Michael Geist on the good and the bad aspects of bill C-11 which will probably pass third reading today in the House of Commons and be sent to the Senate for approval:

There is no sugar-coating the loss on digital locks. While other countries have been willing to stand up to U.S. pressure and adopt a more flexible approach, the government, led by Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore on the issue, was unwilling to compromise despite near-universal criticism of its approach. It appears that once Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the call for a DMCA-style approach in early May 2010, the digital lock issue was lost. The government heard that the bill will hurt IP enforcement, restrict access for the blind, disadvantage Canadian creators, and harm consumer rights. It received tens of thousands of comments from Canadians opposed to the approach and ran a full consultation in which digital locks were the leading concern. The NDP, Liberals, and Green Party proposed balanced amendments to the digital lock rules that were consistent with international requirements and would have maintained protection for companies that use them, but all were rejected. [. . .]

Since the Conservatives took power in 2006, there were effectively four bills: the Pre-Bill C-61 bill that was to have been introduced by Jim Prentice in December 2007 but was delayed following public pressure, Bill C-61 introduced in June 2008, and Bill C-32/C-11, which was introduced in June 2010 (and later reintroduced in September 2011). The contents of December 2007 bill was never released, but documents obtained under the Access to Information Act provide a good sense of what it contained (a call was even scheduled on the planned day of introduction between Prentice and U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins to assure the U.S. that digital locks were the key issue and would not be altered). This chart highlights many of the key issues and their progression over the years as the public became increasingly vocal on copyright:

Issue	Pre-Bill C-61 (2007)	Bill C-61 (2008)	Bill C-11 (2012)
Fair Dealing Expansion	No	No	Yes (education, parody, satire)
Format Shifting	No	Limited (only photographs, book, newspaper, periodical, or videocassette)	Yes (technology neutral, no limit on number of copies, includes network storage, and no reference to contractual overrides)
Time Shifting	No	Limited (no network PVRs, Internet communications)	Yes (C-61 limitations removed)
Backup Copies	No	No	Yes
User Generated Content Exception	No	No	Yes
Statutory Damages Cap	No	Limited ($500 cap for downloading)	Yes (Max of $5000 for all non-commercial infringement)
Enabler enforcement provision	No	No	Yes
Internet Publicly Available Materials Exception for Education	Yes	Yes	Yes
Public Performance in Schools	No	No	Yes
Technology Neutral Display Exception in Schools	No	No	Yes
Limited Distance Learning Exception	Yes	Yes	Yes
Limited Digital Inter-Library Loans	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notice-and-Notice	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notice-and-Takedown	No	No	No
Three Strikes//Website Blocking	No	No	No
Internet Location Tool Provider Safe Harbour	Yes	Yes	Yes
Broadcaster Ephemeral Change	No	No	Yes
Expanded Private Copying Levy	No	No	No
Commissioned Photograph Change	Yes	Yes	Yes
Alternate Format Reproduction	No	No	Yes

[. . .]

Public engagement on copyright continuously grew in strength – from the Bulte battle in 2006 to the Facebook activism in 2007 to the immediate response to the 2008 bill to the 2009 copyright consultation to the 2010 response to Bill C-32. While many dismissed the role of digital activism on copyright, the reality is that it had a huge impact on the shape of Canadian copyright. The public voice influenced not only the contents of the bill, but the debate as well with digital locks the dominant topic of House of Commons debate and media coverage until the very end. Bill C-11 remains a “flawed but fixable” bill that the government refused to fix, but that it is a significantly better bill than seemed possible a few years ago owes much to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians that spoke out on copyright.