximately, I was asked to defend the, the status of composers in Ottawa and it took me 10 years to convince different governments that it was a good thing for society to recognize the value of creation work of performers. We were listened to, we were heard and that's why I'm hoping for today, that we be heard, that we be listened to.

Canada ratified the Rome Convention and we got neighbouring rights. At the same time, we convinced the governments that the proper copyright could create fair dealings for all copies that people made of our music. This system of private copying means that no matter what you do with the movie you're copying, those royalties are, are made on the media use, for instance cassettes and CD's. The royalties are used to pay the creators of this music for this use of their work. But the problem that we have currently is that today, things are, music is copied less and less on this media (inaudible) audio digital such as MP3's and iPod have taken over. Now, the problem with those forms of media is that they are not under the act, they don't come under the act so no royalties come from them. And if there are no royalties from these media that people are using and have been using now, soon there will be no royalties on private copying given to the creators of music.

When the government introduced bill C-61, no amendments were made to include these media for royalties and this means that this private copy scheme will die soon. There, there's a huge transformation occurring right now in the music industry throughout the world. You just have to press on a computer button now to have free access to almost all the music repertoire existing on the planet. In this ever changing world, we need more than ever that the government help us. We, the singers and songwriters to protect our rights, all the more so because in Quebec, the situation is even more alarming given the narrowness of our market. I think that currently, the government wants to do the reverse. They seem to want to, want to liberalize everything, to go on that side, particularly all the people who make these new forms of media.

Do you know that in my iPod,

Jean-Pierre Blais: Sorry, could you conclude please?

Marie Denise Pelletier: Well, this is important because you'll understand. In an iPod, there are 60 licenses that Apple has to pay to the people who've made this device and I'm sure that they're expensive. However, for the, the very reason these iPods exist, ie., the music, there is nothing, nothing is paid. So I have a bit of difficulty understanding that the government is giving the, the priority to the content, to, to the form rather than the content. Is this without, what's important is the recognition of our work and our salary that has been taken away because of this royalty issue. These are millions of dollars that we're using every year, but they're not millions of dollars that are spread into three pockets. They're groups of creators and this is the difference between living from your artistic work or not.

So I hope it's clear for the people in the government that a creator who creates and who lives from their music and their creation, this is redistributed throughout society and everyone will be able to profit from this.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much Ms. Pelletier. Perhaps we'll be able to give you the floor once again in a few minutes.

Nicole?

Nicole Frenette: I will read a comment from Oshawa, Mike from Oshawa. Upon reviewing the posted submissions on the Industry Canada website, with the exception of one or two submissions, the overwhelming theme is that any prohibition of circumvention devices must be directly linked to a copyright violation, example a very small minority of citizens, experts, scholars that support a blanket ban of circumvention devices. It has become increasingly evident that in order to protect against digital right management misuse, citizens must make use of circumvention devices for reasons of fair dealing, privacy and research among others. Leading me to my question, will this government take a leading role and be one of the first to take the necessary step of outlawing circumvention devices only when used for a clear violation of the Copyright Act?

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 3.

Solange Drouin: Solange Drouin, Vice-President to Public Affairs and General Manager of ADISQ. The association represents the video producers and record producers. It's a pleasure to speak after Marie Denise Pelletier because I've been able to amend my intervention and I will also join her in what she said. It's difficult to summarize Mr. Minister in a few words what all, everything we intend to tell you. So let us not delude ourselves. The Copyright Act is an economic act. This is an act that was put in place (inaudible) 50 years ago, I'm not too sure, but a great number of years ago, and it finally established the foundation for the compensation of rights that authors and performers and producers and directors can use with people that use their content. So it's an economic act despite the cultural aspects that stem from it.

This act, in its latest version, wants to be technologically neutral. I'm sure it's something you've heard very often and therefore we hope that this, whatever the environment in which the use of these works occurs, whether it be in the physical or digital world, we would want, it's not because you change the environment that you move from a physical environment to a digital environment that the authors, that performers and directors should not be entitled to the same protection. We know full well that this new environment has led to a major change in the situation. If I talk about the sector of music, I will not dwell on the fact that the music sector is the sector that was the hardest hit and is at the forefront of everything that will take place in the other cultural environments, whether it's film, television or in the book editing industry. Books are more and more shared on the net, on the internet.

And in light of this, we would ask you that in the next version of this act, that it be technologically neutral and that it offer the same protections. And in order to do so, we have to put an end to this confusion around the internet. People who are asking you for free access, they confuse access to a market because music and cultural products or cultural works are something, things that are transac, exchanged, people live from that and access to knowledge. As far as I'm concerned, these are two different things. On the internet, there's 60% of the traffic on the internet that aims at getting information for travel purposes, etc., and there's 40% of the internet traffic that is there to acquire legally in a small part and illegally in a large part, entertainment products and works.

So in this whole rhetoric on free access, we confuse access to universal knowledge, access to information, access to knowledge in the broader sense and access to a market. We mustn't forget that there's no shame to this. I have to qualms whatsoever with this. The fact I'm saying that cultural works make some people live, it makes authors live, press relations, etc., it's thousands of people who depend on the work of these creators and it's a major economic factor. So we hope this piece of legislation will take that in to account and we're asking you to give us, through this legislation, new tools that would allow us to negotiate and to have business relationships that are healthy with the new users of content that are of course the new sites and the new access, the new access to internet and provide us with the tools to deal with those people.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you Mrs. Drouin. Microphone 4.

Olivier Charbonneau: I'm Olivier Charbonneau, I'm a professional librarian at Concordia, I'm a blogger at culture.ca and I'm also at Francophone National Association of Librarians. I'm here Minister to expose the paradox of librarians throughout Canada. On the one hand, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Canadian content and music, documentation and other things, so we structure the industry, we're a (inaudible) that concerns a lot of Canadian content protected by copyright. On the other hand, we have access to exceptions to the Copyright Act for fair dealings, for specific reasons.

I'm here to present, not to give you a shopping list, you can see that on the internet site, but to give you an idea of our situation. Copyright allows for a monopoly for the person who holds this copyright and in the context of monopoly, it's difficult to have a fair market. That's why I think that libraries have this, this stick as well as the carrot. Universities as well as other institutions are turning towards libraries and librarians to better understand, to help communities to understand the copyright, so that's why I'm here to ask for a few simple principles.

For instance, relax the definition of copyright as in the US, where there's a more open definition and incorporate what was defined at the Supreme Court of Canada as to how deploy or understand fair dealings in the context of private research in, so a general idea of fair dealings. For instance, in the United States, they have the right to fair use for satire and other types of use that we don't have in Canada. I would also ask that copyright for the Crown be abolished or that the government consider disseminating these through licenses such as creative comments.

As far as technology is concerned, the, I'm going through my shopping list right now, the, the idea being to limit responsibility of institutions concerning getting around copyright and avoid criminalizing technological measures. And this just for cases of copyright infringement rather than other cases, so libraries are there to structure the market and to be a (inaudible) in terms of copyright. Thank you.

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The Hon. James Moore: I have a question. The right of the Crown, research for libraries. Why is it so important for you?

Olivier Charbonneau: Well I'll give you an example of Concordia. For many years, we held government publications in our library, which allowed us to get all the government publications. We had them on our, our, in our library and we gave them access to the population. It was part of the university's mandate. When things are disseminated by internet, institutions would like to recover these documents on their service to preserve and to maintain access. This is what we do to maximize bandwidth use for our community. These are different technological measures for, also for long term conservation, but to do so, institutions are wondering whether we have the right or whether we have to ask you permission for these documents in the sense that there's a broad broadcasting, putting it on my server, sending it to researchers, making copies in terms of study.

