All of this was germane to the government because the lobby group for the big pharmaceuticals had been pushing for an extension on their patent protections, promising, in return, to spend 10 per cent of Canadian sales on R&D in Canada. The Industry Canada policy officers note that: "... after peaking in 1997 at 12.9% [of sales], [Big Pharma spending on R&D] has declined to 8.5% in 2006. The dollar value of their R&D has been flat at about $1.2 billion while sales have continued to grow. However, it is important to note that this percentage does not include the S1.5 billion of biotechnology R&D in Canada undertaken by companies who do not yet have a patented product on the market."

One of the issues that politicians will grapple with, as they balance the rights of content creators against those of content users is the concept of fair dealing when it comes to satire and parody. The Copyright Act says exempts research or private study, criticism or review, news reporting as "fair dealing" but does not specifically say you can use copyrighted content in satire or parody.I recently received a document, retrieved under Canada's Access to Information laws, that looks at that issue. The document is a briefing note, prepared by Associate Deputy Minister Paul Booth (last seen leading the auto restructuring file for the federal government) for then-Minister Jim Prentice. It's two pages long but here's an even briefer summary...

How much we as a country choose to spend on culture and what we define as culture gets almost no serious discussion at election time. In 2008, of course, the Conservatives took a major hit in Quebec because of the perception that whatever was being spent, the Conservatives were determined to spend less. But there was no real discussion, particularly between the two major parties, about the arts in Canada, why they're important, and what the priorities were for each party when it came to cultural spending. True enough: In 2008, with a recession just getting underway, the economy was the unavoidably dominant theme. But for next time, perhaps we can have a national discussion about the arts, armed with some clear facts about the numbers involved and some clear answers about what $4 billion on "culture" means and how that culture is to be fostered by each party.

... the CIBC's economists conclude that Canada's reputation as a fiscally prudent nation, built up by the governments of Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper, is likely to survive the recession, the recovery, and the PBO:

Here's the government of Canada giving $270,000 to the Calgary Folk Festival, funding that came out of the Marquee Tourism Events Program and the Calgary MP who happens to be Minister of State for Tourism, Diane Ablonczy, is nowhere to be found. Instead, it's Ontario MP and Industry Minister (and heavy metal fan, I might add) who is handing out the cash.

... the beltway media are missing this point: "The condescending reaction to the Dean insurgency by television's political correspondents can be reminiscent of that hilarious party scene in the movie "Singin' in the Rain," where Hollywood's silent-era elite greets the advent of talkies with dismissive bafflement. "The Internet has yet to mature as a political tool," intoned Carl Cameron of Fox News last summer as he reported that the runner-up group to Dean supporters on the meetup.com site was witches . ."

More than 130 economists have signed an open letter to parliamentarians calling on MPs to provide the fledgling Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer with the independence and funding required to continue the "commendable record" of analyzing the state of the federal government's finances.

While these quotations attributed to me are correct, they represent an incomplete response give to the questions Collins put to me. Indeed, since the headline is "G8 Attack Reflects Poorly on Canada: Experts" you might get the impression that I am one of the "experts" who holds that view. For the record, I am neither an expert nor do I hold that view. In fact, when asked specifically by Collins if that's what I believed, I replied that the attack did not reflect in any way on Canada simply because most other delegations don't pay much attention to Canada. Canadians think it makes a difference to our world standing but I have seen no evidence when I'm at these summits that it makes a difference one way or the other.

Jason Kenney takes to Twitter to explain his government's issue on imposing visa requirements for Czech and Mexican visitors.

I do believe, looking through the current list of recipients, that Jean Chrétien will be the only Canadian (and certainly the only Quebecer) to have received this honour. Other recipients include Sigmund Freud, Tim Berners-Lee (he invented a little software application called The World Wide Web) and playwright Tom Stoppard.