Some times an election is a good thing!

Well if you have been watching recent event’s in Canada lately you know there is a federal election currently underway. While I do not really want to get in to the particulars of the who, when, where and why this election is happening only 17 months after the last I will offer a very very short synopsis of what happened.

Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party, with the backing of the New Democrat Party and the Bloc Quebecois, voted that the minority government of the Liberal party no longer had the confidence of the House of Commons. This has thrust Canadians in to the first winter election it has scene in over 25 years, and I believe the first ever Christmas election. Although the House had lost confidence in the government, the timing was both never better and never worst. With the coming Christmas season and the depths of a Canadian winter, voters did not want to be going to the polls on January 23rd.

Though one good thing came out of having this election. Had the Liberals survived the non-confidence vote and preceded in to the already promised spring election, the bills on the order paper would have likely been passed. One of these bills would have been Bill C-60. As we know Bill C-60 is a set of reforms for the currently outdated Copyright legislation in Canada, and while reforming outdated laws sounds good in theory it was in the best interest of the consumer for this bill to die.

So while the election call was not exactly what we wanted, we can rest assured that the highly criticized bill will not be passed any time soon. I am however interested in hearing what the other parties have to say on how they would reform the copyright process and how the Liberals, if re-elected, would change C-60 to meet the concerns of Canadian citizens, scholars and businesses.