Hedy Fry, a Liberal Member of Parliament, recently took part in a round table discussion on Bill C-61.
Fry, who represents the riding of Vancouver Centre in the House of Commons, warned Bill C-61 “has many unintended consequences.”
As a member of the House of Commons’ Canadian Heritage Committee, Fry was one of the politicians leading the charge to have a copyright bill in the first place.
At a meeting of the committee Feb. 14, Fry said: “When you write a play or a song and someone picks it up on an iPod or on whatever and there’s piracy going on and all of those things, that is really harming the creator, the artist. Therefore, I think we need to be at that table. We need to inject this perspective into any discussion on any copyright legislation.”
The Liberals have been publicly chastising the minority conservative government without actually defeating them (lest they end up winning a majority of seats in a subsequent election), so you have to take her comments with a grain of salt. As reported earlier in ComputerWorld Canada, Fry’s Liberal colleague Dan McTeague was also pushing for the legislation (albeit not necessarily in its current form).
It will be interesting to see what amendments the Liberals propose to Bill C-61 when it comes up for Second Reading.