Simon Chester blogged some notes yesterday on a public talk by Michael Geist. Unfortunately, we don't know the occasion or event. According to Chester, Geist argued that "Government funding should require research to be open access." I'll blog Geist's words if I can find the text online.
Update. Geist was delivering the 2006 Hart House lecture at the University of Toronto, "Who owns creativity? What is wrong with copyright?"
Update. Joe Clark has blogged more detailed notes on Geist's talk, though he's equally brief on the call for a Canadian OA policy: "Choose research: Open-access scientific publication, especially for federally-funded research (including some of his, he told us)."
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.