It’s becoming the low-light of the whole consultation in Canada. The Toronto town hall meeting had already been stacked in the foreign copyright industry’s favour. Even more dramatic fallout has since emerged.

We reported yesterday on how Canadian students and NDP MP Olivia Chow – wife of NDP leader Jack Layton – were targeted by private security for handing out fliers which included an interview with NDP MP Charlie Angus. They were threatened to be ejected from the premises unless they stopped handing out those fliers which detailed their stance on copyright issues. Shortly after, an American group circulated an e-mail accusing the NDP of departing from their party platform to buy votes from young people by supporting fair copyright. They labelled the move as “disgusting” and demanded an apology from the NDP for taking such a stance which included a broadening of fair dealing.

The NDP have responded to the accusations and apology demand.

“The fallout has been very bizarre.”Charlie Angus commented. He adds, “A copyright lobbyist with the American federation of Musicians is circulating an online e-mail demanding the NDP apologize for our “disgusting” position on balanced copyright.”

He responded to the fact that they had received such flack over handing out copies of an interview from the American organisation, “Seems to me the interview is consistent with what the NDP have always said on this file — we want artists to be able to benefit from the massive stream of information being traded but we don’t want average citizens turned into criminals.”

“I was elected to participate in discussions about public policy. I have never heard of a lobbyist group demand an apology for speaking out about a totally botched piece of legislation like Bill C-61. If they spent less time running e-mail attacks and more time speaking with the various players they might realize that the NDP position has been balanced and consistent from the beginning.”

He then responded to the apology demand, “As for a public recanting to satisfy the C-61 lobby ? Sorry, dude….it ain’t happening.”

As alluded to earlier in a previous report of ours, it’s hard try and find anything that requires any sort of apology unless it’s suddenly public taboo to exercise free speech in Canada.

It already does little to help the stance of copyright maximalists by stacking the deck at a town hall meeting – only serve to remind people that if there is opposition to the demands of the foreign copyright lobbyists, then the arguments fall apart – hence the need to keep opposition out of the debate. It further undermines the argument when what the foreign copyright lobbyists make enemies with an elected political party in the process as well – not just the general public.

What we’ve already seen in the public consultation is hundreds of people making submissions calling for a relaxed copyright law in some form or another. We have people from organizations that represent pretty much every background related to copyright, including librarians, educators and musicians, calling for effectively the same thing. Then the opposition, which mainly consists of foreign interests, enter the debates completely outnumbered make arguments that have been dissected and disproven time and time again. Then when they realize the debate is not going their way, they rig meetings and turn it into an uncivilized shouting match as we are clearly seeing between AFM and the NDP. Unless you are getting fed huge wads of cash, it’s hard to even take a copyright maximalist seriously. After all, they already proclaimed the whole consultation “useless” through Barry Sookman earlier. This is not to say they couldn’t approach this consultation in a more civil and respectable manner, but so far, the copyright industry have yet to choose to do so in several instances.

There’s still time left in the consultation for many more to make submissions and suggestions. Maybe things will turn around and be more stable toward the final legs of the consultation. Maybe the debate will degenerate even more from here. Who knows? All we know is that the Toronto town hall meeting has, thus far, proven to be a low light of the whole consultation and it reflects badly on those who want tighter copyright laws in the eyes of the public.

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The copyright industry, which consists of almost entirely foreign interests, have already resorted to insulting the process. Throughout the whole process, a vast majority of Canadian submissions have called for expanding fair dealings and blocking blanket anti-circumvention legislation to name just two.

The tiny minority of people who have called for tighter copyright laws are feeling, unsurprisingly, threatened. The copyright industry managed to rig the most recent town hall meeting so as to shut out any dissenting voices to their calls.

Just hours after news broke that they stacked an entire townhall meeting in their favour, the Canadian Federation of Students revealed that when they found out about last minute changes to the consultation, they attempted to hand out fliers at the town hall meeting only to be threatened with arrest by security. From their press release:

Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement have been leading a round of public consultations on copyright reform. Thursday night’s meeting was one of two town halls designed to facilitate discussion from hundreds of live participants and online followers.

