News

The Cabinet Shuffle

New Ministers at both Industry and Canadian Heritage — Prentice is out and Tony Clement in at Industry; Verner out at Heritage and James Moore is in.  As I noted last week, copyright should not be a top priority issue (notwithstanding the campaign commitment to re-introduce legislation) given the bigger economic concerns and the political changes in the United States that may reduce pressure until the spring.  That said, copyright will be back and today's shuffle presents an opportunity to rethink the approach in C-61.  While the future copyright bill will undoubtedly address controversial issues such as anti-circumvention legislation, there is great flexibility in how the government chooses to implement these provisions and new ministers could mean new thinking.

As for the other cabinet appointments, note that Diane Ablonczy is back as Minister of State for Small Business which may mean leadership on the anti-spam file, while the government has introduced a new Minister of State for Science and Technology (Gary Goodyear).

Update: CBC covers the Clement appointment with a discussion of the implications for technology, telecom, and copyright policy.

9 Comments

  1. Cary Schwartzman says:

    Illegal to distrubte, not illegal to posess
    I feel that I am entitled to record content for later viewing. I also feel that I can get a copy of a previously-broadcast program from any source as I may not have the equipment or technical knowledge required to make such a recording. (Especially if the destination is my computer.)

    However, I don’t feel that I have the right to distribute that content to other people. The RIGHT to COPY the content to other people is, by default, restricted to the copyright holder.

    Thoughts?

  2. Alex Harford says:

    Moore is my MP
    I’m looking forward to more meetings with him as the Heritage Minister. I’ve met with him once, pre-election, and as one of the youngest MPs, he is relatively computer literate.

  3. Dwight Williams says:

    Looking forward…
    …particularly to learning more about Mr. Moore in the months ahead. And the more we know on the relevant issues WRT this new minister, the better.

  4. Clement as industry minister?
    He’s great a hiding….this is very bad.
    YUP get READY to GET IT SHOVED UP OUR…

  5. Wheres Clements Riding?
    Wheres Clements riding?

  6. Orthodox Agnostheist
    Alex:

    Good to hear he knows what a computer is. That may work in our favor once it’s explained to him what manner of felon that computer would make him should C-61 pass.

    I just hope he isn’t too partisan in that he will want to pass what Prentice regurgitated because it’d be towing the party line.

    Good luck on your meetings.

  7. Odd title
    Strange that my browser auto-fill put that silly title in place(and my sleep deprivation let it pass). Was supposed to be “Only time will tell”

    My kingdom for en edit button!

  8. When someone in the government screws something up while on one duty, they will screw it up again and again on other duties. I didn’t like Pauline Marois’ work when she was Education minister.

    And Jim Prentice is now Environment minister?

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081031.CABINETPRENTICE31/TPStory/National

  9. Tony Clement’s page from Scandalpedia (made by Liberals)
    http://www.scandalpedia.ca/Bios/Tony Clement_en.html