These are the reasons why the Crown copyright, we're wondering what it protects truly in terms of the government as opposed to what it takes away from all Canadians who are studying and who want to learn from government publications. I work for the management school particularly at the library. I help people to make business plans they have to submit to their professors, reports and statistics that you can find on Industry Canada's sites, including decisions. Also it's the things that come from the government and it's less clear whether they can do multiple copies and whether they can hand them to professors.

So that's a very specific example. I can just imagine what's happening throughout Canada and how we're limiting the use of government information to Canadians.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Nicole, online comments?

Nicole Frenette: Online comments from Simon from Montreal. We're not buying a disc, it's a license that should allow us to transfer to the new media. Technology is evolving much more quickly than acts can. We're buying things for work and personal usage.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 1.

Jane McGarrigle: Jane McGarrigle, representing the Songwriters Association of Canada and thank you for the opportunity to speak. A couple of associates have already spoken, Marie Denise Pelletier and the other lady, about the music that is being used without, not only not fair compensation but no compensation at all to the songwriters, publishers, performers and record companies and the other stakeholders and any tune that is being used without the compensation being paid. At the, our issue is file sharing and I think you probably know what the process. Person A accesses a music file that belongs to Person B through a site someplace. It's usually in MP3 format or some compressed format. You can get a whole album, you can get 20, you can get what you like and there are many sites.

Arguably, the industry should have been out in front of this instead of behind trying to find a way to make a living off it because at the moment, the industry is in a shambles and much of it attributable to that. The Songwriters Association of Canada has come up with a plan to monetize the internet. It's very simple, everyone benefits from this and out of the 95 million music files that exist today, only 5 million are transferred legally. The other 95 million are coming out of Pirate Bay or, which has since been bought for sites like that. If this plan were adopted, it would be win-win pretty much for everybody because it would be a form of virile marketing. The more this music gets heard, the better it is. The more it promotes the artist, the more it promotes the music, it's a wonderful thing.

The only thing that's missing here is that the people who own it need to be paid. The system that the Songwriters Association of Canada has come up with would be very simple. It would be a service fee that internet service providers would charge their accounts. The accounts would in theory be able to opt in or out of it. For example, people who don't file sharing, we could say seniors though not me, I file share all the time, but seniors who don't file share wouldn't have to subscribe to that whereas other people would. They'd be on their honour but there would be a way to police it that be built into this.

There would be a distribution key applied to this so that all the stakeholders got some pro rata share of what each tune was worth. They can, you know, records can be kept and, and the money involved, we're thinking, wouldn't be that much. It might be $4 or $5 a month, which for the, you know, eliminating the hassle sometimes wonky files and wonky sites with distasteful ads and other edgy stuff, it might be worth the money to have nice clean files and arguably, the servers might end up loading all this and it would be much cleaner and streamlined if you were just downloading from the servers. In other words, they would be involved as the distributor.

So that's what we propose and the site is outlined on the, the plan I should say is outlined on SAC's site, Songwriters Association of Canada site. It spells it out and our executive director Don Quarles and any board member is always available to explain it to anyone who'd like to know anymore about it. I thank you.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much. (Applause) I thank everyone also to respect the time period. There's 16 people standing right now. If you multiply by three minutes, that's an hour. So if everybody could, you know, respect that, it would be great. Thank you.

Adrien Beraud: Adrien Beraud, I'm a student and I'd like to answer to all the representatives of the cultural industry and the artists who've spoken up until now. I'd like to start from a quotation from Victor Hugo, 1878, who said that when the, at the opening of the Congrès littéral international, the book, as a book, belongs to the author but as thought, it belongs to mankind. Everybody has the right to it. If only one had the right to it, it would be a sacrifice of others. I would like to say that today, we're in the case that Victor Hugo was describing. We have to choose between the different freedoms and rights.

Today, the digital revolution is allowing for an incredible number of things and different governments throughout the world have tried in different ways to limit illegal downloading. This has been shown to be impossible without cutting many different freedoms. So to be pragmatic, we have to find solutions that allow to pay authors and artists in a fair way. This being said, this situation presented by the cultural industry is not as bad as they are saying. A study by Industry Canada from 2006 I believe shows that there is no correlation between illegal downloading of music and the purchase of CD's legally and even that the people who are downloading illegally are the people who will most purchase music as well.

If we look at the financial statements of bigger cultural groups, we can see and will see that this situation is not that bad and there are solutions that allow for the compensation of artists without limiting the freedoms of internauts and citizens. There's that talk about global licensing or global philanthropy, a sort of tax on internet access that would be redistributed to artists based on what we, what is observed in terms of internet downloading or global philanthropy that would allow each person to pay to the, pay the artist they want. They would have to invest a certain amount per month and that would be redistributed to artists but in that case, downloading would be legalized. And there was a, there also could be the private copy regime that was mentioned before, but in that case downloading, which is illegal right now, be completely free. And to me, that's a natural counterpart. If artists are compensated, downloading has to be legal. You can't compensate people for an illegal practice, after all.

To conclude, well that's pretty much it. Thank you.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Very good timing. Thank you very much. Mic 3.

Ladan Mahabadi: Good afternoon. Let me begin by thanking the Minister and also everybody else who's involved in creating such a dynamic interactive forum. My name is Ladan Mahabadi and I'm the VP External at the Post-Graduate Student Society at McGill and I'm also a PHE student in computer science at McGill and my research field is cryptography, in particular multimedia encryption. So given my background and my role, I'd like to bring your attention to copyright issues in research and what is exactly involved.

My understanding is that we're not here today to question or devise any dramatic existential changes to copyright, but rather to devise pragmatic solutions that create a fair, balanced environment for everyone to work and to produce and to create. Now given that, we have to look at the research aspect of it as well and look at the exceptions that are provided in the bill. As it stands, the research exceptions are quite restrictive and they need to be further, further relaxed to provide an environment where academia can actually look and further research and properly research. And by proper research, I mean giving exact rights and proper rights to whoever is the, the author or the producer of the work.

To this extent, if you wish to look at technical fields such as computer science or engineering, further attention has to be provided to non, non-infringing circumventive tools and technology that are out there. And to this extent, my understanding is that a lot of students feel that what is out there right now is quite restrictive again. And in order to properly research how you can provide a fair balanced environment, you have to know what the tools are, you have to know where the technologies are, and you have devise proper, fair implementations and algorithms. As it stands, rights management of software and algorithms are quite poorly done in the sense that they can be broken, they're not effective and they're not absolute.

Perhaps, perhaps providing proper provisions should also look at not only relaxing these, but also looking at models that provide fair, a fair, balanced way of providing an equilibrium between creativity, fair use as well as coming up with a method, a proper method of monetizing quality content. And to this, it seems to me that you have to provide a, a very clear open access to academics and researchers to look at what is out there and come up with new techniques and new models. Thanks.

The Hon. James Moore: You talk about looking at the models, I assume you're talking about international models. Are there a couple that you suggest we should look at and look at incorporating and a couple that we should absolutely not look at and look at incorporating?

Ladan Mahabadi: The ones that I've looked at are quite general and I've looked at WIPO. But the models I was referring to in particular are new models that we come up with. There are a lot of models right now circulating in computer science and academia in general that look at trying to monetize different qualities or different levels of qualities of multimedia for example, that everyone would have access to a base, a base model, a base quality that is not so great. If you were to get higher quality or higher access or better quality and access either way, that you'd have to pay for it.

