The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences represents more than 85,000 researchers in 80 scholarly associations, 79 universities and colleges, and 6 affiliates. Its submission on Bill C-32’s digital lock rules provides a good illustration of the damage likely to be caused by the rules to research in Canada. As the CFHSS notes:

University-based research, including federally funded research, must satisfy an ethics review when it is first formally proposed. Such an ethics review includes an assessment of the legality of the proposed research methodology. If the work fails the review, there will be no grant funding and the research will never begin; in the instance of periodic ethics reviews during an extended research project, the research will stop. Without such exceptions to Bill C-32’s anti- circumvention provisions as those outlined above, the research would be illegal and thereby stultified. Accordingly, we feel there must be a general research exception to Bill C-32’s anti- circumvention provisions if Canada’s university-based researchers are to be able to continue their work.

Previous Daily Digital Locks: Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) BC, Canadian Consumer Initiative, Retail Council of Canada, Canadian Council of Archives, Canadian Teachers’ Federation, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Documentary Organization of Canada, Canadian Library Association, Council of Ministers of Education Canada, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Canadian Historical Association, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Canadian Bookseller Association, Canadian Home and School Federation, Film Studies Association of Canada, Canadian Bar Association