The roller coaster that is the Canadian DMCA has taken another turn. Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning, the government decided to hold off. At 10:00 am this morning, the introduction of new government bills came and went without a new copyright bill. The Industry Minister's press secretary has advised journalists that the bill will not be introduced today or tomorrow. Since the House of Commons will break at the end of the week, the Canadian DMCA will not be introduced until at least late January.

Given this change of events, I reiterate my comment from earlier this week – this is Prentice's moment. He has an opportunity to brush aside the momentary embarrassment of the delays and instead work toward a genuine copyright balance by reaching out to all Canadians. As astonishing number of people have voiced their concern over the past two weeks and the government seems to have listened. Now it must act by openly consulting and engaging with a country that genuinely cares about copyright.