Given that file sharing is so ubiquitous, I don't think you can ever go back to a system that P2P doesn't happen. I think new models have, have to be devised where you come up with a way of monetizing what is out there right now and utilize that.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much. Nicole, online? (Applause)

Nicole Frenette: Yes, so this is a comment from Denis from Toronto. I work in the music business and we so need copyright laws to not only protect the artist of which Canadian artists are equal on the world stage except on the copyright laws, but this also goes much deeper as it affects my job as a preproduction coordinator. So you see it's not just the artists that hurt but the regular working person. I just want to do a job I love and take care of my family. It has been said that the music industry are fat cats. I assure you this is not true. I am far from getting rich but I do love my work and without this protection, what future is there for me in the job I love so much not to mention to make it simple, it is stealing. If I go into a store and taking what I want, that is stealing. Why is this not? Please protect the little guy as well.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Microphone 4.

Jonathan Benn: My name is Jonathan Benn, I'm a software engineer. I'm here representing myself. Thank you very much Minister for giving me this opportunity. I'd like to address the question of theft. It was just brought up in this and the first, the first internet comment. No one will disagree that it's theft if someone comes into my house and takes my television set and makes off with it. My privacy has been violated and a possession of mine has been taken away. But if I were to copy a song, I haven't violated anyone's privacy and I haven't in fact taken anything away from them because they still have it. Now I have it too.

So I think it's important to understand that, that, also that without authors, we don't have any culture but without copying, we don't have culture either because knowledge needs to be disseminated to reach other people. So culture is authorship and copying. And on that note, I would like to say that please Minister, don't blindly follow in the footsteps of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and please instead look at what your citizens are doing and structure the laws appropriately. We have a new tech-savvy youth, a whole generation of youth that are busy copying and want the right to copy so that they can have as much access to their culture as they can. And let's not criminalize them all. If all Canadians are criminals, then it's not, then there's something wrong with our legal system.

I believe that so long as the authors are able to make a living, that's what's important, not whether or not they are able to get money from every copy that is made of their works. So on that note, please expand fair use so that all non-commercial copying of copyrighted materials is a valid use of that material. Obviously if I were to take someone else's song and start selling it, I can see how people would get very upset and this is probably wrong by anyone's definition. But if I were to copy a song simply to l listen to it, I don't see what the criminal activity is or why it would be considered theft.

And then what we, we can see basically paying for a work to an artist as a voluntary contribution to that artist and encouraging them to continue their work rather than an extortion which is what, what would happen more with digital locks and Digital Rights Management. Thank you.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much for those comments. (Applause) Pass it now to mic 1.

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Nathalie Dorval: Hi my name is <P2P>Nathalie Dorval</P2P>. I'm the senior counsellor of intellectual property at Astral Media. (Inaudible) holding this much needed copyright consultation. We greatly appreciate it. Briefly, I would like to talk to you about the role of broadcaster in the value chain of content, and also present to you a few challenges that we meet and what the, are the remedies that we're seeking for them.

So let me start with Astral Media. Astral Media is, owns and operates 82 radio stations across the country as well as 20 pay and speciality service and hold, operates over 100 websites. So as, as such, we are both creators of content, for example, if you want to access a podcast of our television or station, radio station programming and we are also users of content. For example, when we play music on our radio station. As such, we think that we are well placed to understand the need for a balanced approach to copyright. The other thing that we'd like to stress is that broadcaster really plays a vital role in creating value of content in our industry. We ensure that the great content made by our Canadian artists is seen on TV, on the web and on the radio and to that extent, we think that broadcasters' success really encourages also creators' success.

And I say that because we're living in a different world where we're competing on a global scale and we really need the tools to be able to continue to succeed for the whole industry and the Copyright Act is one of these tools. So let me start with one challenge that we face as user of content. So in this world, we face a multiplicity of right to be clear when we want to use some content. For example, under the current, the current system, if Astral wants to use for example a song to play on this multi-platform environment, we would have to make as much as 11 different payments to different copyright groups.

Now that brings us to a point where the current copyright rules are getting in the way of causing complication and delays in clearing content for us. So clearing right in this age of multi-platform has become totally inefficient for us and very costly. The other challenge that we face is that we pay for, the amount that we pay for the music that we play no longer reflects any type of fair value for us. It is more a system of piling of different payment that we make and not looking at the overall value of content for us.

So what we recommend is that we need to rethink our copyright system with a view to avoid the need to clear multiple rights. An efficient system for us would allow broadcaster to make one single and fair payment to be able to use that content. Thank you. (Applause)

Alex Enkerli: Hi, my name is Alex Enkerli, I teach anthropology and sociology at Concordia University, but I'm speaking in my own name. I first would like to congratulate the government on taking this initiative to actually pay attention to what Canadians care about in terms of copyright in general. Two quick observations and one quick suggestion.

So what I notice, especially in discussions online and offline about copyright is that there seems to be a lot of cynicism about the process, the consultation process but there also seems to be large degree of agreement across the board that the government needs to protect Canadians from abusers, especially from commercial interests. And my quick suggestion, my simple suggestion would be to treat Canadians as stakeholders in creative endeavours instead of treating us as mere users or consumers of content. Thank you.

The Hon. James Moore: I guess just a comment on the process. We wanted to make sure, we're trying to find as many ways as possible, you know, keeping in mind of course we are in a minority Parliament and as you know, since June of 2004, when Mr. Martin had his minority Parliament and then we've had three in a row, that there's always, we've seen again in the papers today that there could be an election, there could be an election. So we wanted to have as effective a consultation as possible. In this period of the summer where we know we will not have some kind of an election drama, election possibility drama that'll distract us from consultations.

So we're, we're doing town hall formats like this. The media are in the room. These, this conversation, everybody's intervention here today is going to be available online, which will spur, we hope, further conversations and people can respond to others and write to us. We're having closed door meetings with some folks who want to, who prefer that format, we're having one-on-one meetings with, with people. We're doing as, as broad a consultation as we can. And also don't forget, once we come forward with legislation, it'll then go toward, to the House Committee, there'll be a debate in the House and a debate at committee, an opportunity for, there'll be plenty of opportunity for folks to have their interventions and their views be known before we write the bill, while we're writing the bill, after the bill's been tabled and through final passage.

We really want to get this right and have as many people as possible have their views come forward. There are always opportunities of course for people to, to criticize. We hope it's a constructive criticism and we'll learn from this and try to make this as effective as possible. So...

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 3 and then Nicole.

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Jeremy Telio: My name's Jeremy Telio. I'm a little bit nervous but I hope my ideas can get across. I don't know how, how much my ideas really will resonate in this crowd. I think this crowd's maybe more the pro-copyright group whereas more I'm an anti-copyright person. I don't think that copyright's really a good thing. I think that intellectual property's a, an invention meant to, you know, I think in other words, physical property, you own something, you buy something, you can use it, you can do whatever you want with it. I don't think that intellectual proper, I think intellectual property's kind of in the air, it's defuse, it's not something real. If I buy a CD, I could break it, I could destroy it, it's mine, I own it, it's in my hand, it's physical, but something intellectual like I can't take that same CD that I could destroy, I could burn it, but I can't copy it. I find that stranger.

But anyways, that's not all that I want to talk about. I want to say I heard there was a case in the United States, there was some, there was a lady, she had eight songs that were downloaded onto her computer, she ended up getting sued. She said maybe I didn't download them, whatever. She ended up with a fine of I think $2 million for eight songs because each song was, I don't know, $100,000 or something like that. Each song had a massive fine on it. Now, if you could look at lots of people's computers in Canada, in Montreal, the youth and stuff, I'm sure you might find more than eight songs and I wouldn't want the Canadian law that you put forward for copyright protection to make, to put people in millions and millions of dollars of debt for these songs. This lady could have, instead of these eight songs, could have been purchased on iTunes for $8, $1 a song and that should be what the value is and yet this gigantic punishment came down on her and I wouldn't want other people to have that.

