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Garneau Responds: Clarifying the Liberal Copyright Recommendation

By Michael Geist

Late this afternoon, Marc Garneau, the Liberal Industry critic, contacted me to respond to my post today on the Liberal dissenting recommendation to introduce copyright legislation and ratify the WIPO Internet treaties in the Industry Committee report on the Canadian economy.  The following notes on the call are posted with his permission.  Garneau advised that the committee offered all parties the opportunity to raise recommendations but only those with unanimous support were put forward as committee recommendations.  Those that did not receive unanimous support could be raised by individual parties as the Liberals did with copyright.

Garneau admitted that the language used may have caused some concern, but that the recommendation was really designed as marker to indicate interest in addressing the copyright issue.  He said that copyright was among the most lobbied issues he faces, with weekly meetings from a variety on stakeholders over the past eight months.  Garneau cautioned against reading the recommendation as the official position of the Liberal party on copyright, noting that it would likely use Bill C-60, which adopted a more flexible approach on anti-circumvention legislation than C-61, as the starting point for analysis.  He added that the Liberal party recognizes the importance of digital issues, as evidenced by their support for C-27 (anti-spam legislation), net neutrality, and copyright reform.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).