As the review of the Canadian Copyright Act continues, IPA followed up on the testimony delivered by Vice President Hugo Setzer in May with meetings with our local members, key MPs and officials to present the view of the International Publishers Association that Canada is now an outlier in its approach to educational publishing. In Ottawa, we urged MPs to promote their local educational publishing sector by modifying the amendments to the act that were passed in 2012 and have damaged local and international publishers as well as severely undermining the earning capacity of Canadian authors. The IPA delegation also met with representatives of our three Canadian members (ACP, CPC and ANEL) as well as other stakeholders in Toronto, to discuss the ongoing campaign.
While in Toronto, IPA, STM and IFLA held their second meeting of the year to discuss a range of issues affecting the constituents of all three bodies and to investigate areas of possible cooperation. The talks were constructive and a number of areas of possible future collaboration were identified.
The IPA trio then crossed the border into the United States where they attended the Association of American Publishers’ fast paced and entertaining Annual General Meeting in New York City. They were delighted to see Iranian publisher, Azadeh Parsapour, take home the AAP’s top honour for Freedom to Publish: the Jeri Laber Award. Azadeh is also a guest blogger for IPA and a two-time Prix Voltaire nominee.
The North American tour finished with IPA President Michiel Kolman participating in the UN’s General Assembly where he announced the launch of the IPA-UN Sustainable Development Goals Book Club.