Also in Canada, I don't think that it's good to have a society where all the youth are illegal. The gentleman over there mentioned that before. A lot of the youth use the internet to download, use the internet to share and stuff and I wouldn't want everybody to be labelled illegal. You know, if you have a society where nobody's following the law, maybe the law needs to change. And the youth of right now are the ones that are going to grow up and eventually replace the people that are in Parliament that are there now, that are you in 20 years or whenever it is and that's the general view. Everybody thinks it's not anything strange, it's normal. You know, you could that. That's number one.

Another thing, I think that pointing to illegal content on the internet should not be legal. What I mean by pointing, the Pirate Bay for example, they have, they put Torrents up on their website. Torrents are not illegal files, they're not illegal, nobody authored that. Let's say it points to an MP3 that's illegal, so an author made that MP3, they have a copyright on that MP3 but the Torrent file, I assume you're, you're, you're knowledgeable in this area because you're doing all these consultations, but the Torrent file itself just points to different people's computers. So to say that pointing to illegal content, in other words, I download this Torrent or if I host the Torrent on my website, saying that because I'm hosting it, I'm hosting illegal content is not true. I'm hosting things that point to illegal content. I have done nothing wrong.

Somebody will download this file, they can now use it for a nefarious purpose, but just the having of ones and o's of that file, of the, the Torrent file that just points isn't doing anything illegal, it's not touching an author, it's not touching anything, it's telling people where they can get information. And that's what Google does.

Jean-Pierre Blais: To wrap-up please.

Jeremy Telio: To wrap up, that's what Google does. You could use Google and if you want to make Google illegal, you know, they have a, you can find pictures on it that, that are copyrighted, you can find music files, you could use Google, Google also points, Google has a list of everything and you could use it to find files that are illegal. So once you're going to start getting down

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you.

Jeremy Telio: these, these websites, you're going to also have to attack Google and I don't think that's fair or a good idea.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. I just, I think by quick count of people at the mic right now, I think we'll leave it there because if we do three minutes, we're going to run out of time. So the people at the mic now, we'll try to get through you, but I don't think we'll be able to have any other people, keeping in mind we also have people online.

Jeremy Telio: (off microphone) response to what I said? Or do you want to give your opinion?

Jean-Pierre Blais: Please respect the, you have to respect other people's rights and look at the lights please.

The Hon. James Moore: (off microphone) I don't quite think it's as simple as you present it. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Nicole, do you have any comments online?

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Nicole Frenette: What educational exemptions for showing commercially purchased DVD's in the classroom will be included? In the United States, there are educational exemptions for showing home use only video in the classroom if it is a face to face teaching situation. Why should Canadians be denied the same privilege when we must compete for students and resources?

Réjean Pelletier: Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Réjean Pelletier, I'm a singer-songwriter, I'm also a member of the Board of Artisti, which manages copyright or private copy. I'm representing singers and songwriters but I am also myself a singer-songwriter and we're going through major upheavals right now in the way we present our work, how it's disseminated, how we reach the public, and it's time that this become a priority that all these new forms of media, and when I hear others saying yes, you can't point at people saying they're criminals, they're downloading, it's now, it's a given in society. People will now download music.

When we say that CD's aren't being sold because people are downloading, it's true because it's a new form. We're moving towards a more green environment, we don't need to print plastic CD's, we can just stick it in our MP3's or iPods, but these new media have to be, have to be managed rather than abolished, as Marie Denise was saying because CD's and cassettes used to be part of legislation but now, there are USB's, there's MP3's, all of these are media and must be incorporated in the act because our music goes into them and that's where it's heard.

Another thing I'd like to make sure of is that when people speak about a tax on the product, it's not a tax, it's a royalty. You can't get into people's minds that we're taxing them again for something that's a given. That's it basically. Things have to be managed. We have to move forward and these new media formats and the ones to come not be the object of a debate every time new media comes in, that it be integrated directly into legislation rather than just cassettes and CD's, which are not selling anymore.

Darren Fung: Thank you very much for, for hosting these consultations. I think it's a fantastic thing to see so many people who are passionate about copyright. My name's Darren Fung, I'm the second Vice-President to the Guild of Canadian Film Composers, I'm also a former fellow of the Action Canada Public Policy Leadership Program, but first and foremost, I am a composer. I think I represent a large number of middle class creators who not fat cats, who make a significant part of their income off the monetization of their copyrights. It's obvious that copyright law is, is outdated and doesn't reflect the realities of today. The fact that we probably all in this room have at one point in time have broken copyright law is a testament to that.

However, I think that when you're drafting this new law, this new bill, that you need to consider a few things. You need to a) recognize that the monetization of copyrights is something that artists and creators need for their livelihoods. It is what's going to put food on the table for my kids, it's what's going to pay my mortgage down.

We have to recognize that the internet is a game changer and the other thing that we have to recognize is that consumer habits won't, consumer habits won't change. People will still share files, people will still (inaudible) and they will find a way to do what they want to do, legal or not. That being said though, I think what the key is, is to find a way to, to monetize that so that we create it legal, so that we, so that people aren't being penalized for what they want to do naturally but find a way to compensate artists and creators fairly.

I'll give you an example that at McGill, McGill capped recently, their intent to cap the bandwidth when, when the students were downloading and such and the student society, they went no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that. We, we like our downloading. And so the VP, and this is coming secondhand, so I'm not resetting the story fully, but the VP said well, you know, we can't afford all this bandwidth. So the student society went back and said okay, well how much is this going to cost? The VP said it's going to cost X amount and the students said okay, we're willing to tax that on to our fees. And here's my thing, is that we all know that students are traditionally the frugalist of consumers and I believe that if we offer, they were paying for access, if we offer them the opportunity to access for a fair fee, I think that the general public will follow that too, as long as it's done in a way that's simple and that's fair.

For me, copyright boils down to one thing. If someone is going to make money off the work that I do, I deserve a cut out of that because that's my livelihood. Copyright for creators is always something that is under attack. If you show, look at online comments at the CBC or Globe and Mail, you're going to look that there's a lot of, there's a lot of naivety about copyright, I think and it's a lot more complicated than said. It's always a struggle for me when I'm negotiating my contracts to convince people about the value of my intellectual property because it's something that's subjective not objective. And so I just ask you to consider all these things when you're drafting your new bill. Phew, I'm done. (Laughter) (applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much. Mic 2 and then we'll go online.

Annie Morin: Hello, my name is Annie Morin, I'm the director of the 'Société de gestion collective Artistique'. I'm also president of the 'Société des Canadiens (inaudible) de la copie privée' and also express a few opinions concerning the Union des artistes because the Union des artistes, which is an association of composers and authors has not been invited to a roundtable yet, so I don't know whether we'll eventually get an invitation. We'd also like to be able to express ourselves in the context of a roundtable. However, I will speak to you on behalf of the Union des artistes. I think you've already heard from some of the people today the importance of extending this scheme to all new technology that might be used to copy music for personal use.

Royalty for, for private copy means that since it's creation in 2000, about $160 million have been split between different stakeholders in music, by which I mean not just two or three stars, I mean 97,000 stakeholders. So for them, it's crucial and vital. And please extend this so that despite the fact that CD and, and blank tapes are going down, the sales are going down drastically, that the royalties remain because it's money that goes into the pockets of these creators and when people receive these cheques, we get calls at Artist and why people say thank you, I got my royalty cheque, I'll be able to pay for my taxes. You know, there's that. And thank you, I'll be able to pay my monthly bills. And some people even said what would I have done during the year I was getting chemotherapy if I hadn't gotten these royalties.

