[d at DCC] Copyright eConsultation: your thoughts?

[Keith Rose]

On 24-Jul-09, at 1:38 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   Do you feel this is a genuine attempt to get ideas towards policy,  
> or an
> exercise in public relations so that they can say they did a  
> consultation?
> Do you think this will change the bill, or that the bill is already
> entirely authored given they plan to table this bill soon after the
> consultation is done (without time to realistically affect the bill).


If, as I saw on HK's blog, "the government hopes to pass legislation  
before Christmas" (as reported by Althia Raj, Sun Media) there can be  
no possible intent to have a legitimate policy consultation.  Not only  
must the policy be in place, we can assume that the legislation has  
already been drafted.  Even then, it would seem to be an optimistic  
timeline.

We can hope that this report is inaccurate--perhaps they merely hope  
to have legislation introduced before Christmas--but we know who the  
players are, and we know the approach they've taken to the file in the  
past.

There are at least two ways to take this.  Possibly they are setting  
it up to fail again--simply going through some motions to appease the  
interests that have been pressuring them to move on the file.  Or  
perhaps they intend to rush a bill through.  Neither possibility  
really inspires much confidence in this consultation process.  But,  
realistically, how much confidence could one have in a consultation  
process held entirely during the summer months, with about a week of  
advance notice?

Given that most observers seem to be expecting the government to fall  
next spring, there is a strong possibility of another death on the  
order paper, either way.  However this does make it rather important  
to know how the opposition will approach the issue--particularly the  
Liberals who have been equivocal at best on the subject.

That said, I do intend to make some time to put a submission  
together.  The alternative is to cede the floor to the expansionist  
interests.

KR