This morning Industry Minister Maxime Bernier released the government's response to the Industry Committee's manufacturing report, which included a recommendation to ratify the WIPO Internet treaties and to increase IP enforcement to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The government's response is about what you would expect:
the Government of Canada is:
- reviewing the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and options to strengthen this regime, in order to combat video piracy and the trade in counterfeit and pirated goods, and
- preparing amendments to Canada's copyright regime that would provide for the implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties into our domestic legislation
The response continues by noting that the Public Safety and Industry committees are also examining the counterfeiting issue. I do not think there is anything particularly new here – the government has long indicated that it plans to amend the Copyright Act and this statement is obviously consistent with those plans.