So it's a vital source of revenue. It's one of the sources of income that means that these artists can continue to create and that's important for Canadian culture to spread. That's a first point. Even this scheme could spread to other things, not just to this field of sound, but also audiovisual because people also make personal copies of films or TV shows. And in the context of a copyright reform, treaties with WIPO and others, the WPPT and others, the, I'm thinking of the Phonogram Treaty, these treaties allow for exclusive rights granted to singer, songwriters and producers of phonograms and we would be very glad that these exclusive rights be integrated into the act and be applied to any performance, even performances that exist when it was incorporated in the act.

So there would have to be a transitional scheme which we hope will not get rid of these rights that authors have just acquired.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Okay, thank you.

Annie Morin: It's over?

Jean-Pierre Blais: Look, the little light.

Annie Morin: Okay. Please, I'd just like to ask you to invite the Union des artistes to one of your roundtables. Thank you very much.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Nicole, online comments?

Nicole Frenette: (inaudible) share with you a couple of comments. They're actually reacting to your comments. So the first one is from Sylvana and she says regarding Pirate Bay, I absolutely disagree to the, to the gentleman's comment that pointing to infringing materials should not be illegal. This is akin to aiding and abetting. If a 'search engine's sole purpose is to make money off of pointing to illegal content, they are essentially profiting from crime.

And there was also another comment, this one from Allen from Toronto and he's reacting to the songwriters plan, regardless if a plan like the Songwriters' surcharge works or not, should not the internet service providers be made liable for illegal file sharing and other copyright infringement, since they have control and seek even more control over content?

Laurent Béland: Laurent Béland, coordinator of University (inaudible) for the Association of Students at the University of Montreal in the context of a Copyright Act. We're expecting that blocks to research and education be stopped because they allow for greater dissemination and we also want to encourage innovation, which is necessary for the Canadian economy in this sense. I'd like to give you a few examples of, of blocks that C-61 has caused. I'll give you a few for example.

An article in a scientific magazine, you could copy it but you can't distribute it to one of your colleagues. This is problematic when you're carrying out research with these colleagues who wouldn't be able to print many copies, for instance for a group meeting. We also couldn't have copied it on a USB key to work at home. And, and you can't keep a copy of, an archived copy for more than five days. For instance, if the library had given us an electronic copy so that we could carry out work at home, if it takes two or three weeks, we become criminals. In the same way for teaching, distributing a poem that was downloaded online is not allowed in class but if it comes from a book, it's okay because we pay royalties in order to have access to the manuscript document but it's not applied to electronic material which is nonsense. And it's forbidden to keep your notes at the end of the course if they're on an electronic device because it wouldn't come under creative comment.

So these are a few examples which show that it's absolutely necessary to create an exemption for academic and research work.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much Mr. Béland. (Applause) Mic 4.

Julien Royal: Julien Royal. I will speak on my own behalf as a young citizen. We look at the bills that were put forward at the federal level on copyright. There are many things we will note that are fairly clear. We're heading in a direction where the piece of legislation will tell the public that what they're currently doing is illegal, and it is a reality and this is where we're heading. The problem is that we have no solution to this. What's, what's the use of saying to people what you're doing is illegal when you can't stop them or prevent them from doing it? We have to create a certain police of the internet. If the sharing of files is now illegal, it'll be more so with the pieces of legislation put forward.

So you'll have to create an agency that will prevent this crime from existing. This only makes sense. Well, the problem with this logic is that you have, you end up with the following situation. Any structure cannot prevent this. The failure of the French legislation will, heads in that direction. If we start to regulate the internet, we destroy by the same token the very nature of internet, which is to be free. If we give agency the possibility to spy on citizens and to manage what they do with their connections, we end up with a certain problem. Currently, we are heading in that direction. From the moment we say we should regulate the sharing of files absolutely, we get into the dynamics which is inescapable. What will happen, according to me, is that if ever we try to implement these measures that control freedom, well the attitude of people will not change and we'll have a direct opposition of the citizens in light of this piece of legislation.

It's not by saying that a gesture is illegal that you can change a trend. The ability to compensate artists, even in this digital era where there is modernization of content and where there is file sharing that can be done instantaneously, it is not through legislation that you can restrict this transfer and sharing. According to many people, you should bring about more freedom in the market. What we see in these laws is that we're trying to defend a model, a market model that's very physical and that could not survive in the digital era.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you sir. Microphone 1.

Daniel Nerenberg: Thank you Minister for having these talks. My name is Daniel Nerenberg, I'm an entrepreneur and an IT consultant. I work in technology every day. I'm also a content trader. I've also had my content plagiarized and republished from a web-based format to a published book-based format and have had to take legal proceedings to protect that copyright where I felt there wasn't enough there to help me out.

I think that what's really important to remember is that individuals create, whether you're working for a corporation, whether you're working with a team of people, individuals create. If the creator creates something that the market is willing to pay for in a way, then industry will grow up around that person or around those creators. And I think that what's critically, critically important is that we don't protect industries whose models might be dying as the world moves forward into these new realms. And I think that ultimately, in protecting an industry whose monetization strategy is no longer valid in our current society, in the way society's moving forward, in legislation is tantamount to playing with the free market.

I believe that if the industry is adaptive and if they're forward-looking, they'll come up with a way to monetize it. Because I think fundamentally, Canadians do not want to steal the content creation of other people or that there are other methods to go and get money for putting that content out there. I myself use a driven model where I create freely but it still is bothersome to me when someone takes my content and then profits from it by printing it in a book.

So finally, I think that it's critically important that the law protect content creators and not dying business models. We have to make sure that disruptive business models and that new business models can replace what's there before that better serves the market and Canadians today. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you Mr. Nerenberg. Now for mic number 2.

Jean Grégoire: Bonjour. Jean Grégoire, president of the Fédération étudiante des universités du Québec. As a representative, this student organization has 120,000 members. I'd like to underline a few things. We notice on one hand that there are different groups here that have interests that are difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, those who want more rigid protection of copyright of works and creation, on the other hand, for certain requests concerning an increase of information that it be easier to broadcast.

At the universities, we have a problem with students who are researchers, professors are researchers and students, we're sort of on both sides. On the one hand, we have to have access to the information. For academic reasons, it's essential that students have access to all the information necessary at the time and place where they need it. So the idea is a student having access to important information. And students end up producing briefs and what have you. They become writers themselves. So these students are producing content need to be protected by a good framework act.

So what we hope is that the government will be able to set up an act that strikes a balance between holders, users and the interests of society in general. What we would like is that the government specify fair use for teaching in that it's not a, it's not copyright infringement. It would also be important that there be exemptions for teaching and that all the exemptions, that it be the same as what existed before, the exemption for, for educational institutions, libraries and museums.

Lastly, we've noticed that there are new works in the act and that these new types of work be covered by the academic exemption clause that you'd, you'd put in the act. And if you present a new bill, we hope that there will be other consultations and that it'll be possible to submit briefs at that time. Thank you very much. (Applause)

The Hon. James Moore: And if you have any ideas, you can go on our website, consultation, copyrightconsultations.ca, so consultationsdroitsdauteur.ca in French so you can, if you have, you can do that. Ie., if ou have something today, there are people from the department who are here, so if you have any ideas, we're open to anything that comes in written form as well.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you Minister. Mr. Grégoire. And Nicole.

