I like your idea of a compromise with the Rat: Mickey Mouse copyright literally forever but only with registration so that we can have all the regular works of the era back in the public domain.

But it raises a question about preservation. Why don't the libraries and collections just lend their books and movies to a Canadian version of Project Gutenberg to be digitized and preserved? Canada has life plus fifty copyright.

As a matter of fact, I can't tell for sure but it looks like Mickey Mouse might be fair game in Canada well before 2019.