Bureaucratic delays are now so commonplace it’s like a “Monty Python movie”, a parliamentary committee has been told. MPs and senators learned even urgent matters like protection of endangered species are pointlessly delayed for months: “Just do it. This is nonsense. Get it done.”
Cabinet has issued a rare directive ordering regulations on minimum care for air passengers affected by tarmac delays up to three hours. A broader passengers’ bill of rights is to take effect July 1: It’s regardless of whether the delays are outside an air carrier’s control.’
Lawmakers have proposed numerous revisions to the Fisheries Act three years after cabinet pledged to restore habitat protection “pretty much to the T”. Amendments passed by the Senate fisheries committee followed appeals from industry: “It lightens the administrative and financial burdens.”
Blacklock’s pauses for the Victoria Day holiday with best wishes to subscribers and friends. We’re back tomorrow — The Editor.
Canada has yet to find
a replacement for the aging F-18.
Process dragged
for over a decade.
Budget tight.
The enemy may never come.
On YouTube,
a novel machine
– built of used printer parts –
folds and launches
paper airplanes.
Attention, Procurement.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
The only federal investigation of the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. case will not be complete before Parliament adjourns for the summer, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion yesterday told the Commons ethics committee. Dion would not commit to finishing his work before election day, October 21: “It does take time.”
The Green Party yesterday proposed to abolish gas and diesel-powered cars and require all homeowners to renovate their property by 2030 under a “climate emergency”. The Party would insist on the program as a condition of support in any minority Parliament, said leader Elizabeth May: “It’s time to get serious.”
The Senate budget committee by a 10 to 5 vote yesterday agreed to pay a $15,255 expense for polling by Senator Donna Dasko (Independent-Ont.), a former pollster. One lawmaker warned the vote opens a Pandora’s box of dubious spending: “What we’re doing is setting precedent.”
A failed program to streamline federal payroll departments will cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. Costs did not include proposed compensation for employees who reported hardship when they were shortchanged on cheques: “We saw how that didn’t work.”
Asking Parliament’s permission each year to increase the federal debt limit is too risky, the Department of Finance has told the Senate national finance committee. A current law allows cabinet to borrow at will to the debt ceiling of $1.16 trillion: “We need parliamentarians to wonder.”
The Commons by a 227 to 42 vote yesterday rejected a New Democrat motion to declare a “climate emergency”. Liberals complained the motion had too many strings attached, including abandonment of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion: “This is not fearmongering.”
Journalists testifying at the Commons finance committee yesterday expressed wariness over practical or perceived government meddling in news coverage under a $595 million industry bailout. One MP called the program a “blank cheque” that leaves cabinet appointees to decide which publishers win subsidies: “If the impression is left to linger that the government is forking over cash grants to their journalist buddies, trust in media will only plummet further.”
The Commons heritage committee yesterday endorsed sweeping copyright reforms to raise by millions the royalties paid to authors, musicians and performers. Creators testified they earned a pittance – one bestselling novelist reported a $12,000 annual income – due to Copyright Act exemptions.
“Hearing those stories from artists speaking about their experiences stood out,” said Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin (Toronto-Danforth), committee chair. “We wanted to reflect the needs of creators.”
The committee report Shifting Paradigms recommended Parliament repeal a 2012 amendment to the Act that allows universities, colleges and school boards to copy works free of charge under a “fair dealing” exemption. “Fair dealing should not apply to educational institutions when the work is commercially available,” said the report: “Many writers and publishers noted how their incomes have declined since the changes to fair dealing in 2012.”
The Association of Canadian Publishers estimated licensing fees fell 89 percent due to free photocopying for educational purposes. The Federal Court in 2017 faulted York University for copying millions of articles and book chapters without royalties. The ruling is under appeal.
MP Dabrusin said only works without a commercial market like academic treatises should be copied free of charge. “If you can buy that textbook or buy that poem, that should not be exempt,” said Dabrusin.
“This is not just a clinical report,” said Dabrusin. “The creators, the authors and publishers were very clear in telling the committee of the impact the educational exemption had on their work.”
Sylvia McNicoll, a bestselling Burlington, Ont. children’s author, testified her income fell sharply due to wholesale copying. “My income is down 90 percent to $12,000,” McNicoll told 2018 hearings of the Commons heritage committee.
“The world watches as Canadian schools download and copy curated content in a government-sanctioned theft,” said McNicoll. “I’m trying to make a living. It’s impossible.”
Made 0.03¢ A Hit
The committee also recommended Parliament enact Copyright Act amendments sought by composers and performers including an extension of owners’ rights from 50 to 70 years after a creator’s death; regulation of music streaming services; payment of royalties to performers whose work is heard in film and TV soundtracks; and repeal of a 1997 policy that capped at $100 a year the music royalties owed by radio stations on their first $1.25 million in advertising revenue.
The $100 radio cap should only apply to campus stations or local independent broadcasters, said MP Dabrusin. “It was never intended to be there to support large businesses that own multiple stations,” she said.
Damhnait Doyle, vice-president of the Songwriters Association of Canada, said in testimony last June 7 that industry-friendly copyright exemptions had eviscerated middle-class composers and performers. “Creators are being hammered from all sides, from minimizing streaming income to piracy to outdated exemptions for big business,” said Doyle. “Everybody is getting paid in the music industry. They are. The only people not getting paid are creators.”
“The middle class of creators has been eviscerated at this point,” said Doyle: “Most cannot pay their rent, let alone go to the dentist.”
David Bussieres, founder of Montréal-based Regroupement des Artisans de la Musique, testified September 20 that copyright exemptions left “crumbs for the artists”. Bussieres said his 2014 hit Lumière brought him $10.80 in royalties on Spotify though the song was played thousands of times.
“It was 0.03¢ per hit,” he said. The same song generated 60,000 views on YouTube with net revenue of $153.
The heritage committee also recommended Parliament “raise awareness of copyright”, “promote copyright” and combat piracy and unlicensed duplication of works. “While there are many highly successful, well-known Canadian musicians, artists, writers and performers, most artists and creators in Canada struggle to earn a living from their art,” said Shifting Paradigms.
The committee “cares deeply about the subject”, said MP Dabrusin. “Creators talked about the impact on income they need to keep producing the works that we love.”
Industry Canada in a 2018 Study Of Online Consumption Of Copyrighted Content: Attitudes Toward And Prevalence Of Copyright Infringement In Canada said 26 percent of internet users – the equivalent of 7.3 million Canadians – admitted to illegally accessing music, e-books, movies, software, TV shows and video games.
Asked why they stole material online, respondents replied that it was easy to do (39 percent); “It’s only fair” (26 percent); “It’s what everyone does” (24 percent); and “I should be able to share my content with whomever I choose” (19 percent).
By Staff
The Office of the Auditor General says it is so short of funding it’s cutting audits. MPs on the Commons public accounts committee expressed alarm: “This is about as big as it gets.”
A federal labour board has upheld the firing of an $86,000-a year auditor at the Canada Revenue Agency for snooping through tax files. “Employees are required to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner,” says the Agency’s Code Of Ethics And Conduct: “No, no and no.”