Nicole Frenette: This one from Emmanuel. Revision of the Copyright Act affords the unique opportunity to address a major obstacle to access to valuable cultural materials. While excellent audiovisual records of valuable cultural materials have and continue to be created by the excellent documentary producers in Canada, incidental inclusion of small parts of copyright protected materials, for example, musical, trademark, visual, and other materials, can pose significant obstacles to providing access to these cultural materials, often by cost prohibitive fees demanded for allowing the inclusion of these small part of the copyright protected materials in the documentaries. Documentaries deserve express attention in a new copyright regime.

Raymond DuBerger: Berger, producer, manager at a sound studio and record administrator. I'd like to bring up a very specific viewpoint in this consultation, the, the idea being to stop living in an illusory world. This great illusion is that new technologies are fascinating the entire world. So we're being blinded to the content. If we want to defend Canadian content, if we want Canadian content to continue to move forward in Canada and throughout the world, we're going to need tools because if we lose control of Canadian content in the context of these technologies, the, the forum will win over the content and will decide on the content.

I'm thinking of net access of the servers who use this. Currently, the situation is not made easier, it makes it even more complicated before we had to defend ourselves against radio, television, etc., but now we have to deal with internet technology which will call for even more investment rather than less. And if competition means that we can attack the world, the world can attack us too. So we need to have tools so that we as Canadians who are composers, authors and so on be able to fight in these markets.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 4 please.

(inaudible): My name it's (inaudible), web design and today's internet (inaudible) is more, more a part in our life, almost 90% of businesses go online. And actually we deal with a copyright law every day. We need to spend the time for a finds who steal our content or pictures. How actually the copyright protect us. And if it's possible to build some, a program in copyright website that actually make for web design a situation or private or businesses is a link to your system. And your system will find like Google can find the same content and just mail us this very simple and easy. Thank you very much.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll move to mic number 1 please.

Dominique Lenoir: Dominique Lenoir, software professional. I'm here as a consumer. As we were saying, as was said earlier, copyright is at the intersection between culture and commercial interests. What we see more and more is that some copyright protects cultural content where there isn't any commercial interest necessarily. I think of protection on DVD's that was mentioned before where if I want my Swedish friends to see Le coeur a ses raisons, it's impossible, it's illegal for them and vice versa. There's that, our restrictions to distribute and even without DVD, when I want to see let's say I might want to watch Bell Quebec or content that's prohibited. So the act should allow where there's no commercial interest or where commercial interest doesn't allow for the transaction, should allow to legally circumvent (inaudible) and also to, also the government should set up a system to compensate for authors' losses, the people who are involved in creation.

There's also the Digital Rights Management. There were many incidents lately. I think Sony had put in a (inaudible), a program that people couldn't even detect. And with C-61, it would have been forbidden to go see what that program was doing. It allowed big companies or even smaller corporations to go play within our property, potentially putting in viruses or pirate software. So the next act has to allow for the investigation of these devices and force the visibility of these devices and not create a, not allow for technology to come before the, the law.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 2 and Nicole.

Daniel Drapeau: (inaudible) Mr. Minister. My name is Daniel Drapeau, I'm the president of the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee at the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. Now that's a title that got me in here today. What I do on a day to day basis is that I'm counsel at Smart and Biggar, which is an IP law firm that specializes in the questions that we're discussing today.

I certainly don't envy you today because you've got quite a few concepts that you have to grapple with and quite a few positions that are taken that are not necessarily easily reconcilable. So my message to you is going to be very simple. It has three letters and it's ISP. (Laughter) The work that I do is essentially, I'm a hired gun when people who have rights want to go after people who steal or copy their rights. The work that I do is very practical, it's on a day to day basis and I'm confronted with the difficulties of having to go after somebody who hides behind somebody else. The Copyright Act doesn't help me very much and the three recommendations that I have for you is first of all, responsibilise the internet service provider; secondly, make him open up his books (applause) so we can figure out who's, who he's hiding or who's trying to hide behind him; and thirdly, a system of notice and take-downs like we have in a number of other, of other countries.

That's about it and given that I haven't quite exhausted my allotted three minutes, which I'm sure you'll be very grateful for, I'd like to pass on another message to you and if you could tell your colleague Mr. Clement to hold similar town halls on trademarks, I'd be very much happy to contribute to them. (Laughter) Thank you so much. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you very much Mr. Drapeau. Nicole?

Nicole Frenette: (inaudible) from Toronto. I work in the music industry and work closely with many Canadian artists who have many different opinions. The one consistent view is that they all seem to, that they all seem to have is that people who create should have the choice as to whether or not they want to monetize their creations. Choice is something that should lie in the hands of the creators and the partners they choose to do business with. Life in Canada is based on choice. Without choice, we would be told who our leaders are. I think we all know that would not be a wise, a wise choice.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 3.

Tracey Arial: Hello, my name is Tracey Arial and I'm an independent writer. I've been writing since 1993. And the last time I was in a room like this was 1995, just after what, during the WIPO consultations and the amendments that were done in 1997 took a revenue stream right out of my business. So I'm actually very conscious of what you're doing here. And so my first request is whatever you do, please give people like me, I guess I'm a dinosaur, a chance to actually recover from any changes you make. So that's my first request. If you change some sort of so-called dinosaur model, at least give me a chance to actually upgrade my business practices so that I don't just lose a revenue stream as soon as the law is passed.

The second comment that I have is the Copyright Act since 1995 has been particularly damaging to me primarily because corporations are now coming after me with contracts that make it impossible for me to do very much. They've decided that distributing work via the internet is cheap and so they should add that on to whatever other service I'm providing for them. So as an independent writer, what I actually need the Copyright Act to do is instead of balancing between users and copyright holders, I need you to divide up copyright holders into creators and publishers, distributors, whatever you want to call those other people so that I can have more rights than they do, so I can actually negotiate with them. Because they used to be happy with the terms that were in the Copyright Act. That's why we never had contracts.

They brought contracts out because they decided the Copyright Act didn't give them the rights they needed and so they used contracts to try and take our rights away. And when people didn't have contracts, they decided to take them away retroactively. One example of this is the length of time of copyright. As an individual, I need my whole lifetime to make copyright work because my best work may well, I may actually write it the day before I die, in which case I hope my, my children have the opportunity to benefit from that. But a commercial endeavour doesn't last more than 20 years. So they don't need more than 20 years. So give me the rights that I have, 100 years plus 50 years, and give them 20 years and make it impossible to take more. Thank you. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Number 4.

Jean-Philippe Mikus: Minister, Jean-Philippe Mikus, I'm at Faskin Martineau Dumoulin in Montreal, I'm also, I was at the Canadian section of Artists but I'm expressing myself on my own behalf today. I'd like to draw your attention to the relation between copyright and control issues. Sorry, the relation between copyrights and cultural issues, there is a direct relationship between the two because copyright is the tool which allows private businesses to invest in Canadian culture, Quebec culture and allow them to develop. Minister, it's clear that creating Canadian culture today and marketing it takes a lot of income. And when you have situations where there's an, there are unpaid exchanges, no money is coming into the industry that allows for creation. The multinationals, particularly from our neighbours to the south are better able to benefit because they can get sources from other countries whereas smaller businesses perhaps cannot access this, these income streams.

And if we have Canadian legislation that is weaker and that isn't efficient versus foreign legislation, foreign companies can develop, foreign businesses will be stronger and they can spread their culture more easily on a worldwide basis. So I think that we can't ignore commercial issues. There's a clear relationship between them and culture itself. I think that if we, if we ignore them, Canadian culture will not move forward. It'll become folklore, it'll be state subsidized and I don't think this is something that we want as Canadians and Quebeckers. We would like our, we would like to have high quality Canadian content and culture and that it be available throughout the world. I think we would be proud as Canadian and Quebec citizens of this kind of thing.

