Public Affairs and Advocacy
Report on CARL’s 2014-2015 Public Affairs and
Advocacy Activities
April 2015
CARL’s Advocacy Context
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) represents the country’s twenty-nine
largest university libraries. Enhancing research and higher education are at the heart of CARL’s
mission. CARL promotes effective and sustainable scholarly communication, and public policy
that enables broad access to scholarly information.
Our association includes two national library organizations that are part of the Government of
Canada: Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the National Research Council’s National
Science Library. They do not participate in any of CARL’s advocacy or public affairs
discussions or activities.
Our public affairs and advocacy activities are led by the CARL office in Ottawa. The Executive
Director is the lead on this file, with support provided by a government relations consultancy
firm, Temple Scott Associates.
During the reporting period there were transitions in Executive Directors. Brent Roe left in June
2014; Katherine McColgan was Interim Executive Director from June to October; and Susan
Haigh started as the new Executive Director on October 22 (the same day as the shootings at the
War Memorial and on Parliament Hill in Ottawa).
CARL’s public statements, briefings and publications are available on the CARL website. Links
are available at the end of this document.
CARL’s Positioning & Developments
CARL’s advocacy efforts follow the parliamentary and federal budget cycles. Parliament usually
sits from late September to mid-December and from late January to mid-June while the federal
budget is presented to the House of Commons in February or March. We participate in the House
of Commons Standing Committee on Finance’s pre-budget consultations (midsummer to earlyfall) as well as in the Department of Finance’s consultations in January and February.
CARL’s key public policy messages emphasize four broad areas of interest, namely: government
support for research and its infrastructure; support for national libraries and heritage; enabling
broad access to information; and balanced copyright. This shapes our advocacy efforts as we
emphasize one issue or another, depending on the forum. We monitor and, as it may seem
appropriate, respond to policy developments in our fields of interest throughout the year.
Political Developments in 2014-15
Last year marked the Conservative Party’s fourth year of majority government, while the centreleft New Democratic Party and the centrist Liberal Party of Canada respectively form the official
and second opposition parties.
The economy remains the government's priority. The past year continued to emphasize austerity
measures to balance the federal budget by 2015 (an election year) without increasing taxes. This
promise has been delivered, as a balanced budget was announced for Budget 2015 on April 21,
2015.
CARL welcomed the Government of Canada’s commitment to university research announced in
Budget 2015. Notable measures for CARL members included:
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An additional $1.33 billion over six years, starting in 2017–18, to the Canada Foundation
for Innovation to support advanced research infrastructure at universities, colleges and
research hospitals.
An additional $46 million per year to the granting councils, starting in 2016–17, focused
in areas that will fuel economic growth and respond to important challenges and
opportunities
$105 million over five years, starting in 2015–16, to CANARIE, Canada’s world-class
high-speed research and education network.
Another positive development in the Budget 2015 was that announcement of the government’s
intention to introduce amendments to the Copyright Act that will enable Canada to implement
and accede to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who
Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. More unexpected was the
government’s announced intention to introduce changes to the Copyright Act to extend the term
of protection of sound recordings and performances. CARL will be following up with
government officials to ascertain whether this relates to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
negotiations, where there is some pressure for Canada to extend its term of copyright for other
forms of work to life of author plus seventy years.
CARL’s advocacy efforts have included contacts with ministers’ offices in the federal
departments of Heritage, Industry, International Trade, Science and Technology. We also
contacted members of the relevant House of Commons and Senate Standing Committees in
September 2014 to highlight issues of importance to our members. This raised their awareness of
some issues of importance to CARL, allowing us to build on some existing relationships.
Support for Research
CARL advocates continued government support for research, even in the current economic
climate. We argue that research stimulates innovation and economic growth, and benefits society
and the lives of Canadians.
We ask that the government maintain or increase its support for relevant agencies, including the
National Research Council, the federal granting councils, and independent infrastructure
agencies such as the CANARIE digital research network and the Canada Foundation for
Innovation. In this vein, we encourage the government to maintain national research information
organizations, such as Library and Archives Canada.
CARL expresses our members’ views in various panels, discussions and consultations with
federal research support organizations. An example of this is our participation in a breakfast
conference with the granting council and CFI presidents organized by the Canadian Consortium
for Research in November 2014 and our annual participation in the CANARIE users’ forum.
