From Andrew Sly <sly@victoria.tc.ca>

But I would argue that if the U.S. did not have its unique copyright history, then Project Gutenberg would be rather a different thing today.

Absolutely. PG holds a great number of books which are PD under the general rule, but not PD in life+50 or life+70 countries.

Neither American or Canadian copyright laws are "better", they are just different. Each provides its own problems for those wanting to utilize the public domain.

Absolutely, but, assuming no further changes to either US or Canadian law, Canada already has a larger public domain, and will continue to have a larger public domain, and one which grows every January 1st. The US public domain is smaller and frozen for more than another decade.

And you also have the uncertain situations. Here is a description from the LoC of a title that have availible, if I want it:

This is a major lacuna in the Canadian law; some other countries with life+ regimes have provisions which allow you to assume, in the absence of death-date information, that the work is PD after a certain efflux of time. Probably not long enough to take care of a 1930s-era imprint, though. On the other hand, I've currently got a book in copy.pglaf.org limbo because it doesn't contain a publication or copyright date, and the library information from various libraries give contradictory multiple US and British publication dates ranging from 1919 to 1926. Under Canadian law, I know for a fact that this book is unequivocally in the public domain, with an author who died in 1939. I'm trying to prove the publication date -- which I know to be 1920 from extrinsic sources -- but it's a tough slog to clear.

Personal Name: Powell, Van. [from old catalog] Is it PD in Canada under life+50? Who knows? I've done some searching and cannot find any dates for the author.

If there's any chance this is a pseudonym, then it's public-domain in Canada (publication+50 rule).