The Latest on Writing and Publishing in Canada
ADVOCACY | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | CENSORSHIP | FESTIVALS
ADVOCACY
Canadian Book Sector Pushes Back on Proposed Counter-Tariffs
The Writers’ Union of Canada participated in a recent government consult on counter-tariffs proposed in response to the many trade war threats from the U.S. government. While U.S. President Trump has so far made no mention of books and or printed matter in his various and wildly fluctuating tariff threats, Canada’s government has inexplicably included printed materials (including books) in its counter-tariff plans.
TWUC supported calls from the publishing and bookselling sectors to keep books and other printed matter off the tariff list. Canada/U.S. trade agreements traditionally keep cultural products out of all negotiations out of respect for cultural sovereignty.
Meanwhile… Union Staff Point Consumers at Canadian Books
TWUC’s CEO spoke with theHumm magazine to highlight the many ways consumers can find, buy, and borrow Canadian books. Written by Union member John Pigeau, theHumm’s article points readers to resources from The Canadian Independent Booksellers Association, the 49th Shelf, and All Lit Up, as well as local library initiatives to highlight Canadian authors. Union members are encouraged to spread this information as widely as possible through their own networks. Doing so with elbows either up or down is acceptable.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Rightsholders 1: Artificial Intelligence 0
Media company Thomson Reuters sued one of their competitors, Ross Intelligence, for using published TR materials from their legal platform, Westlaw, to train an AI. On February 11th, a U.S. District Court judge issued a decision that affirmed Ross Intelligence had infringed TR’s rights. Importantly, the judge struck down the argument that use of TR’s content was covered by the broad U.S. copyright exception known as Fair Use.
This is significant for the writing sector’s ongoing fights over copyright, because Fair Use has been used as a defence in the U.S. for almost all of the cases involving unpermitted copying and use of books, from Google Books in 2005 to the Internet Archive’s Open Library in the past few years. This ruling suggests U.S. courts are perhaps running out of patience with tech firms giving themselves such broad permissions.
Two AI-Focussed Class Actions Requested in Canada
A self-published author in Quebec, Anne Robillard, has launched a class action lawsuit against tech giant Meta, related to their reported use of pirated books in the creation of an artificial intelligence LLM. Robillard announced her legal action in late March. As reported in le journal de quebec, the suit claims $20,000 per injured party and per work.
This lawsuit follows on another launched last December by British Columbia artist and illustrator Michael Dean Jackson. Dean Jackson wishes to sue OpenAI and Microsoft for reproducing and/or scraping copyrighted works in order to train their generative AI models.
A press time, neither lawsuit has been authorized by the courts. The Union watches both cases closely, and continues to support similar legal action in the United States where most of the copying and training is taking place.
UK Creative Sector Takes Over Front Pages
In late February, a broad coalition of UK media and creative sector organizations came together to send a strong message of resistance to their government on the issue of artificial intelligence. Claiming that “government is siding with big tech over British creativity,” the Make It Fair advocacy campaign took over the front pages of virtually all British daily newspapers and news sites with a striking ad campaign.
The UK’s Labour government has inexplicably pushed plans to provide AI developers with a copyright exception for text and data mining and AI training. If passed, this very unpopular amendment to British copyright would spell the end of any nascent licensing market for these uses of creative material, and would be seen worldwide as broad permission for the kind of snatch-and-grab training the AI industry has been doing to date. Artists as prominent as Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John have joined the pushback on the proposed bill.
Photo: Courtesy News Media UK.
“Quietly Effective” Book Banning Examined
A March 1 article in The Walrus magazine (an excerpt from a new Canadian book, in fact) looks at how book banning from many different ideological angles is now “more effective than ever” across both Canada and the United States.
In what he calls “the new “censorship consensus,” author Ira Wells suggests “books are [increasingly] called upon to justify their existence through demonstrations of their moral value.” And while without question most calls to remove or censor books in school libraries explicitly target stories concerning people of colour, racial history, or LGBTQ+ themes and characters, Wells notes instances where the wholesale discarding of book collections are pushed from what would be considered a more progressive perspective, in order to sideline work that has proven less progressive as time progresses.
Wells concludes: “Contemporary progressive educators from Ontario bear little in common with parents’ rights activists from Florida, and their aims are not equivalent. But both treat books as sources of contagion and libraries as fields of indoctrination, and both invoke the vulnerability of children as a warrant for censorship.”
Toronto International Festival of Authors Moving Uptown
After 50 years presenting authors and their works at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) is leaving the Lake Ontario waterfront and wandering uptown. TIFA announced in March both their MOTIVE Crime and Mystery Festival (June 27 – 29, 2025) and a reimagined five-day international authors festival (October 29 – November 2, 2025) will now be held in collaboration with the Centre for Creativity (CFC) at Victoria University.
The CFC was launched last December by U of T Professor and Canadian poet Adam Sol “to bring together students, faculty, artists, thinkers and others from the arts, sciences, and technology to find creative solutions to the problems facing our society and creative ways to foster equitable, diverse and inclusive communities.”
The CFC venue for TIFA is likely to attract a broader audience, as it sits close by Toronto’s two major subway lines at the heart of the downtown cultural neighbourhood.
Alice Munro Festival Shutting Down
The board of the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story has unanimously decided to close down the festival in 2025. In a notice sent out in early March, the festival noted it would continue to host an online archive of festival authors and stories for an undetermined time, and that its short story contest would continue at the Huron County Library.
The announcement continued:
“The committee would like to share their sincere appreciation to the community, volunteers, and funders for their many years of support and to the authors who continued to bring exceptional programming to the event. The remaining funds will be donated to community charities supporting women and youth.”
Kingston Writersfest Future Uncertain, But Somewhat Brighter
After initially indicating it was ceasing operations after 16 years, Kingston Writersfest announced in early March that it had reached its emergency fundraising goals and would begin a process of rebuilding.
“Our heartfelt gratitude to all our Angel Campaign benefactors whose contributions large and small have helped to make this possible.”
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