Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 11, 2016 as Affordable Internet Access is Everyone’s Business The future of Internet access in Canada takes centre stage this week at a major hearing focused on whether it’s time to update the rules associated with universal access to communications services. Canada has […]
Articles by: Michael Geist
Ontario Music Fund Oversight Hits Sour Note: Gov Docs Discuss “Breach of Integrity”
The Canadian music industry gathered in Calgary last weekend for the Juno Awards, the industry’s biggest awards gala that has grown into a week-long event. While the award show is the public face of the Junos, behind the scenes are years of negotiations with governments to provide millions in public funding.
With Ontario hosting the Junos twice in three years – Hamilton hosted in 2015 and Ottawa is slated to host in 2017 – the provincial Liberal government has committed to enormous taxpayer support. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports that according to internal documents recently obtained under the provincial access to information laws, that funding has sparked concerns within government departments due to the mushrooming budgets, inflated claims about the economic impact of the awards, and what officials have described as a “breach [of] the integrity of the objective grant assessment process.”
Earlier this year, I wrote about the problems associated with the Ontario Music Fund (OMF), the provincial government’s flagship funding program for the music industry. The fund, which is administered by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC), has doled out nearly $30 million in two years despite little public transparency on how the money has been spent and questionable claims about job creation.
Out of Tune?: Government Documents Reveal Concern With Integrity of Ontario Music Fund Assessments
Appeared in the Toronto Star on April 4, 2016 as Ontario Music Fund Oversight Hits a Sour Note The Canadian music industry gathered in Calgary last weekend for the Juno Awards, the industry’s biggest awards gala that has grown into a week-long event. While the award show is the public […]
U.S. State Department vs. USTR on Eli Lilly and Canadian Patent Utility Rules
The Eli Lilly claim against Canada for hundreds of millions due to a court decision involving patent utility has attracted considerable attention with fears that the case foreshadows many more corporate lawsuits if the Trans Pacific Partnership becomes a reality. While the Canadian government has raised doubts about the independence of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce intervention in the case, the government must be a bit confused on where the U.S. stands on the issue. Yesterday, the U.S. Trade Representative issued its 2016 report on foreign trade barriers and stated the following on the case:
With respect to pharmaceuticals, the United States continues to have serious concerns about the impact of the patent utility requirements that Canadian courts have adopted.
That is consistent with the Eli Lilly argument, yet last month the U.S. State Department provided its own submission in the case. The U.S. government appears to undermine USTR arguments, seemingly siding with the Canada on the issue. The U.S. submission states each country has the right to determine how it implements the utility requirement, the possibility of revocation of patent rights, and for its patent laws to evolve:
Canada’s Innovation Challenge: Keeping The Billion Dollar Club At Home
From the moment the Liberal government took office last fall, it left no doubt that innovation was going to be a top priority. Gone was Industry Canada, replaced by the Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, with Navdeep Bains, a close confidant of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, installed as the responsible minister.
Last week’s budget continued the emphasis on innovation, promising $150 million in 2017-2018 for an innovation agenda. The full details have yet to be revealed, but the budget also added tax reforms to create investment incentives (and quietly dropped a tax change that would have hurt start-up companies), support for innovation clusters, and increased dollars for scientific research.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that the government says its goal is to make Canada a “centre of global innovation”, a significant challenge given that studies persistently point to Canada’s innovation gap. Last year, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), a government-backed group, concluded that Canada “was not globally competitive” and that “it is falling further behind global competitors and facing a widening gap with the world’s top five performing countries.”
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