It’s distinctly possible that Canada could face an election soon as opposition leader Michael Ignatieff ponders on whether or not to force an election. Whether or not an election actually happens, it’s important for man to look back on the track record on the topic of copyright law reform – we take an in-depth look at this.
2004 – The Political Campaign
To get a broad look at how not only copyright laws were tabled, but what political parties said as well prior to the legislation being tabled during the election, we go clear back to 2004 when Liberal leader, Paul Martin, became Prime Minister. At the time, CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic), sent out questions to all the political parties at the time. We’ll focus on the top two political parties for the first part of this article as they have been the parties who had the power to table copyright reform as the governing party.
The CIPPIC questions covered a wide range of topics that related to copyright including the discussion of file-sharing.
The Conservative party, even then, didn’t offer a response. However, the Liberal party did respond (PDF) with the following:
Thank you for your recent email concerning issues related to the Internet and new technologies. As you pointed out the expansion of copyright law in the digital domain, sharing of music files, the growth of span and the impact of new national security measures are all important current issues.
The Liberal Government considers copyright reform to be extremely important, and has been working for at least seven years on copyright changes required to adapt to the current economic, social, technological, and international environment.
The federal government is committed to ensuring that Canada’s copyright regime remains among the most modern and progressive in the world. The objectives to be met through the reform process are to:• create opportunities for Canadians in the new economy;
• stimulate the production of cultural content and diversity of choices for Canadians;
• encourage a strong Canadian presence on the Internet; and,
• enrich learning opportunities for Canadians.
The Liberal party got elected into a minority situation that year.
2005 – Copyright Reform Tabled
In 2005, the Paul Martin government tabled Bill C-60 – an act to amend the copyright act. CIPPIC offered an in-depth analysis of the bill. The bill was first read on June 20, 2005.
In essence, Bill C-60 would offer legal protections to TPMs (Technological Protection Measures), legislate a notice-and-notice regime (as opposed to the notice-and-takedown regime as seen in the United States), essentially criminalizing the act of uploading copyrighted material (not necessarily downloading so long as the downloading is for personal use) and forces ISPs to hold identifiable information about any customer that receives a notice of copyright infringement for a period of 6 months so that copyright holders can decide whether or not to press charges for a maximum of a $10,000 fine.
Many who watched the copyright debates then heavily criticized the copyright legislation for being too restrictive and it never made it to second reading. As a consequence, the election forced it to die on the order-paper in 2006.
Election 2006 – The year of “change”
The then opposition leader, Stephen Harper, forced an election and was then elected as Prime Minister of Canada. During the campaign, a number of political things happened including the ever-famous “pro user zealots” comment by Sam Bulte, but we’ll focus on direct responses by the political parties.
Again, the Conservative party of Canada did not answer the wide range of questions posed by CIPPIC, however, the Liberal party did. Here’s the first question and response found here (PDF):
1. Copyright Law and Technical Protection Measures: Do you agree that we need legislation to protect Canadian firms from harmful technologies like the Sony-BMG rootkit DRM?
The Liberal Party of Canada supports technology that protects digital artistic content and we will continue to work hard to facilitate consensus amongst stakeholders in copyright matters. We introduced a wide ranging piece of copyright legislation in the last Parliamentary session that encourages creativity and protects the rights of creators, while ensuring diffusion of knowledge and access to cultural products.
The Liberal party lost their bid to be re-elected.
Bill C-61 – Canada’s DMCA of 2008
On June 12, 2008 – incidentally, a year and a day ago – , the Conservative government, who won the election on the guise of change in Canada, tabled Bill C-61. CIPPIC, again, offered an in-depth analysis on the legislation. Michael Geist labelled the Canadian DMCA as a “betrayal” as there were so many controversial provisions in it including the legal protection of TPMs.
Under Bill C-61, the use of Fair Dealings applies unless there is a “digital lock” on it. ISPs would be required to hold subscriber information for a period of 6 months when they receive a notice of a complaint from copyright holders – exactly like Bill C-60. File-sharers who upload copyrighted material would be liable for damages that are capped ($500 – $20,000). While there are capped liabilities, CIPPIC suggests that merely placing a copyrighted work into a shared directory could be constituted as copyright infringement.
An election was called and Bill C-61 effectively died on the order-paper.
2008 to Now
While a Conservative government was heavily criticized for tabling the legislation, after C-61 died on the order-paper, the Conservatives vowed via the Throne Speech to re-introduce the legislation, but, to date, that has never happened. As a result, the copyright debate in terms of copyright reform has remained relatively dormant to this day. The only legislative activity that was seen was a re-invigorated Pirate Party movement in Canada thanks mainly due to the more recent victory of the Pirate Party in Europe – winning two seats in the recent EU elections.
It’s not entirely clear whether or not a new election could insight a renewed effort on the subject of copyright reform even though the discussions of the Pirate Party of Canada has some renewed enthusiasm, but an election does offer opportunity for voices to be heard on both sides of the table. The NDP have been most critical about the two copyright reform bills through Charlie Angus.