Research Data Management (RDM)
CARL continued to recommend government support for research data management during the
reporting period through letters (in particular to the Minister of State for Science and
Technology) and in our budget brief. With CARL’s Portage network for research data
management taking shape and gaining momentum, we have forged strong relationships with
CANARIE, which has funded Research Data Canada, a convening organization of RDM
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stakeholders. With its funding now secure, CANARIE will continue and likely grow its
investment in RDM projects in Canada, such as Portage.
The government’s Open Government Initiative remains a work in progress. The interim
Executive Director took part in the Open Government Round Table discussion on June 27th
2014. The session gave an update on what the government has achieved thus far, and provided an
open forum for participants to discuss and identify successes and failures and make suggestions
for activities moving forward. The Treasury Board has issued an open call for comments to the
program moving forward. CARL subsequently sent officials a letter commending the program’s
stated objectives outlined in its second Action Plan. We continue to look forward to a broader
range of datasets being made accessible through the Portal, and for progress on announced
initiatives such as a “Virtual Library” for aggregated open access to government publications and
documents.
The CARL president is a participant in the Leadership Council for Digital Infrastructure for
Research, another new formation that brings together the Chairs or Presidents of the federal
granting agencies and major research support organizations, such as Compute Canada,
CANARIE, and the Canadian University Council of Chief Information Officers (CUCCIO). This
group is discussing a rational approach to the planning and funding of Canada’s digital support
infrastructure for university research.
Open Access
CARL promoted awareness and understanding of Open Access (OA) throughout the reporting
period, and publicly applauded the announcement in late February 2015 of the Tri-Agency Open
Access (OA) Policy on Publications. We produced speaking points about the policy for member
libraries’ staff to use with researchers, and advised the agencies on additional Q&As they might
wish to add to their site.
CARL has also addressed OA in its meetings and correspondence with parliamentarians,
highlighting Canadians’ right to access research outputs that they finance through their taxes and
the advantages of broad public access to research literature.
Preserving Canada’s Documentary Heritage
While the government generally maintained its support for research and its infrastructure in
Budget 2014, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is still affected by the cuts announced in 2012
and federal government departmental libraries continued to close down.
The role of Canada’s national libraries
The future of LAC is of concern to many Canadians as well as to CARL. The Royal Society of
Canada and the Council of Canadian Academies have both recently released reports critically
examining the future of libraries, archives and information management. The Auditor General of
Canada also released a report critical of LAC’s government records program.
While their inadequate resourcing for their mandate remains an issue, there are positive changes
being made at LAC. CARL is a member of the LAC Stakeholders’ Forum that has been
established by the new Librarian and Archivist, Guy Berthiaume, and we have invited LAC to
make a presentation about their progress at an upcoming national open forum on access and
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preservation of the information of governments, “Leviathan North,” to be held in Toronto this
May.
Federal libraries
CARL has chosen not to take a position on the ongoing closures and consolidations of federal
department libraries, but we did monitor this matter. Some CARL libraries have accepted
transfers of material in order to preserve unique collections.
Enabling access to information
CARL has actively pushed for wider access to information and knowledge through a host of
means, from encouraging government transparency to promoting affordable broadband Internet
access.
Access to government publications
CARL continues its role on the Depository Services Program (DSP) Library Advisory
Committee, encouraging the digital distribution of federal government publications to libraries.
We also encourage the DSP to work with other government agencies to ensure that publications
(including website content) are comprehensively preserved.
Only digital publications are distributed from 2014 onwards as a cost saving measure and we
remain concerned about progress on long-term government publication management issues. We
note here that a number of CARL member libraries are collaborating in the development of a
private LOCKSS network precisely for the long-term preservation of government documents and
that the DSP has made its e-collection available for inclusion.
CARL also convened a meeting of all its members that are currently engaged in web archiving
activities, at which information was shared as to who is capturing federal, provincial and
municipal government websites. LAC has reinstituted its comprehensive .gc.ca domain
harvesting program and plans to make all harvested content available within the year. These are
positive developments for which CARL has expressed strong support.
Open Government
One year after the publication of Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government, CARL submitted
its comments on the document and urged its consistent and transparent implementation. Open
Government encourages transparency and accountability by providing the public with
information on the state's activities. Below are highlights from CARL's submission to the
consultation on Canada’s Open Government initiative:
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We believe that Open Data and Information should be consistently applied to all
government data and information. This would naturally exclude matters with privacy or
clear national security concerns.
Open Data requires reliable data. We urged the Government of Canada to reinstate the
more reliable and less-expensive mandatory long-form census.
