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SECTION II - ANALYSIS OF PROGRAM ACTIVITIES BY STRATEGIC OUTCOME

Strategic Outcome

The Board's strategic outcome is to ensure fair decision-making to provide proper incentives for the creation and uses of copyrighted works.

Program Activity by Strategic Outcome

The following activity contributes to this strategic outcome:

Copyright Tariff Setting and Issuance of Licences



Financial Resources
($ thousands)
2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
3,054 3,054 3,054

Note: The amount of $3,054 includes the current reference level of $2,624 plus $430 which will be transferred permanently from Industry Canada ($215) and Canadian Heritage ($215) through the 2009-10 Estimates process.



Human Resources
(Full-time Equivalents (FTE))
2009-10 2010-11 2011-12
21 21 21

Note: The number of full-time equivalents includes 5 Governor-in-Council appointees and 16 employees.

The statutory mandate of the Board is to establish tariffs to be paid for the use of copyrighted works, when the administration of such copyright is entrusted to a collective-administration society. It is by rendering decisions and issuing licences that the Board fulfill its mandate.

Both the copyright holders and users are stakeholders in this outcome. Consequently, interventions before the Board are thorough and sophisticated, involving experts witnesses, litigation specialists and detailed econometric, business and financial studies, surveys and evidence. In rendering decisions, the Board must consider the underlying technologies (such as the Internet, digital radio, satellite communications), the economic issues and the interests of owners and users in order to contribute, with fair and equitable decisions, to the continued growth of this component of Canada's knowledge industries. Sound tariff decisions avoid serious disruption in affected sectors of the national economy and costly time-consuming court challenges. The Board will be able to evaluate its achievement in this regard by performing evaluations and studies of the economic impact of the Board's decisions on particular sectors of the Canadian economy.

The Board is continuously looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the hearing process by minimizing the overall participants' expenses while ensuring that the process and the tariffs remain fair and equitable. The key partners in this endeavour are the private interest parties who appear before the Board, and include the various collective societies that represent rights owners and associations and organizations representing users of works.

Improving the efficiency of the regulatory process involves continual refinements in scheduling of witnesses, establishing and communicating the parameters of the hearing to participants, consulting with key stakeholders and developing codes of hearing practice and related guidelines for the conduct of hearings. By improving the efficiency of the tariff hearing process, this activity is expected to contribute to the important objective of reducing the regulatory burden. It is by performing evaluations of the time duration of the process and of participants' satisfaction that the Board will be able to assess the performance achieved through the activity.

Pursuant to section 77 of the Act, the Board may grant licences that authorize the use of published works, fixed performances, published sound recordings and fixed communication signals if the copyright owner cannot be located. Since 1989, the Board has issued 214 such licences. The Board's objective with respect to this activity is to issue licences in a timely manner. The duration of the process will help the Board assess its performance with respect to this activity.

Internal Services

This activity deals with financial and materiel management policies, systems, processes and standards which are consistent with modern comptrollership. In implementing these policies, compliance with Parliament's requirements for financial stewardship and probity must be ensured. This activity also encompasses the responsibility of providing human resource services.

By focusing on the priorities described earlier in this report with respect to management practices, this activity contributes to the creation of an environment that will allow the Board to fulfill its mandate and realize its objective.