Handover Part III

The Handover is stirring more comment. Please listen to the radio piece done by CBC's The Current which includes an interview with me and with directors of the Association of Canadian Publishers and The Writers' Union of Canada. It also features the emailed responses of Penguin Random House of Canada, the University of Toronto, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

The issues raised in The Handover will need to be addressed by the current Minister of Canadian Heritage when she brings forward her new cultural policy in the fall. I look forward to something more interesting from the Department at that time, something more substantial than its current comment on the M&S debacle (sorry, the Investment Canada Act means we cannot speak to specific cases) and something from the University of Toronto explaining why it got nothing from the gift of M&S, and a minimal display of courage from executives of Penguin Random House: it would be nice if they would speak directly to reporters instead of only offering up emails asserting legality. We know the handover of M&S to Random House and Bertelsmann was made legal by the Minister of the day--that is exactly the problem. The Minister said yes when she should have said no, and Ministers of Canadian Heritage have been saying yes ever since.