International Trade committee  Sure. I think going forward when we're looking at new products there's always new investment in new equipment, the latest technology. Some of these are slow-release products, and we're hoping to—

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Our companies are all forward looking and will be looking forward to—

International Trade committee  Any market where the patent has already expired. We've found right now, prior to patent extension in Canada, that our patents expire sometimes earlier than in the U.S., sometimes later. For example, if a patent has expired in the U.S. and has not yet in Canada, our companies li

International Trade committee  Once it's implemented. If it's implemented properly we would be able to, but only during the patent extension period, that last two years.

International Trade committee  Interestingly, Canada did not make demands of Europe in the pharmaceutical area, so there will be no changes in the pharmaceutical IP regime in Europe.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  In Europe they have a restrictive regime in patent extensions, which makes it difficult to enter the market. Where they have a system that's better than ours is our patent linkage system. They do not face that. So in Canada we cannot get our approval from Health Canada until we

International Trade committee  Yes. We met with the negotiators on a number of occasions and presented our arguments to them. We made sure that we sent in written submissions to government on regular occasions.

International Trade committee  The agreement in principle mentioned that there would be added to the litigation system a right of appeal that the European Union on behalf of brand name pharmaceutical companies had asked for. In the technical document and in our other discussions with the government, they've co

International Trade committee  The generic industry in Canada has a significant research base. Our largest member company, Apotex, has been the largest spender on pharmaceutical research and development for many years now in Canada. Apotex does both new chemical research—it owns a company Cangene, an arm of it

International Trade committee  All of those mitigating factors are there and, as I said, we appreciate those and have congratulated the negotiators for having done that. The reality is that there will be extra costs, as I mentioned, with the two-year patent extension. The fact of the matter is generic drug pri

International Trade committee  If I go to the brand name side first, my answer would be no. The patents worldwide are of a national treatment obligation. So we give the same patent treatment to all countries. That's good because when Canadians go abroad they want patent protection the same there. But what that

International Trade committee  I think that this was a concession we made as part of a broader deal to get access to the market. I'll give negotiators credit. They did mitigate some of the features and, as I said, the export exception and things like that are going to be helpful.

International Trade committee  Yes. Exactly how the system will work will depend on the Canadian legislation and regulations. Our expectation is that given the way the agreement is set out, in almost all cases pharmaceutical patents will move from 20 years to 22 years once the agreement is in effect.

International Trade committee  CETA itself will not create new jobs. What we worked hard to do was to ensure that these excessive demands that were being put on our intellectual property system on pharmaceuticals did not ruin the Canadian generic pharmaceutical industry. As I said, I think the mitigating fac