We hope that the proposed Virtual Library will enable access to, and ensure the
preservation of, government publications.
Privacy and lawful access
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The Government of Canada recently introduced Bill C-51, Anti-Terrorism Act, which includes
several provisions that would significantly expand law enforcement powers related to security.
The Board of Directors decided that CARL would not take a public stance on this bill, but we
continue to its progress and the expressions of concern that are being raised about parts of this
legislation.
Maintaining Balanced Copyright
CARL has advocated for greater balance in Canadian copyright legislation for years. The
Copyright Modernization Act, assented t in June 2012, includes new or improved exceptions for
users, including libraries and educational institutions. It notably includes “education” as a fair
dealing purpose. The Act unfortunately also includes strict anti-circumvention language around
digital locks.
During the past year, it has become apparent that organizations opposed to some of the new
provisions continue to lobby the government. This effort is expected to continue as the new
legislation will be subject to review by 2017. In relation to this, CARL had a discussion with the
Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) about aligning and perhaps collaborating on
copyright issues of importance to both the post-secondary and K-12 education sectors.
CARL has named, from among its member directors, an informal panel of experts to advise the
Board of Directors and Executive Director on copyright matters. In March 2015, CARL sent a
letter to the responsible ministers, the opposition parties, members of the House Committee
responsible for copyright, and departmental officials in which it expressed positive support for
the education provisions in the Act and detailed its impacts on post-secondary education.
WIPO
WIPO is currently considering whether and how to promote a set of minimum copyright law
exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives. This was one topic of discussion at the
most recent meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights
(SCCR), held December 10-12 in Geneva. Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage held briefing
session before and after this meeting. The Government of Canada, to this point, has no particular
position on the matter and WIPO does not yet know whether this will move toward a treaty of
some kind. We will monitor the matter and will stay in touch with the Canadian Library
Association, Universities Canada (formerly the Association of Universities and Colleges of
Canada) and IFLA.
The government specifically solicited CARL’s input, which CARL provided in writing, as to the
legislative amendments that would be required for the government to accede to the Marrakesh
Treaty. CARL was pleased, therefore, to learn of the government’s intention to accede to the
Treaty in Budget 2015 (as mentioned above).
International Trade Negotiations
The government’s economic agenda included foreign policy. Canada participates in the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. Both negotiation processes are secretive with little
publicly available information outside occasional press briefings and leaked reports. CARL has
expressed concern that such agreements should not require changes to Canadian copyright law.
CARL continues to watch for any signs that Canada has changed its official position, which is
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that Canada, along with a number of other parties, continues to support a term of protection
based on the life of the author plus fifty years.
Other activities
We have worked in parallel with the Canadian Library Association (CLA) on issues of common
interest.
CARL put together three sessions for the CLA conference in Victoria, two of which were public
policy oriented: one on international copyright and libraries; and one on open access and
supporting the T3A OA Policy. Both sessions were well attended.
CARL continues to work with CLA on copyright issues by sitting on their Copyright Committee
(staffed by Susan Haigh).
CARL is also at the table for discussions relating to the dissolution of CLA as a personal
membership association, and the creation in its place of a federation of Canadian library
associations. The purpose of such a body would be, as a national voice of Canada’s library
communities, to champion library values and the value of libraries and to influence national and
international public policy impacting libraries and their communities.
In addition, CARL continues its membership in the Canadian Consortium for Research, a
coalition that includes 18 organizations. The CCR organized another breakfast with the
presidents of the granting councils, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Mitacs in
November 2014. CCR also voiced its views on Budget 2015.
Members of CARL staff have also attended various functions targeted at advocacy issues, among
them:
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Parliamentary Breakfast – where three Members of Parliament discussed the role and
value of not-for-profit organization in informing policy (Feb 2015)
ParlIamentary journalists’ panel – ‘How to get the message out.’ (May 2014)
Breakfast meeting with Karen Shepherd, Commissioner of Lobbying (April 2015)
For more information
Consult the CARL website for more information on our advocacy activities:
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Public statements
www.carl-abrc.ca/news
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CARL and Public Affairs
www.carl-abrc.ca/publicaffairs
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CARL publications
www.carl-abrc.ca/en/publications
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Canadian Association of Research Libraries
Tel. 613.482.9344
203-309 Cooper St.
info@carl-abrc.ca
Ottawa, ON
www.carl-abrc.ca
K2P 0G5
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