New Library of Parliament Research Publications

The Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament recently published new legislative summaries and research briefs:

• Bill C-47: The Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act: "Intellectual property law consists of a set of legally enforceable rights that attach to certain types of information, ideas, innovations or other concepts in their expressed form. A trade-mark is a distinctive sign or symbol used to uniquely identify products and services to consumers, and to distinguish them from competing products or services. In Canada, trade-mark rights are protected under the federal Trade-marks Act (...) Bill C-47 creates a separate legal framework for Olympic trade-marks in anticipation of the Olympic Games to be held in Vancouver in 2010. The bill gives the Vancouver Organizing Committee of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (the Organizing Committee) considerable powers to prevent the use of Olympic marks by businesses or individuals seeking to profit from an unauthorized association with the 2010 Games. "
• Bill C-48: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in order to implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption: "The bill makes technical amendments to the corruption and offence-related provisions of the Criminal Code to allow Canada to ratify and implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which came into force in December 2005 (...) The UN Convention against Corruption has been described as “the most important international initiative against corruption in the world today."
• Bulk Water Removals: Canadian Legislation: "On 10 February 1999, the then Foreign Affairs Minister, the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, and the then Environment Minister, the Hon. Christine Stewart, announced a strategy to prohibit the bulk removal of water, including removal for export, from major Canadian water basins. They noted that the strategy responded to Canadian concerns about the security of Canada’s freshwater resources (...) The purpose of this paper is to outline, in chart form, the initiatives thus far taken by the federal government, each of the provinces, and the Yukon within their respective jurisdictions with regard to bulk water removals. In each case, references are made to the relevant sections of the appropriate statute and/or regulations."