NDP Calls It: Bill C-56 is "ACTA Through the Backdoor"

The government is characterizing its Bill C-56 as an anti-counterfeiting bill, yet this week NDP MP Charmaine Borg framed it more accurately as "ACTA through the backdoor." During Question Period on Monday, Borg asked Industry Minister Christian Paradis directly if the bill paves the way for ratification of the discredited treaty:

Mr. Speaker, last July the European Parliament rejected the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement over serious concerns about the regressive changes it would impose on intellectual property in the digital age. Yet on Friday, the Conservatives introduced a bill in the House that would pave the way for the ACTA without question. Canadians have concerns about goods being seized or destroyed without any oversight by the courts. Will the minister now be clear with Canadians? Are the Conservatives planning to ratify ACTA, yes or no?
Paradis refused to respond to the ACTA ratification question:

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Michael Geist - NDP Calls It: Bill C-56 is "ACTA Through the Backdoor"

The government also rammed through digital locks legislation that negated all of the benefits of the fair use definitions that they simultaneously created.

And this at a time when the USA, as one of the few countries with digital lock anti-circumvention laws, is grappling with horrible problems due to cell phone locking. More laissez-faire in our marketplace would be nice. Digital locks legislation just uses taxpayer money to create false incentives to design anti-consumer business models.

This ACTA stuff is the same. Last time I was in Vancouver there wasn't much of a staggering street market for fake Gucci bags. To me, such anti-counterfeit legislation is just a trojan to slip in more onerous legal forcing of the failed equivalence between ideas and property.

The simple fact is, those that do not support such laws, are in favor of stealing the intellectual property of others.

In the US, when one signs a contract between themselves and a Cell phone company, they legally agree to be bound by the provisions of that contract. Some people are trying to get this changed, so they can get a cheap, subsidized super phone, and then dump the service that subsidized its cost. That is simply not right, and it is properly not being allowed.

You don't want the restrictions, then don't use the service. It's really that simple!