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Canadians have clearly indicated they do NOT want another election. Mr. Ignatieff will pay the price if he refuses to listen to the voters. He is a master game-player/opportunistic politician who wants only to be Prime Minister . He cares no more for the citizens of our country than Mr. Harper who, in my opinion has done a fiarly good job of dealing with the economic mess we are in. Time to put the needs of Canadians first for a change. . I have always voted Liberal, but not this time. I don’t find Mr. Ignatieff any less arrogant than Mr. Harper.
So you think the opposition should pass anything the conservatives want to pass even if it is absurd? If you have a beef with anything it should be with our election system. Under the current system Canadians are not properly represented in the house of commons, and it leads to parties gaining power with less than 40% of the vote. Personally I don’t like an election, but I would have more for the opposition to have no spine and to bow down to any request from the opposition. Should they do that than there is no point to having a democracy, we may as well elect a dictatorship.
Personally I don’t want another election, but I would rather have another election due to the opposition strongly disagreeing with the direction of government, than to have them bow down to all request. We may as well live in a dictatorship if we wish the opposition to just play follow the leader no mater what the leader and power is choosing.
Kathleen .
“Time to put the needs of Canadians first”?
You basically quote the Conservatives slogan from an election or two aggo, cleamim to be a former Liberal suppoter and expect us to expect you’re not a Conservative shill?
You’re also using another Conservative talking poing by saying “Canadians have clearly indicated they do NOT want another election.”
Really? I’m a Canadian and I want Harper gone asap. Thanks for speaking for me with such a half assed broad statement.
You Conservatives have no ethics or decency. It’s clear you’re a Conservative going around pretending to be a Liberal. You’re a traitor to Canada and the Canadian way
I’m a NDP’er who’ll be voting Liberal because of people like you.
You disgust me.
Kathleen,
You meant to say “*I* don’t want an election”, right?
You also meant to say: “I am a shill for the PMO’s well established and utterly stupid talking points”, yes?
Sounds to me like you caught a bad case of the Harper Herpes. You know, when you get into bed with a filthy, lying, backstabbing politician and wake up with a rash of stupid things to say?
Yeah, you know.
I want Harper gone too, just as soon as he gets rid of that Log Gun registry. ;]
It was things like waffling efforts to americanize our copyright law that keep us putting weaker and weaker minorities in place. Someday they are going to take the hint and realize that we want them to act like Canadians and be proud of it.
If they keep up this act of theirs they’re going to have to get used to seeing the skull and crossbones every day they come to work from now on. The way things are going, future minority governments are probably going to have to accept being boarded by a few pirates now and then just to float a coalition.
Log Gun? That gives me such a funny picture… ;]
The system is fine the way it is, but we need an elected senate.
If the opposition is not ready to bring down the government on an issue in a minority gov’t, then it is because they do not believe the Canadian public would vote them into power on the issue at hand. Therefore it’s a good check on the opposition from stopping any minority gov’t legislation they want.
On the flip side, it’s also good when the gov’t is doing something that a large amount of citizens do not agree with. The opposition party can bring down the gov’t and will be voted into power on election day.
The system is fine, the problem most of you have is someone you don’t like (for personal reasons, you’ve really made no references to any political ones) is the prime minister.
Ignatieff just represents more of the same liberal party stupidity. I *want* to vote liberal but they just keep making it so hard. Until they put forward a leader that is a viable prime minister, and come up with some kind of coherent national policy, the country is going to continue to be divided and Harper will be the best choice of the 3.
Harper isn’t perfect, but he is by far the best leader and candidate for prime minister of Canada, and that is why his party continues to win and why I continue to vote for them.
I’d argue that the system if flawed because it promotes the merger of two similar but different parties for the purpose of gaining a majority. We need a system that promotes vote distribution to less popular, or emerging parties to encourage change. By continuing a plurality system we are essentially pushing the system to where people vote for a party simply because they don’t want the another party in power.
To Aron Walkhouse the gun registry was mismanaged, but the idea is sound. The police force use it to anticipate what kind of situation they are getting into. It helps to know there are guns in the house when responding to domestic disputes. It also helps to encourage people to report stolen firearms, which does help keep them off the streets. At this point the money has already been spent, so to kill the system now would be foolish. But I will agree that it was a joke how badly it was managed.
I don’t think the answer is more political parties, it’s just that individuals within a party have to think more for themselves and their constituents. The trouble is there is no real campaigning on the part of candidates in Canada until a few weeks before an election, after which they disappear to Ottawa and, but for a few, vote down the party line.
If you look at the states, there are several factions in both party. There are only 2 parties but there are actually more groups of senators and congress people that work together within and across party lines than the number of uniform Canadian parties. Health care reform there would be an open and shut case if they voted the way Canadian parliament does but convincing the moderate democrats in the party has been half the battle.
Another thing that bugs me about Canadian elections are the lack of open primaries….I think constituents should be choosing the candidates for each party, it allows grass roots candidates to actually have a chance at running.
So I guess I agree to a certain extent that our system does actually have problems, I just don’t think it has to do with minority gov’ts…its one of the benefits of our system. In the US the opposition party can filibuster whenever they want with no fear of an election and it leads to a lot of problems.
AN ELECTION , THE SOONER THE BETTER BEFORE THEY CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF OUR DEMOCRACY. IF WE ONLY KNEW WHAT CHANGES THEY ARE MAKING WE ALL WOULD ALL WANT IT TOMORROW.
There’s not going to be an election this summer.