Moreover, another objective for this Canadian Copyright Act would be that private companies that want to invest in culture be able to do it efficiently, respecting copyright, copyright. This was mentioned many times. Private businesses often hold and exploit content and the Copyright Act, what's happening, with the board allow for more efficiency so that businesses that want to be legal be able to do it as efficiently as possible so that people invest in Canadian and Quebec culture. Thank you Mr. Minister.

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Jean-Pierre Blais: Nicole, online comments?

Nicole Frenette: I am a student from Ottawa and in response to the IP lawyer, I completely disagree on ISP's taking any active part other than serving internet. Net neutrality is an important aspect that should be respected.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. (Applause) Mic, microphone number 1.

Cyrille Béraud: Hello Minister, I'm Cyrille Béraud. I'm the president of FACIL, which is a not-for-profit organization to promote free computer science. I'm also president of (inaudible) and I'd just like to bring up two comments because many things have already been said. The first being that one of the reasons of the wealth of creation on internet has to do with telecommunications support but also software, and they're often freeware which is to say it's a new legal context allows authors to work in a collaborative way and to distribute their software for free and this allows for this incredible profusion that exists currently.

The, the legislation that was proposed before would probably have been harmful to the, this new context. So I wanted to draw your attention to this. Regardless which act is proposed, we have to preserve this new legislative framework. The freeware licenses that are used throughout the world and in Canada in businesses that allow for significant productivity gains. That was the first point. As far as copyright is concerned, FACIL believes that there are ways to deal with this contradiction, freedom which will allow for the creation of new economic models that will reinforce Canada's position and the legitimate right of authors to have their rights preserved and we support Richard Stallman's initiative of global philanthropy which is a form of global license which would e collected by ISP's.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you Mr. Béraud. Microphone 2 and then Nicole.

Philippe Bruneau: My name is Philippe Bruneau, I'm a Canadian citizen. I'm here to talk to you about the Digital Right Management. What I dislike in this is that in this new bill, you make illegal, you prohibit the right to circumvent the software that do this. What is happening currently, it's that some of those programs are such that they can be harmful to the good operation of a computer, it can even prevent some software from operating well. For instance, I play many APC games. If you install a game, it's called Fear, and you have two DVD burners, the game will refuse to operate because they believe you are a hacker because you have two DVD burners.

So it is to prevent such abuse or at least include a provision in this new act that would prevent the video game producers or films or music creators to make an abusive, or to misuse their right, preventing consumers (inaudible) from having two burners or having a virtual reader of data. Sometimes the DRM programs prevent the good operation of those programs and some of the DRM programs can prevent a good running of the computer. Like for instance, (inaudible) Force, which was developed in Russia. It installs drivers, indiscreet drivers on your computer, in a computer with Windows XP. It can prevent it from operating well, from reading the DVD's well or transferring the data from one hard drive to another. Thank you very much for your attention and have a good day.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you Mr. Bruneau. Nicole?

Nicole Frenette: (inaudible) from Vancouver. Why should a content producer only have to produce for a short period of their lives and live off of that for life while the rest of us have to work all our lives to make a living? Lifelong copyrights make no sense. Unless my, people like my parents are going to get paid for life for working in a factory for a few months.

André Cornellier: André Cornellier, I'm the director of copyright for the Association des photographes canadiens, the CAPIC. I represent Canadian photographers. I'd like to thank you Mr. Moore for this opportunity I've been given today. And also thanks for the attention that the government is paying to photographers. I know that you intend to present an act that would allow Canadian photographers to receive copyright. They are, Canadian photographers are the only photographers in the world who do not have a copyright. Throughout the world, copy, photographers have these rights and, and in Canada, it's the person who, who orders it, who orders the, the photo who has the rights.

And I'd like to deal with two myths that we heard about today, that you're often going to hear at consultations on the internet. The first, there was a gentleman saying before that when you buy a physical object, you can do what you want with it, but when you buy a CD, you don't have a right to copy it, to do what you want with it. This is a myth that is totally false. When you buy a car or a fridge or a pen, a light, a lamp, any object, yes you can do what you want with it, you can paint it, you can break it, throw it out, resell it. What you can't do with it is copy it. If you buy a Ford car and you copy it, I, let me tell you, Mr. Ford is going to come and see you. And if you copy a refrigerator, there's a patent there. Anything that you buy you cannot copy. You have the right to use it but you can't copy it. That's all we're asking for is the same rights.

A second myth that we heard previously, many young people today who were brought up on internet say that we have the right to anything we can find on the internet. We should be able to use these things. Last year, the Association of Canadian Creators held a conference in Toronto and invited Canadian creators to express themselves as well as those who were against copyright and intellectual property rights. So we heard both sides, same as we are hearing them today.

A young person started to say that he wouldn't like there to be copyright because he was creating from the internet, he took photos, images, film clips and created a new work and for him, if he wasn't allowed to do this, he couldn't work anymore. So he was asking for free access without paying any royalties or copyright. A simple question was asked of him, so you've made this work out of what you've done and now a company, a video game company takes your work and reproduces it on a video game to sell it 100 million copies. And he stopped about it for two seconds and he said what will you do? Well, I'll sue them. But you can't sue them, there's no longer any kind of copyright or rights generally in your scheme. And I think if the government tried to go in this direction, the young people who ask for this, in 10, 20 years, they would be the ones who would most reproach you for going down that path. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Microphone 4, then Nicole. There will be one person per mic who can come in in rebuttal or response to the comments that have already been made, so microphone 4.

Anthony Hémond: I'd like to thank the Minister for this round, for this town hall, for consulting. My name is Anthony Hémond. I'm at the Union des consommateurs, a not-for-profit organization, I'm a lawyer and we represent a number of different people. The Union des consommateurs tries to protect consumer rights considering low income families and we try to deal with their values, such as solidarity, equity, social justice, improving living conditions socially and environmentally. A few comments concerning a possible bill protected by these new legislation.

Some people, these new devices have to do with more than, there are, there are certain devices that will actually keep people from even reading CD's on their CD players. We actually looked toward interoperability, that people not be blocked that makes the, by things like key, people from being able to use certain devices. And there's also a danger concerning private life as, such as the (inaudible) by Sony. We also have to look at international agreement. Article 8 of WIPO, it says that authors have exclusive rights to authorize all communication to the public, wire free, wireless of their work in such a way that each person have access from the place they choose individually.

It's quite possible to have an innovative approach in the field and if we look at Spain, Spain is quite different from other European countries or European (inaudible). A Spanish judge said lately concerning downloading, condemning them would be penalizing a socially acceptable practice where the aim is not to illegally enrich yourself but to get private copies. So private copies, the article 8, could be re, reformed and, and extended. Also digitally, it's very difficult, this goes against the whole copyright principle.

I'm thinking of the Théberge Supreme Court decision concerning copyright. All of this could restrict the ability of the public domain to embellish creative works in order to help society and it could create practical obstacles to legitimate uses. Others will say that we should modify copyright laws so that we meet international agreements, including WIPO agreements. This is true up to a certain but we can't forget certain provisions, including article 7, protection and respect of intellectual property rights should promote and innovate society and should help to spread technology to the mutual advantage of those who generate and use technical, technological devices and it should help to ensure a balance between rights and obligations. Thank you.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Nicole?