Because of the last-minute introduction of a lottery system that did not guarantee those participating the right to speak, students attempted to circulate a flyer detailing their position on copyright reform. Event organisers used private security guards to prevent the distribution of the flyers, threatening to remove the students from the premises of the hotel where the consultation was being held. The flyers contained an introduction to copyright that provided a summary of the results of campus copyright consultations held by the Canadian Federation of Students throughout Spring 2009.

“With the ever increasing cost of education, students should not have to pay even more to access the material they require to be able to study, research, and learn,” said Melanson. “It is ironic that while students are concerned that new legislation may allow copyright owners to lock up information, the government is locking up its own consultations.”

Here’s a copy of the flier that was handed out (PDF)

While not everyone agrees that the government is playing a roll in trying to tip the balance of the debate into the foreign copyright industry’s favour, there is increasing evidence that this is the case.

NDP MP Olivia Chow also helped to distribute the fliers, so she knows all about the incident where students were threatened with arrest. Unfortunately, the fallout has since deepened with the American Federation of Musicians issuing an e-mail, calling the calls for “balanced copyright” “disgusting”. Michael Geist has a copy of that e-mail:

Greetings to all.

I am attaching a flyer that was handed out by Olivia Chow at last night’s Copyright Town Hall meeting at the Royal York in Toronto. I am sure all of you will find its content equally as disgusting as I did.

In light of the fact that the NDP at its convention in Halifax this month dealt with a resolution identified as 6-21-09 Expanding Party Policy on “Supporting Canadian Creativity”, and showed clear support for “ensuring appropriate copyright protection so that creators are fairly compensated for their intellectual property”, I am shocked that both Chow and Charlie Angus are allowed to openly depart from party policy and directive, obviously just to shamelessly buy votes among young people and academics.

We intend on taking the NDP to task over this, and will accept nothing less than a retraction of Ms Chow’s statements and an apology.

What is there to apologize for? Exercising free speech or is the American Federation of Musicians also against free speech in general? Was it not enough to threaten your opponents with arrest and rig an entire town hall meeting, now you demand an apology because someone disagrees with you in a country where a vast majority of people who have spoken on the issue of copyright disagrees with you? Who’s really the disgusting one here?

It’s increasingly obvious that the copyright industry saw the consultation as a means where average Canadians can speak their mind and found it a threat to their outdated business models. So they have opted to fighting it on every level, by trying to paint it as a waste of time, then going so far as to hijack it to make it so that only one opinion is heard and even threaten their opponents with arrest – those opponents do include Canadian businesses, Canadian artists, Canadian consumers, Canadian educators and students, Canadian record labels, Canadian libraries and now, even Canadian MPs as well. We have a foreign copyright industry trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Canada and they are doing so by purveying myths that simply do not stack up to scrutiny whatsoever when real evidence is put forth.

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One of the talking points by Maxime Bernier, the minister of Canadian Industry who took the reigns of the copyright bill, is that there’ll be room for debate on the copyright bill after it is tabled. Late last year, a group from a nearly 40,000 member strong Facebook group ‘Fair Copyright for Canada’ questioned the minister about Copyright issues. A video of the encounter was posted on YouTube shortly after:

It has been since a concern that there’ll be no debate on copyright until a bill is tabled. People and experts, including Law Professor Michael Geist worried that the bill would be tabled in such a manner so as to be not very changeable after it is tabled. An interesting deviation from their party platform published in 2006. On page 44:

-Place international treaties before Parliament for ratification.

It is likely something spotted by this particular opposition Member of Parliament. In a press release issued last night, the MP called for the governing party to put the treaty before parliament for debate before ratification. Debating the matter more before any bill is tabled might not be an idea supported by major pro-copyright lobbies considering in an interview last week, one asked why there would need to be any further consultation and demanded that ‘now is the time to act’ on the matter.

“Rubber-stamping WIPO won’t make Canada more competitive or respectful of intellectual property. WIPO was negotiated when the fax machine was considered cutting-edge technology. We need copyright legislation that will work for the 21st century. Instead we have a government that appears stuck in the 20th century.” Angus said. He further adds, “We need to spend less time worrying about the sword clanging of lobbyists and more time looking for a 21st century solution to the 21st century issues of digital innovation and culture. This government has made a commitment to debating treaties. Clearly Mr. Prentice is bound to bring this treaty to the House for a fair and open debate.”