Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights
 

Industry Minister Tony Clement hosted Canada’s Digital Economy Conference today which brought together 150 of the country’s most notable corporate leaders. Although the demographics of the invited group failed to even remotely represent that of Canada (only 1 of the 18 speakers was female) the event appears to have achieved its primary goal which was to lay the groundwork for a national digital strategy.

Clement vowed to move forward with several aspects of a digital strategy including privacy legislation, improved broadband availability and most importantly copyright reform. In his closing remarks Clement commented that much has changed since the introduction of Bill C-61.

When we look at where we were with Bill C-61 for instance on copyright just about a year ago or more than that and where we are now. I think it at least a somewhat different environment, public policy environment, in just the space of a year.

Most notably the Minister of Industry confirmed that he and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, James Moore will be dedicating at least part of their summer to consulting Canadians on copyright reform. The duo will be traveling to “a city, town, village and pasture near you”. In addition one can only hope that Clement and Moore will also consider using conduits such as Facebook and Twitter to consult all Canadians on copyright reform and how it stands to impact them as consumers and creators.

Clement has certainly talked the talk, it remains to be seen whether he will walk that walk on this one. There is little doubt some sort of iteration of Bill C-61 will be presented by the Conservatives this Fall, will they learn from the mistakes of the prior Bills and will there be fair and open consultations accessible to every Canadian?

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