Nicole Frenette: I'm a musician, businessman and active member of society. I pay my bills and taxes. Why do we allow a culture of piracy to thrive in Canada? Canada needs a solution that will protect intellectual property.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Microphone 1.

Auob Muntasar: My name is Auob Muntasar and I represent on the VP External, the Concordia Student Union. We're about 30,000 students. And they say people's attention span's about 20 minutes and it must have been an hour and a half ago, so I'm going to keep this sweet and simple. (Laughter)

First off, I have three points to get across. My first point to get across would be open ended definition of fair dealing. I find that the system right in place doesn't accurately reflect what many of us might want. Secondly, update education provisions to facilitate digital, digitalization and long distance learning. We have a lot of students at Concordia who take online courses and the copyright legislation right now hinders the, the way that the course are taught.

Thirdly and most importantly is I think there should be some sort of exceptions to academic institutions. I do recognize that plagiarizing movies and songs and whatnot and paintings are illegal and it, people need a source of revenue. But when it comes to research and whatnot, it does hinder all students and I do encourage you to consult students directly. I heard, in the beginning you mentioned that you were having private consultations with certain people and I'd encourage you to consult with students. I could organize that for you here in Montreal if you'd be willing. (Laughter) And that's about it. Thank you very much.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Okay. Thank you very much. (Applause) Yes Minister?

The Hon. James Moore: (inaudible) students have been a part of every one of our roundtables. Last night in Gatineau, we had the Canadian Alliance of Students Associations, in Vancouver, we had the Canadian Federation of Students, we had, we've had individual students here today. So certainly it's important not only for, to represent the needs of students and the dynamics of new online learning, but also because of the, of the generational consideration that copyright needs to take.

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Mic 2 please.

Michael Dugdale: Yes hello, my name is Michael Douglas, I'm a Physics teacher at John Abbott College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue but I'm here representing myself.

I just wanted to have a, just had a few comments on some of the things I've heard today. I did get a little bit of a cold chill going down my back when I heard, you know, the idea of using a US-style take-down notices, kind of in the long lines of the DMCA. Without any sort of judicial overview of, regarding this, this has become something in which, it's really acting to stifle free speech in the States and there have been numerous instances of abuse of uses of these take-down notices. I would hate to see that really kind of reflected in Canada. You know, we, you know, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is quite clear on our ability to communicate freely. And you know, not that, you know, not that I support piracy of any measure, but I would really hate to see honest free speech impeded just by ISP's trying to avoid lawsuits.

The other thing is a question of going after the ISP's to make it a little bit more easy to go after people who are infringing or allegedly infringing. How does one do that without, you know, really infringing on, you know, the right to, you know, privacy. I mean, without deep packet inspection, without really looking at what they're, people are doing which is basically tantamount to wiretapping, if you do that without a court order, that's a very, very chilling prospect. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. I'm going to give a chance to people that haven't had spoken. First I'm going to go to microphone 4, mic 1, then Nicole, then finally mic 3 and that'll be it for today. Thank you. Sir?

Sam Goldberg: My name is Sam Goldberg, I'm a retired historian although I'm speaking for myself at the moment. What amazes me this afternoon is despite the many legitimate viewpoints expressed by the different interest groups, there has been nobody who's raised the question of the disadvantaged in our society and on the international stage. Surely no matter what you do in the Copyright Act, it's going to negatively impact the poor people in the world. So how does one balance the protection of the creator and the distributors of knowledge and the rest of the world that is getting poorer and poorer all the time and it seems to me that the act, if nothing else, is designed to protect the rich rather than to protect humanity. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Did I say you? No, I forgot what I said.

Stephanie Moffatt: My name is Stephanie Moffat, I'm an artist manager and lawyer. Just for that reason, I, I have to agree with Marie Denise and others here. The primary objective in your act is to find a way to fairly compensate authors who create the content on internet. As a society, we choose that all Canadians can have access to music on internet, as a society we have to find a way to pay them. The best example given to me yesterday when we were discussing this was as a society, when we decided that each child had to go to school with milk, should have their little carton of milk in the morning, we said as a society we want our, our children to have this. We didn't ask milk producers to give it to them.

So I think one of the means we could use would be to adapt the pirate copy scheme to the, to new technology and in 2009, we can't have a Copyright Act with, excluding broadcasters. The market has changed. They're, they're the ones who are at the entry gate, they receive the sums and the, the power relationship between them and creators is quite unequal right now. And with this new act, you can give them means of negotiations to allow for compensation and attribution of income which Canadian citizens would approve of. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: Thank you. Nicole.

Nicole Frenette: By now we have long known that online piracy is a huge problem in Canada. The work of artists and creators is taken from them with no compensation and without their permission. All of Canada's trading partners have implemented WIPO reforms, helping to stimulate legitimate online markets and with no known ill effects. Why has it taken Canada so long to modernize our copyright laws? When can we expect action in this country?

Jean-Pierre Blais: Last but not least, mic number 3.

Unidentified Male: Thank you again for the opportunity. I just want to actually rebut comments or, or throw something on. One of them is a gentleman said that you couldn't copy a car, and I'd just like to draw a distinction there. You can't copy a car commercially, but I know lots of people who've gone and, and bought parts and made parts and in their own personal garage, rebuilt their favourite car of the childhood because it just simply wasn't possible to go and get those parts or buy those parts. So I think that that really isn't a, a valid analogy in this situation. Or maybe it's even better of an analogy because you have the distinction between commercial mass reproduction without license and personal reproduction for the purpose of personal enjoyment.

The other thing that I wanted to mention was a gentleman who identified, identified himself as an IP lawyer and the hired gun. I want to draw another distinction here is that yeah, he probably does a very good job at what he does. He does a really good job representing copyright holder interests for not necessarily creator interests. If I want him, to hire his services, I don't believe I'll be able to afford it. I have a legitimate copyright issue against a major corporation and a dying industry in publishing. They copied my material, they derived revenue from that material, but there's no way that I as an individual content creator can afford to hire that hired gun because he's just too expensive for me. And even at the, the rate that I, even at the lowest rate that I can negotiate with the lawyer, the farthest I could go was to send a letter which was promptly ignored.

So I just want to make sure that there's a distinction between the content creator who says hey, that's my material being, someone else is making money off of it, often even the industry itself and you know, the industry who can afford to go out and hire that hired gun. Thanks. (Applause)

Jean-Pierre Blais: I'll give the mic to the Minister.

The Hon. James Moore: Thank you Mr. Jean-Pierre Blais, who has helped us so much today. (Applause) Thank you very much Mr. Blais. I'm very lucky to have you in my department and with your whole team today.

(Inaudible) being here today. As I said, today's session is going to be available online, so if you want to review what you said and be very proud of what you said in the interventions you made on behalf of yourselves and, and your perspective, you're obviously free to do that. We're going to have more of these town halls. There's one in Toronto coming as I said, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Halifax, elsewhere. And of course, the conversation is going on online, copyrightconsultations.ca, consultationsdroitsdauteur.ca. The conversation is continuing on there. As I said, we're going to go forward with legislation that we believe will be in the best interest of all Canadians.

And I really appreciate the broad diversity of views that we heard here today. Your decision to come here today, to be involved in this conversation is incredibly helpful to myself, to Mr. Clement, to our government and when we put forward legislation, I know that the debate will continue forward through that in the fall. We really want to get this right. There's been a lot of talk about this for a very long time. We think we have a window of opportunity to modernize our legislation which in the long run, will serve the best interests of all Canadians, and not just protecting, but also looking forward and seizing opportunities that exist with new technologies and really doing what's in the best interest of Canada.

So thank you all very much. Have a nice day. (Applause)

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