The decision to agree to a copyright term extension in the USMCA is harmful policy, made worse by the decision to bury plans for implementation in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s Budget 2022. As a result, there will be a two decade moratorium on new works entering the public domain, creating an enormous negative impact on access to Canadian culture and history for a generation. My first post examining the cost focused on some of Canada’s most decorated authors, whose works will be locked out of the public domain for a generation.
The negative impact of term extension on access to Canada’s history is equally damaging. Historians will lose public domain access to the works and papers some of Canada’s most notable leaders and figures of modern times, including leading Prime Ministers, Premiers, First Nations leaders, and Supreme Court justices. They include:
