Bill C-8 (Historical)

Combating Counterfeit Products Act

An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act to add new civil and criminal remedies and new border measures in both Acts, in order to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trade-mark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies and counterfeit trade-marked goods. More specifically, the enactment
(a) creates new civil causes of action with respect to activities that sustain commercial activity in infringing copies and counterfeit trade-marked goods;
(b) creates new criminal offences for trade-mark counterfeiting that are analogous to existing offences in the Copyright Act;
(c) creates new criminal offences prohibiting the possession or export of infringing copies or counterfeit trade-marked goods, packaging or labels;
(d) enacts new border enforcement measures enabling customs officers to detain goods that they suspect infringe copyright or trade-mark rights and allowing them to share information relating to the detained goods with rights owners who have filed a request for assistance, in order to give the rights owners a reasonable opportunity to pursue a remedy in court;
(e) exempts the importation and exportation of copies and goods by an individual for their personal use from the application of the border measures; and
(f) adds the offences set out in the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act to the list of offences set out in the Criminal Code for the investigation of which police may seek judicial authorization to use a wiretap.
The enactment also amends the Trade-marks Act to, among other things, expand the scope of what can be registered as a trade-mark, allow the Registrar of Trade-marks to correct errors that appear in the trade-mark register, and streamline and modernize the trade-mark application and opposition process.

Combating Counterfeit Products Act

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today to speak to Bill C-8, the combating counterfeit products act. I am happy to say that the bill passed through the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology with all-party support. The committee heard many witnesses and introduced a number of amendments that improve this important piece of legislation.

However, before I speak to the particulars of Bill C-8, allow me to remind the House of the important measures that our government has already taken and will continue to take to support Canadian consumers. In the recent Speech from the Throne, the government committed to taking strong action to protect consumers and families that is aimed at lowering prices, enhancing access and choice, and ensuring fair treatment.

The modernization of our intellectual property laws has also brought real benefits to consumers. Last year, Canada's long-standing copyright laws were updated and brought into the 21st century through the Copyright Modernization Act. The amended copyright act allows for legitimate and commonplace actions by Canadian consumers to be protected under copyright law. Canadians no longer have to be concerned about the legalities of time shifting television programs on their personal video recorders, transferring music from their CD collection to their MP3 player, or remixing music or videos for non-commercial purposes and sharing it on social media. By enacting the Copyright Modernization Act, the government listened to the concerns of Canadian consumers and provided them with legitimate protection for their actions. Canada now has a modern copyright regime that will play a critical role in protecting and creating jobs in Canada's digital economy.

It is the resolve of our government to continue to bring forward legislation that empowers Canadian consumers and instills confidence in the marketplace.

It is in this spirit that I will speak to Bill C-8, which addresses the real need for protection against allowing counterfeit goods to enter Canada. By reducing the trade in counterfeit goods, the bill would help protect our economy, support innovation, and benefit both businesses and consumers. For years, Canadian stakeholders in the business community have been seeking improvements to our intellectual property laws in order to better tackle the problem of counterfeiting and piracy. They have told us repeatedly that Canadian brands and works are being copied and taken advantage of, causing hardship not only to legitimate businesses but also to Canadian consumers.

Let me reiterate: counterfeit trademark goods are not only harmful to the economy, but they are often made without regard to Canadian health and safety standards which could harm consumers and their families. How so? Consumers could inadvertently buy counterfeit products that look like the real thing but could cause significant harm. For example, witness testimony at the industry committee mentioned several dangerous products. The CSA group talked about counterfeit circuit breakers found in a hospital in Quebec that were supplying power to life support equipment. Committee members were shown a video of a counterfeit circuit actually exploding under conditions that simulated normal electrical use. The International Trademark Association mentioned counterfeit food, medicines, and automotive parts. Canada Goose explained that the stuffing in counterfeit versions of their jackets are, at best, of very low quality, and at worst, not sanitary.

It is easy to see how these types of goods could present serious health and safety issues for anyone who would encounter them. Canadians who spend their hard-earned dollars to buy what they believe are high-quality products backed by a brand name are furious when they learn that they have been deceived.

Bill C-8 is our government's response to this problem. It amends the Trade-marks Act and the Copyright Act to provide new tools for rights holders, border officers, and law enforcement to better fight this issue. Most importantly, it puts in place strong measures to protect Canadian consumers and their families from the threat of counterfeiting.

Allow me to explain how the bill would provide for a stronger border regime, new civil causes of action, and new criminal offences. First, the bill gives copyright and trademark owners additional tools to protect their intellectual property rights at the border. Importantly, Bill C-8 provides border agents with the authority to temporarily detain suspected shipments and the ability to verify their suspicion with rights holders. Under the new system, rights holders would be able to file a request for assistance with the Canada Border Services Agency, asking for border officers' help in detaining suspected counterfeit or pirated goods. Allowing trademark and copyright owners to exercise their rights at the border means fewer shipments of counterfeit and pirated goods into the Canadian market, to the benefit of businesses, consumers, and their families.

Second, with regard to civil infringements, Bill C-8 adds a series of activities to the existing civil causes of action in the Trade-marks Act. Currently, trademark owners can only pursue a civil action against a counterfeiter when a good is being sold.

Bill C-8 fills important gaps by making it a civil infringement to manufacture, possess, import, export, or attempt to export counterfeit goods for commercial purposes. By targeting activities that occur earlier in the supply chain, the bill helps rights holders keep counterfeit goods out of the Canadian market and out of the hands of unsuspecting Canadian consumers.

Not only does this bill add new civil causes for activities prior to sale, it also targets the practice of shipping labels separately from goods in order to avoid detection. Bill C-8 adds specific provisions against manufacturing, possessing, importing, exporting, and attempting to export labels or packaging that are destined to be associated with counterfeit goods. This measure protects consumers from counterfeiters who may apply counterfeit labels to goods here in Canada in an attempt to avoid getting caught.

To summarize the civil measures, Bill C-8 equips rights holders with improved tools to assert their trademark and copyright in a civil context.

In recognition of the fact that counterfeiting is an unlawful act, the bill adds new offences to the Trade-marks Act for selling, manufacturing, causing to be manufactured, possessing, importing, exporting, or attempting to export counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. The new criminal offences also cover services, labelling, and packaging. This is important because law enforcement knows that criminal groups are involved in the production and distribution of counterfeit goods. These groups forego safety regulations, certifications, and quality controls in order to maximize profits. They simply do not care about the health and safety of consumers. For these groups, counterfeiting is just another profitable line of business. The new criminal offences will give law enforcement agencies additional important tools to fight against serious and organized crime. They will help us keep those goods off the market and help protect Canadian families.

All of the measures I have just outlined pertain to sale for commercial purposes. That is the focus of Bill C-8 and of law enforcement authorities. In this way, Bill C-8 will protect consumers and their families from the threat of counterfeit goods by reducing the presence of these goods in the Canadian market.

In addition, Bill C-8 provides a specific exception at the border for individuals importing or exporting counterfeit or pirated goods intended for personal use when these goods are in their possession or personal luggage. Simply put, Canadians may cross the border with counterfeit goods or pirated copies for personal use. However, let me be clear. Every person who supports counterfeiting at any level hurts the Canadian economy and risks his or her health and safety.

As I mentioned earlier, there is also a possibility that counterfeit goods and pirated copies are connected with organized crime, which often profits from the sale of counterfeit goods.

The measures in this bill are designed to help federal agencies and rights holders target their efforts to confronting criminals who gain commercially from the sale of these goods. This is the balance that the government has achieved with this bill. If we want to target those who profit from counterfeiting and piracy, we have to put our efforts into stopping commercial activities relating to counterfeiting and piracy, not in stopping individual Canadians who may inadvertently carry a counterfeit good in their luggage.

Another area where this bill achieves the right balance is with regard to the respective roles of the state and rights holders in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy. Trademarks and copyrights are private rights. We believe that the trademark and copyright owners have an important role to play in defending these private rights. That said, the government also plays a key role in keeping unsafe products out of the Canadian market and in stopping serious and organized crime.

With Bill C-8, the government puts in place a framework that allows trademark and copyright owners to protect their rights more efficiently at the border and within the country. For example, rights holders will have the ability to file a request for assistance with the Canada Border Services Agency. This will allow rights holders to receive information from border officers about shipments suspected of containing counterfeit or pirated goods, allowing them to pursue remedies under the Trade-marks Act or the Copyright Act.

Rights holders who choose to file a request for assistance will be asked to assume the costs of storage and destruction of counterfeit and pirated goods. For its part, the government will continue to play a leading role in stopping goods that present health and safety issues or that are linked to criminal activities. Border officers will continue to refer these goods to the RCMP and Health Canada as appropriate.

In my introduction I mentioned the work of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, as we reviewed Bill C-8 for several weeks. In particular, I would like to highlight a number of substantive amendments that were adopted by the committee that will clarify and improve the application of Bill C-8, while keeping with the balance I alluded to earlier to help better achieve outcomes for Canadians.

First, the bill was amended to clarify that rights holders can use information obtained from border officers about suspected shipments to seek out-of-court settlements. Such settlements are part of the process of pursuing remedies under the act. They would enable rights holders to assert their rights in a cost-effective manner.

Second, the knowledge requirements of the new criminal offences introduced in the Trade-marks Act were found to be unnecessarily high, which in turn meant a low probability of successful prosecution.

If we want the bill to provide an effective deterrent for counterfeiters, we have to make sure that criminal offences can be prosecuted. The amendments introduced at the committee achieve this goal by requiring the crown to prove that the accused knew that he was copying a trademark and that he did not have the consent of the trademark owner to do so. The criminal offences will continue to apply only to activities on a commercial scale and only to registered trademarks.

The third amendment introduced at the committee stage concerns the definition of “distinctive” in the Trade-marks Act. Some witnesses expressed concerns about changes in the wording of the definition. These changes were meant only to modernize the language, and there was no intention of changing the meaning of “distinctive”.

The committee moved to replace the expression “inherently capable of distinguishing” with the expression “adapted so to distinguish”, which is currently found in the Trade-marks Act. This amendment alleviates the concerns of stakeholders and removes any risk of costly and unnecessary litigation associated with the reinterpretation of the new definition.

The final amendment I would like to mention concerns the new civil causes of action in the Trade-marks Act. Originally, the bill's new civil causes of action for manufacturing, possessing, importing, exporting, and attempting to export only applied to the goods and services for which the trademark was registered. In contrast, the existing causes of action for selling or distributing apply to all goods and services that could be confused with a registered trademark, whether or not the goods and services are on the trademark register. The committee's amendment ensures that both the existing and the new civil causes of action have the same scope of application.

Bill C-8, as amended by the industry committee, is further proof that our government is focused on protecting consumers and their families. By keeping unsafe products out of the hands of unsuspecting consumers, it would enhance consumer confidence in the marketplace and would help legitimate businesses in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy.

I would urge all members of the House to support the bill and refer it to the Senate as soon as possible to ensure that Canadian rights holders, customs officers, and law enforcement have the tools they need to fight counterfeiting and piracy domestically and at our borders.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for such an interesting speech. The discussions in committee really helped improve this bill. The governing party even put forward amendments to its own bill, which goes to show that there were improvements to be made.

Since over 1,000 Canada border services employees have been fired, it will be difficult to implement these changes. There are fewer and fewer border guards, who are Canada's first line of defence.

How can this bill be implemented if there are not enough people to do it?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member referred to the work of the industry committee. Of course, members from all parties on that committee work very well together. Actually, it is one of the better committees I have had the chance to be on in my time. As we go through the committee process, the questions that are asked to get information from the witnesses lead us, as a government, sometimes to look at some of the things in the legislation, and important changes are made. That is an important part of the process.

In relation to his question, I do not agree with the assertion he made about the numbers. Second, any piece of legislation like this is made in close consultation with the experts. Of course, the experts at CBSA are consulted on a piece of legislation like this.

The bill would give new tools to the officers to do their job and to attack an important problem, something they recognize as an important challenge. We have done that with this piece of legislation. It will be up to the experts, the CBSA, to determine how best to use this new tool we have given them to do the important job they do to protect Canadians.

As we look at the budget that is coming up, for example, I hope that the hon. member will support the government's efforts to be one of the only countries in the developed world to have a balanced budget by 2015. Having that budget balanced by 2015 will enable us to continue to support the important work of both the CBSA and all the other excellent public servants who work so hard for this country.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will save my comments regarding the balanced budget and how the government took a multibillion dollar Liberal surplus, converted into a deficit, and is now hoping to get it balanced, for the budget debate.

Having said that, the issue of fraudulent and counterfeit goods has had a fairly significant impact on the Canadian economy. The member makes reference to safety issues. It is very important for us to recognize the impact they have.

The question I have for the member is not necessarily related to enforcement as much as it is about ensuring that the issue is being best addressed. For example, does he see a role for the consumer, and if so, to what degree?

The member made reference to our borders. Our border control officers do a phenomenal job given the resources they have.

How does the government see us addressing this issue going forward in terms of the involvement of consumers and others? Is this something that was talked about at committee? I for one was not at the committee, so maybe he could provide some comment on that.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, of course, there was wide consultation on this issue. Obviously, consumers have a role to play, as do Canadian businesses, importers, exporters, and border services officials. Certainly all were consulted.

With regard to the consumer, it is an interesting question, because obviously, the primary focus of this legislation is to protect Canadian consumers. At the end of the day, though, consumers also have a role to play. As I mentioned in the middle of my speech, we are not targeting an individual who buys a counterfeit purse or something similar in another country and brings it back home. That is still wrong. It is still wrong to support counterfeit products, and there is a danger in doing that. It obviously hurts business.

However, the bigger concern is that with some of these products, not so much purses but some other counterfeit products, there may actually be a personal danger. Of course, we want Canadian consumers to be aware of that, and people need to take responsibility when they consider what it is they are purchasing.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the parliamentary secretary could elaborate on some of the health concerns we face in Canada due to counterfeit products. He mentioned in his speech that we have issues with the feathers that fill coats that come in from other countries in an illegal way. He talked about some electrical devices that exploded because they were counterfeit.

I had not thought a lot about the actual health concerns before today. I wonder if he could elaborate on some of the health concerns this bill would address.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a really important point. Again, we heard this over and over again at committee. It was a real eye-opener for the committee members on all sides to see the example of the circuit breaker, for instance. We do not really think about these things. When we think about counterfeit products, we think more about clothing, accessories, and those things we more typically see.

In a case like the Canada Goose example, we saw a strong example of a product we would think would be harmless in the counterfeit version, but I cannot even get into the wide range of things they found in these jackets that were completely unsanitary.

Look at the possibility of counterfeiting medicines and creating medicines that people are taking because they think they will make them better, but those medicines have not gone through the same standards and safety controls a medicine would go through here. They may not contain anything that will actually help a person.

These are real and serious problems in relation to this issue. People think about counterfeiting oftentimes more from a business standpoint, but in the interest of protecting Canadian consumers, safety, as we heard at the committee, is a major issue.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. We sat on the committee together when we were doing a lot of the studies prior to the bill. The things that were being found in those jackets were reprehensible. They were absolutely disgusting. Many of us did not want to even touch the counterfeit jackets, and of course, there were the electrical products.

During that study, we talked a lot about the 2007 committee report that recommended ex officio powers. I am pleased to see that in the bill now. It also recommended a reporting system for counterfeit goods.

Most of the data the government has is anecdotal. We do not actually have a system in place to determine how large the problem is. Of course, the OECD has made it clear that there is a need for better data when it comes to counterfeiting.

I would like to ask the member what is in the bill that would seek to address that concern so that we can actually measure the size and scope of the problem so we know how big it is and what kinds of resources to put in to tackle it.

I would say that cutting $143 million from CBSA will make it more challenging. Adding ex officio powers would mean more training requirements and more work on that side.

How would that be measured and balanced to make sure that the resources are there so that we can properly tackle the counterfeit goods coming in?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member. When he was on the committee, I always enjoyed his lively style of intervention.

Both NDP questions today centred on spending more money, as they generally do in this place. It does not matter what we are debating, the NDP's questions are centre on spending more money.

In this government, we are looking at the amount of money that is spent on behalf of taxpayers of this country. We are saying that we can do better with that money. We can get that budget balanced and still take important steps like this to give tools to our border officers.

As we have the debate we are about to have on the budget coming up, I would ask the NDP members to first read the budget before they actually engage in the debate, which is always a good idea, and to second consider actually supporting our measures to get the budget in balance so we can continue to move forward with these important initiatives to the benefit of Canadians.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to share my time.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to share her time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to specify that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

Before I begin my speech, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Vietnamese New Year. Tet is the start of a new year and, according to the lunar calendar, this is the year of the horse. In Vietnamese, we say, “chúc mung nam moi”.

Now back to Bill C-8. Counterfeiting is a crime that harms legitimate trade. It puts the health and safety of Canadians at risk, as we have just heard. Counterfeiting is when a recognized trademark is put on a fake product in the hopes of fooling clients and businesses.

In recent years, counterfeit products have caused serious injuries. There were batteries that exploded and caused burns, drugs that had very dangerous side effects, and toys that injured children. In addition, there are clothes that are made with materials that are dangerous to our health and substandard coat linings that cause skin disease, for example.

The proportion of counterfeit products that are dangerous to our health is on the rise. In 2005, the proportion was 11%; however, it is now 26%. Canadians should not have to take risks when buying imported products.

Counterfeiting also has a devastating effect on businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses. Our small and medium-sized businesses invest their creativity and their resources in the development of unique, reliable and competitive products. When counterfeit goods enter the Canadian market, they cause serious damage to businesses, and small and medium-sized businesses do not always have the means to take the counterfeiters to court.

The value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP has risen from $7 million to $38 million over the past seven years. The OECD estimates that the value of counterfeiting worldwide is approximately $250 billion a year. China is the main source of counterfeit goods. In 2011, 80% of counterfeit goods came from China, and that trend is on the rise. The United States is the second-largest source.

We hope that Bill C-8 will help reduce the amount of counterfeit goods in Canada. The bill basically aims to strengthen the fight against counterfeiting by amending the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act. In fact, the bill will add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for possession and exportation of counterfeit goods. Furthermore, it also creates offences for selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. It also prohibits the importing of counterfeit goods, while creating two exceptions: the first exception is products imported for personal use, given that people do not always know when something they buy outside Canada is counterfeit, and the second has to do with items in transit control, that is, goods that are passing through Canada on their way to their final destination.

Bill C-8 also gives border officials new powers to intercept infringing copies. Thus, they will no longer have to wait for a court order, which makes a lot more sense. The Canada Border Services Agency and the Minister of Public Safety will also be able to share information on detained goods with copyright holders. These tools will help fight counterfeiting.

However, it is of the utmost importance that we have the resources to enforce the law. The Conservative government has made major cuts to border services. Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said earlier, approximately $143 million in cuts will be made, resulting in the loss of 549 full-time jobs between now and 2015. That is quite significant given that the border between Canada and the United States is almost 9,000 km long.

The Franklin border crossing in my riding was closed in 2011. Border guards and RCMP officers came to see me immediately to tell me how concerned they were because the smuggling of tobacco, drugs and weapons across the border is a major problem. Now that the RCMP and border services have fewer resources, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to keep Canadians safe. Border guards and RCMP officers are being given more responsibilities and fewer resources, making it even harder for them to protect Canadians from counterfeiting and maintain border security.

Let us not forget that Bill C-8 will require customs officers to analyze the products entering and leaving the country to determine whether they are counterfeit copies and whether they fall under one of the exemptions. In the case of counterfeit goods, customs officers will have to detain the goods, store them and contact the rights owners. They will have to take care of all that in addition to doing their regular duties.

One has to wonder whether the Canada Border Services Agency will have the means to implement the law without compromising its other responsibilities, which are to protect Canada's borders and keep our country safe.

The president of the Customs and Immigration Union, Jean-Pierre Fortin, had this to say about the cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency:

These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons and illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, sexual predators and hardened criminals.

Experienced people are concerned. How can the government ensure that all of the measures proposed in Bill C-8 are funded without affecting other surveillance services? The government refuses to comment on this, despite all of the questions we asked about it in committee.

The other major issue is the lack of data on counterfeiting in Canada. We do not know the magnitude of the problem. All we have are statistics on actual seizures. We do not have any information about what type of goods are being counterfeited and where they come from. We do not have any information on all of the counterfeit goods that are on the market.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Council believes that the Canadian system does not have the tools to track cases detected and report them to the authorities. European border authorities must publish statistics but, in Canada, the Border Services Agency is not mandated to report infringements of intellectual property rights.

In committee, when we asked the RCMP whether they had an idea of the number of Canadian manufacturers charged with importing or exporting counterfeit goods, the federal policing superintendent replied that he did not have any statistics in that regard.

In fact, the RCMP's police information retrieval system does not track enough information to provide a clear picture of the number of counterfeit goods imported or exported.

In 2007, a report by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology recommended that the government establish a reporting system that would track investigations. It is difficult to tackle this problem without the facts and the exact figures.

How can we measure progress after we implement this law without a baseline? Let us be realistic. Without funding for tracking counterfeiting and without a team of experts to manage border measures, the legislation will have very mixed results.

The NDP attached a dissenting opinion to the committee's report on its study of the bill. We are calling on the government to consult with consumer associations and industry. We would also like customs officers to have the powers they need to do their jobs while ensuring compliance with civil liberties and usual procedures. We are also asking that the agency be provided with sufficient funding, it goes without saying, to fight counterfeiting and continue doing the work it does every day.

In conclusion, the NDP supports the fight against counterfeiting. Our approach respects both copyright holders and citizens. We are also pragmatic. We know that if we pass a law but do not allocate the necessary resources to enforce it, the outcome will be poor. Fighting counterfeiting effectively without taking away from other border control activities means providing the appropriate resources to the relevant authorities.

The government must also stop cutting front-line officer positions. The number of full-time jobs has been reduced by 549.

We have also taken a very close look at Bill C-8 in committee, and we believe that it does not compromise Canadians' basic rights. The bill does not include censorship, does not criminalize travellers, and does not cover goods in transit.

However, there must be conclusive evidence and follow-up on analyses. Most importantly, the government must provide adequate human and financial resources to our border services and RCMP officers.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the safety issue. We know and understand that there is a great deal of importation in different forms, things such as electrical components and medical products. Medical issues are something I am most concerned about. When different types of medicines are brought in proclaiming to replace other types of medicines that have gone through a process of certification, it is very dangerous. There are electrical components brought in with substantial price differences from the real thing and, again, they pose a safety issue for Canadians.

My question to the member is this. Just focusing on the issue of safety, does the member see other opportunities that we can, as legislators, move toward to enhance consumer awareness on these issues? For example, the Government of Canada will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on wasteful ads when, in fact, we could be spending more on consumer advisory-type information ads. I ask her to comment.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North for his question.

The Conservative government is spending its money in a pretty ideological way and paying for ads about programs that are not all that useful to people in terms of raising awareness of fraud and counterfeit goods that could pose a risk to health, the economy and the ability of our businesses to compete.

Counterfeit medicines are certainly extremely dangerous to people's health since Health Canada has not evaluated them. They can have really serious side effects that could be terrible for people's health. The government should spend money raising people's awareness about the quality of goods and where they come from.

There should also be resources for producing reports, which is what the NDP asked for in committee. We asked for an annual report to be produced to follow up on analysis of these goods. Unfortunately, the Conservatives rejected our amendment in committee.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which was very well researched. The member's riding is home to a large cluster of the border crossings in the Montérégie area, between Dundee and Hemmingford, I believe.

In my past life, before I was elected in 2011, I had the opportunity to be around many border officers. They told me how much their everyday tasks had changed. When my colleague was studying this bill, did she get the impression that the realities faced by border officers had been heard or understood?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher for his very practical question.

We had border officers come to testify in committee. People also wrote to us to say that resources were very limited on the ground. As a result of the Conservatives' $143 million in cuts in the 2012 budget, resources will be even more limited, even though the officers' responsibilities continue to increase.

Along the border between Dundee and Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, in my riding, there is a huge amount of arms, cigarette and drug trafficking. Since there are fewer and fewer border crossings, people can cross the border without being stopped. They are obviously crossing the border illegally. How can we effectively monitor counterfeit goods? It is completely unrealistic and it is very difficult for them to do everything properly.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the members of the House for giving their unanimous consent to allow me to speak this morning. It is greatly appreciated. I would also like to commend my colleague on her very intelligent and well-presented comments.

I want to speak to Bill C-8 today because it is an important measure for combating counterfeit products in Canada. I will begin by saying that we intend to support the bill at this stage because we believe it will greatly benefit Canada in terms of combating counterfeiting and piracy.

As my colleague mentioned, according to the OECD, the estimated cost of counterfeiting is $250 billion. That is a lot of money. It is quite troubling to know that all that money is going into the hands of people with questionable practices. When we talk about counterfeit products we immediately think of fake Louis Vuitton bags because they are everywhere. I see them every day. However, counterfeiting is much more than that.

Prescription drugs can be counterfeit and pose a serious risk to the health of Canadians. Electronic devices can also cause problems, especially small devices used on airplanes, for example. If a counterfeit device is used on a plane, it can cause serious problems and put the lives of Canadians in jeopardy. This is quite troubling.

I want to say a few words about a company in my riding that tests electronic components to see if they are counterfeit. I had the opportunity to visit that company roughly a year ago and I learned a lot of things, including that there are a lot counterfeit components. Honestly, I was surprised to see to what extent the components we buy from other countries are not always authentic. The people at this company explained to me the procedure they follow to test these components. It is quite an involved process and not something that everyone could do. I commend them for their work, which is essential. Thanks to them, a number of companies in Canada and in the United States can be 100% certain that the component they purchased is authentic and will work properly, especially when we are talking about aircraft equipment. Their work is quite impressive. I just wanted to take a bit of time to talk about a personal experience.

Back to Bill C-8, which proposes a number of different things that I would like to discuss in detail.

The bill adds two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for possessing or exporting counterfeit copies and creates offences for selling counterfeit goods or offering them for sale on a commercial scale. It prohibits the import or export of counterfeit copies and counterfeit goods and ensures a balanced approach to this prohibition by creating two exceptions: personal use and copies in customs transit control.

The bill also gives customs officers new powers to detain counterfeit goods and copies. It gives the Minister of Public Safety and border authorities new powers enabling them to share information relating to the detained goods with rights owners. Lastly, it expands the scope of what can be registered as a trade-mark, as described within the broader definition of a certain term.

Basically, these are good measures, and the NDP supports them. However, there is one big problem, and I believe my colleagues talked about it. CBSA's funding has been reduced by $143 million. Officers are being asked to get more training and spend more of their time fighting counterfeiting. In principle, that is a good thing, but given the budget cuts, it is hard to imagine that they will be able to perform those additional duties.

We are seriously questioning the idea of giving our border agents more responsibility when we do not necessarily have the financial means to do so.

In that regard, I would like to quote Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, who commented on the budget cuts as follows:

These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons and illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, sexual predators and hardened criminals.

Clearly, these budget cuts could have serious repercussions. The government should seriously consider that when asking border agents to take on more responsibilities as part of their job.

I would like to make another point. I asked this question during question period when the bill was introduced in the House. Does Bill C-8 signify that the government is planning on ratifying ACTA in its entirety? That is a very important question. ACTA has attracted widespread criticism on the international stage. The European Union rejected many clauses in the agreement, and I would like to take a few moments to highlight the most problematic ones.

For example, there are clauses that would criminalize certain individuals. There were concerns about the use of shell corporations, the role of Internet service providers, and potential interruptions in the generic drug supply. Those clauses were rejected by the international community.

I would like to reassure those who are fighting for an open Internet environment and who are speaking out against the idea of the government being able to block websites, that this bill does not seem to include those troubling clauses.

I want to congratulate the government on that, because introducing those clauses here in Canada could cause problems regarding Canadians' access to an open Internet environment.

Obviously, we will have more to say, but this seems to be relatively balanced in terms of our intention to ratify ACTA. I would encourage the government to think twice—or even three or four times—before it proposes such measures, if it intends to do so in the future, because this comes with a great deal of risk.

I want to support another aspect of this bill, and that is the exception for personal use. Naturally, when we see a bill on counterfeiting, certain questions come to mind. Will someone crossing the border who bought a knock-off of a Louis Vuitton bag be arrested? Will her bag be seized? That would be going a little too far, so I am glad an exception has been included for personal use, to avoid those kinds of situations.

We can also consider people who go through customs with a laptop and would be forced to turn it on to determine whether there are any pirated programs or illegally downloaded songs on it. Having to go through all of someone's software could cause a problem. I am therefore happy to see the exception for personal use, but that provision needs to be examined further to make sure that it will not cause any such problems.

Since my time is almost up, I would just like to reiterate our support for this bill. Fighting counterfeiting is an issue that is very important to the NDP. We are prepared to work with the government in order to find ways to strike a balance between the law, copyright holders and consumers. That is what really matters.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member was talking about the personal items that individuals might have in their possession, whether crossing a border, or another means for which they would acquire something for personal use. There is a significant difference that needs to be highlighted. Those who would reproduce an item with the idea of selling it for profit, with a huge criminal element to that component, and those who will consume products, knowing full well they are knock-off products, in particular if they are bringing those items into Canada from outside.

I believe the member was commenting on that aspect of it, and I am interested in hearing more from her about her party's position. She used the example of someone being abroad and purchasing a knock-off purse or another item, and I am interested in hearing more comments on that particular issue.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. Liberal colleague for giving me the opportunity to speak to this issue a little more, since I had so little time left.

Yes, I talked about the exception for personal use. As with all things, a balance must be found. Does someone crossing the border with a counterfeit purse really pose a risk? Most people would say no, that it was that individual who has been duped. However, if someone has purchased a medication that could be harmful to their health, they need to know that. There has to be balance. When someone crosses the border with dozens of counterfeit purses, it is more likely that that person plans to sell them for a profit. That poses a risk.

It is important to keep the exception for personal use, in order to prevent abuses.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments.

Last year, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology and I listened to a number of corporate representatives talk about the problems created by counterfeit goods. I was not on the committee for very long or when it studied the bill, but I was told that many amendments were suggested by members of both opposition parties and all of them were rejected by the Conservatives. Apparently, they were not the least bit interested in listening to the arguments for some of the amendments that, in my opinion, were necessary.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about how the Conservatives listen only to the Prime Minister's Office and never to sound reasoning.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

In fact, that happens often. All MPs agree that we have to fight counterfeiting in Canada. However, when committee members work together on such an important report or issue—I did not work on this bill—it is very disappointing to have the Conservatives reject all the arguments put forward by the other parties. When we co-operate, we can bring together all the best ideas and find a solution that will be in Canadians' best interests.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate, with three minutes before statements by members, the hon. member for Halifax West.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today, even if it is for the three minutes remaining before we begin statements by members and question period. However, I obviously will have an opportunity to finish my remarks after question period, and I look forward to that.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-8, which is an important piece of legislation. I think it could have been improved at committee, and it is unfortunate that the Conservative government did not accept any amendments that were brought forward. This seems to be a pattern that we have seen over and over in committee. Rather than consider, discuss, and have a collaborative process when it comes to possible amendments that could improve a bill, the Conservative MPs on committees unfortunately seem determined not to consider them, or perhaps they are cowed and afraid of the PMO or the minister's office and do whatever the minister's office tells them and simply vote to defeat all amendments.

That is unfortunate, because this is an important bill. It is a bill that could be better. It could have improvements to make it a stronger piece of legislation to serve our country better. It could better serve our businesses that are so concerned about this issue of counterfeit goods.

I sat on the industry committee last year before that. As my hon. colleague the parliamentary secretary was saying earlier, we heard from various companies that expressed grave concern about the impact of the increasing amount of counterfeit goods coming into the country. When we consider the kinds of goods we are talking about here, it should be of concern to all Canadians.

We are not talking just about things like hockey jerseys, for example, that really take away revenues from the teams that own those brands. That has an impact on those teams. Normally, people think NHL teams are wealthy and the players are wealthy, so they are not worried about them. However, if we think about it, with the dollar below 90¢ these days, we are going to hear more about the challenges that presents to NHL teams operating in Canada, because they pay their players in U.S. dollars, so that is a concern for them.

We also hear about things like pharmaceuticals or electrical components. We can imagine a counterfeit electrical component in a house. That counterfeit electrical component might lead to a fire. We need to be concerned about all these things.

I know my time before question period is coming to an end, Mr. Speaker, so I will pause and let you take over. I look forward to resuming my comments later.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Yes, I regret to interrupt the member for Halifax West. He will have 17 minutes remaining when this matter returns before the House.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Halifax West had the floor, and he has 17 minutes remaining in his speech.

The hon. member for Halifax West.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to resume my comments on Bill C-8. I would like to speak a bit about what is in the bill.

Bill C-8 amends the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act to add new civil and criminal remedies and new border measures in both acts, in order to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trademark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies and counterfeit trademarked goods.

More specifically, the bill creates new civil causes of action with respect to activities that sustain commercial activity in infringing copies and counterfeit trademarked goods. It creates new criminal offences for trademark counterfeiting that are analogous to existing offences in the Copyright Act. It also creates new criminal offences prohibiting the possession or export of infringing copies or counterfeit trademarked goods, packaging or labels.

The bill enacts new border enforcement measures enabling customs officers to detain goods that they suspect infringe copyright or trademark rights. I think my colleagues in the House obviously agree that it is important to protect copyrights and trademarks. It is important to protect Canadians' jobs. This is how they earn their living.

The bill also allows customs officers to share information relating to the detained goods with rights owners who have filed a request for assistance, in order to give the rights owners a reasonable opportunity to pursue a remedy in court. The bill exempts the importation and exportation of copies and goods by an individual for their personal use from the application of the border measures. This is important to consider.

The bill also adds the offences set out in the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act to the list of offences set out in the Criminal Code for the investigation of which police may seek judicial authorization to use a wiretap. Obviously, in this situation, it would be illegal to use a wiretap. We are already hearing about illegal wiretaps that the government has done.

Bill C-8 also amends the Trade-marks Act to, among other things, expand the scope of what can be registered as a trade-mark and allow the Registrar of Trade-marks to correct errors that appear in the trade-mark register. That is important.

Personally, I hope that, in the future, the government will introduce a bill ensuring that these provisions apply not only to trade-marks but also to official marks. I think that significant changes must be made to official marks legislation and to how we correct past mistakes.

Finally, the bill streamlines and modernizes the trade-mark application and opposition process.

Now that I have given a bit of a review of what is in the bill, let us talk about what happened after the bill passed second reading and went to committee, where a variety of proposals for amendments were brought forward.

The fact is that this is unfortunately a case, another case, of the Conservative government using its majority to ram through a flawed piece of legislation that could have done a much better job of protecting Canadian business interests and Canadian consumers.

We are supporting the bill, because it is important to have some measures to protect these interests and to try to stop this enormous flow we are seeing of counterfeit goods into Canada.

Nevertheless, it does not mean the bill could not be better. We certainly would have liked to have seen it made better.

Every single amendment we brought forward and that the NDP brought forward at committee was torpedoed by the Conservatives there. The Conservatives followed orders. When the minister appeared, he stated that he wanted the bill passed by committee quickly and that he would allow no more than four days of hearings. To no one's surprise, that is exactly what happened.

When we talk about having less partisanship around here, about having more collaboration around here, this is what we are talking about. I hope that the changes we are proposing to the Senate make it a less partisan place and a more collaborative place. If we succeed in having a less partisan Senate, a Senate that is appointed in a non-partisan way, we would actually have to have more collaboration between the members of this House and members of the other chamber. That might even influence this chamber to become more collaborative and non-partisan. Hopefully it will be less hyperpartisan than it has been in the past eight years under the Conservative government.

What a shame that there were not more days of hearings and the consideration of amendments during the committee stage. This could have been a really strong piece of legislation, but no one on that side was interested in anything other than bowing down to the minister and the PMO.

The committee heard from many witnesses who testified about the serious problems and serious shortcomings in Bill C-8. They are flaws that could have been addressed through amendments.

Now, everyone agrees that this is a step forward. Some would go as far as to say that this is a good step to bring us in line with the international community.

In fact, when I was on the committee and when I was previously the Liberal critic for industry, I actually met with the Mechanical Contractors Association of Canada and with the Canadian Institution of Plumbing & Heating. Both these groups were among those that were very concerned about counterfeit products coming into Canada. If we are talking about things that involve the plumbing and heating in our houses and in buildings where we work, the last thing we want are products that we think are up to Canadian standards but that are, in fact, counterfeit and have been brought in illegally and, unbeknownst to whoever brought them into Canada, are not the quality they are supposed to be.

That could create serious problems. It could lead to flooding. It could lead to fires. It could lead to serious dangers for Canadians.

I have not even talked about the issue of pharmaceutical drugs. When those come in and are counterfeit, we can imagine the concerns.

My colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, the member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, was talking earlier about Canada Goose. I was on the committee last year when we heard from companies like Canada Goose about the kinds of outrageous things that are put into counterfeit jackets and other products that come into this country. We ought to be concerned about this.

It has also been said that the way the bill is, it is a bit like providing bread crumbs to a starving man. The impact of counterfeit goods in Canada is growing. In 2005, the value of seized counterfeit items, which are the items our Canadian Border Services Agency was able to stop and identify at the border and seize, was $7.6 million. That is quite a bit. However, by 2012, that number had grown to $38 million. I think we can all agree that it has probably grown significantly since then.

This ought to be a matter of serious concern to us, because it means that those counterfeit products are replacing products produced by Canadians, and it is taking jobs and work away from Canadians. We ought to be very concerned about that.

The fact of the matter is that both Liberal and NDP members of the committee brought forward reasonable amendments in good faith in an effort to improve Bill C-8 because they do recognize it is an important piece of legislation. However, instead of a strong bill that the Conservatives could be proud of, that all of us in the House of Commons could be proud of, we are left with the minister's determination that it be just the minister alone required to make us compliant under global treaties. We do not how that will work, so the bill needed to be amended.

The government failed to address the really big issues and to make meaningful change. This, I suppose, is not surprising from this crowd. The Conservatives are driven by their ideology and the optics of things, as we have seen so often. They seem to care less whether they really stand up for the real interests of Canadian businesses and Canadian consumers.

Many witnesses pointed out that this legislation is all punitive, but the Conservatives did not really want to hear that and why it could be problematic, and even rejected the measures we proposed to help small businesses. Many small businesses simply cannot afford to go through the courts, which is a very costly exercise, to protect their brands. In some cases, this does not help them.

We could have helped those businesses, who provide the jobs we all want for Canadians, if the government had been willing to listen to witnesses and accept amendments to Bill C-8. When the opposition proposed a simplified approach that would have made it easier for small businesses, the Conservatives shut it down. I should not be too harsh on Conservative committee members; after all, they are just doing what they have been ordered to do by the minister or the folks over at the PMO.

One of the more disturbing things that will happen with the legislation is that it will give our enforcement agencies a lot more work at a time when they are struggling because of short-sighted funding cuts. The RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency need the proper resources to do their job and to enforce legislation like Bill C-8, but they are not getting them from the government.

In the 2012 budget, the government cut $142 million from Canada Border Services Agency. My colleague says it was $143 million. Whatever it is, it is in that range. It is a bit like the fact that the Conservatives are talking about all of this stuff they will do for veterans, but failing to mention that they have cut 781 people from Veterans Affairs Canada. That is 22% of the workforce, yet they expect people across Canada to believe this will improve their service to veterans. It does not wash. I am frankly astonished that the Conservatives would do this. Why they have not been listening to veterans and hearing the concerns about these office closures and cuts to services, and pretending they will get better service, I do not really comprehend. It does not make sense for the government to do this, but it is not the first time I have seen something from the government that does not make sense.

When I speak of the bill, it is sad to see an opportunity to bring in a real strong piece of legislation squandered by the Conservative government. Nevertheless, the Liberal Party recognizes the need to provide new enforcement tools to help strengthen Canada's existing enforcement regime for counterfeit goods.

We believe that Canadian businesses and industry associations must be protected to ensure the well-being of domestic businesses; the health and safety of Canadians, including in regard to the items in our homes I spoke earlier about, such as electrical components and pharmaceutical products; as well as the integrity of the Canadian economy as a whole. This is important for those reasons.

We would like to see public education regarding possession, production and distribution addressed in Bill C-8. We see nothing coming forward from the government to do that.

We would like to investigate and further study how e-commerce may provide a loophole to the seizure and the reduction of the presence of counterfeit products. We see no interest in such a study from the government.

With the current government deficit, as well as the recent cuts to the budget of the Canada Border Services Agency, we question how the Conservatives will fund the new prevention and investigative system. How on earth will we improve services at our borders when they are cutting the funding dramatically?

Border officers, who are by no means copyright experts, will be given new and increased powers that are not overseen by courts, which may lead to illegitimate seizures and violations of the Charter of Rights. We have to be concerned about that. Why would we want to put the Border Services agents in that position? We should not be doing that to them.

There are several further areas in which concerns have been raised. With an increased number of seizures due to increased powers being given to border officers and the RCMP, how will the government fund such extensive investigative and legal operations? Should genuine or non-counterfeit products be seized and destroyed and, in that case, how will the government compensate companies and individuals? Moreover, how will the government protect the information of legitimate importers from potential misuse of the request for assistance mechanism? These are important questions. How will the government determine whether importers of counterfeit production are aware that products are counterfeit? Why are there no provisions for counterfeit goods being transshipped through Canada?

While Bill C-8 certainly does not accomplish everything that it might, it does mark a step forward in the fight against the deeply damaging practice of counterfeiting and moves Canada closer, if only slightly, toward a modernized intellectual property regime.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech and say that, like him, I believe it is very important to protect consumers from counterfeiting.

Unfortunately, we know that, in its 2012 budget, this government made $143 million in cuts to the CBSA, which undermines the capability of implementing this legislation. Again in 2012, the government cut the RCMP's funding by $195 million over three years.

Given these drastic cuts to security how can the bill be implemented effectively so that we can crack down on counterfeiting and make sure that Canadian consumers are protected?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. NDP colleague for his question.

First of all, I mentioned the cuts that the 2012 budget made to the Canada Border Services Agency, but I appreciate the fact that he also brought up the cuts made to the RCMP.

As I said, I do not understand how the government can think that cutting services is going to improve them. No doubt there will be fewer border officials and RCMP officers to protect our jobs in Canada and to ensure that counterfeit goods do not enter the country.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Halifax West for his speech.

His speech falls in line with what we are saying, namely that this is a step in the right direction, but there are not enough resources and data to allow border services officers and the RCMP to do their jobs in the best possible conditions.

However, when the Liberal Party was in power between 1993 and 2005, it did not adequately fund the fight against counterfeit products. In a report by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology published in 2007, the RCMP stated that in 2005, it laid over 700 charges for intellectual property crimes. However, the RCMP said that it only had enough resources to investigate a small fraction of the cases brought to its attention.

Why did the Liberals refuse to adequately fund this area of enforcement, and are now calling on the Conservatives to do so?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the question.

I am sure she listened to my speech, but perhaps she missed the part where I mentioned the figures for 2005 and 2012, when there was a significant increase in the number of counterfeit products entering Canada. Before 2005-06, the number was much lower. The issue has evolved considerably.

The hon. member is saying that the previous government, which has not been in power for eight years, could have taken measures to combat counterfeiting. I agree that we must always try to find ways to combat counterfeiting. At the same time, does the hon. member truly remember that before 2006, there were a lot of comments and concerns in the country about counterfeiting, the way there is now in companies for example? I do not think so.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised the issue of the lack of data, which is required to crack down on counterfeiting. Then there is my Liberal Party colleague, who said that the problem did not exist when his party was in power.

An OECD report published in 1998 concluded that it was difficult to measure the scope of counterfeiting and imitation merchandise in Canada. Since this has been an issue since 1998, it is completely false to say that it did not exist when the Liberal Party was in power.

Why did his party not do more to address this issue when it was in power?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her question.

I remember the time period she is referring to. The Liberal government came to power after the Conservatives left a $42 billion deficit, and we introduced several measures to address that issue. Unfortunately, the NDP did not support any of those measures.

Many of the measures were implemented and worked well. For example, they improved Canada's economy and lowered interest rates.

To respond to her specific question, I do not remember people telling me or other members that it was a serious problem. Perhaps there were international reports, such as the one my colleague mentioned, but they did not deal with the type of problem we have now.

The fact is that counterfeit products were worth $7.6 million in 2005, and that rose to $38 million in 2012. I imagine that they are worth more like $45 million or $55 million today. That increase is what we should be focusing on.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our colleague for his presentation because he has provided some interesting information.

Counterfeit goods can seem authentic and have the right logo, but we do not always know which country they come from. That is the case for Coke cans, for example.

With this bill, there will be fewer officers at the borders. Does my colleague believe that we have the resources we need to properly protect Canada's borders? Has the bill been sufficiently improved?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

These improvements are necessary, but we could do more. We must improve the bill and, as he said, also provide the resources our officers need under this legislation to protect our country from counterfeiting.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Communities]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a privilege for me to rise today and speak in support of Bill C-8, the combatting counterfeit products bill. I will begin by indicating that I will be splitting my time with the member for Durham.

Counterfeit products are a threat to all Canadians. They undermine the success of Canadian businesses by stealing the good reputation of a business in order to sell knock-off goods. The inferior nature of these knock-off goods then serves to tarnish the reputation of quality that the real Canadian business has worked so hard to establish.

However, counterfeit products are not simply a threat to Canadian businesses. Counterfeit automobile parts, counterfeit circuit breakers, counterfeit drugs, and many more dangerous counterfeit products also pose a threat to the health and safety of Canadians. The government has reintroduced the combatting counterfeit products act because we are committed to ensuring that the hard-earned reputations of Canadian businesses are maintained and that all Canadians are protected from the dangers posed by counterfeit products.

I would like to take this opportunity to focus on one of the key elements of Bill C-8. New provisions introduced in this bill would provide businesses and rights holders with better tools to stop those who form a part of the supply chain for counterfeit goods and to obtain compensation from them . These supply chains are essential to the spread of counterfeit products and are directly responsible for counterfeit products entering the Canadian marketplace.

Under the current Trade-marks Act, it is prohibited to sell, offer to sell, distribute, or advertise counterfeit products or services. What this means is that any person found to be selling, distributing, or advertising counterfeit products can be sued by the rightful owner of the trademark that the counterfeit products are attempting to imitate. For example, if someone is selling counterfeit jackets out of the back of a van, the legitimate company, under the current law, is able to sue that individual, both to stop him or her from selling and as a means of getting compensation for the damage done by the counterfeiter. Similarly, that company would also be able to sue an individual who is advertising counterfeit jackets or an individual who is found to be distributing counterfeit jackets to others for the purpose of sale.

However, the problem with this current system is that it does nothing to target those individuals who are part of the supply chain that enables the sale of counterfeit products. Under the current law, the rightful trademark owner has no means of stopping those who produce, import, export, or store counterfeit products prior to a distributor or seller actually selling the counterfeit goods. To illustrate the problem, allow me to give some examples.

Let us imagine that a manufacturer of car parts finds a production line for counterfeit car parts operating somewhere in Canada. Under the current Trade-marks Act, despite knowing that car parts with another person's trademark on them are being produced, the owner of the trademark would be unable to ask a court to stop the production line. Until those individuals producing fake car parts attempted to make a sale or began to advertise their counterfeit products, the owner of the trademark would have no legal recourse to stop them or obtain compensation for damages.

In another case, let us imagine that a brand-name hockey manufacturer finds a series of storage units full of hockey jerseys bearing a counterfeit trademark. Under the current Trade-marks Act, the legitimate manufacturer would have no grounds to seize the counterfeit jerseys, even if the manufacturer was certain that they were indeed counterfeit. Until the legitimate manufacturer could produce evidence of the sale, attempted sale, or advertising of these counterfeit jerseys, he or she would not be able to seize the jerseys. Imagine if this was one's favourite hockey team.

Again, imagine that a legitimate electronics company has grounds to believe that an importer is bringing thousands of fake smart phones into the Canadian market. As members can appreciate, this would be a concern for me as the member of Parliament for Waterloo, for obvious reasons.

Under the current law, they would be unable to go to court to get an order preventing that importer from bringing those counterfeit smart phones into Canada. Unfortunately, once the counterfeit phones arrive in Canada, it is much more difficult to ensure that they are not released into the Canadian market, where unsuspecting Canadian consumers may be tricked into purchasing them.

Clearly, there are gaps in our current laws that need to be filled in order to better combat counterfeiting. Our legislation needs to be updated to ensure rights holders can protect their rights and that Canadian consumers can have confidence that they are purchasing the goods they intend to.

Part of what the combatting counterfeit products bill proposes to do is to fix these loopholes in the law. It would do so by adding new civil provisions to the Trade-marks Act that would tackle all parts of the counterfeit supply chain, not just point of sale.

Specifically, the Trade-marks Act would be amended so that along with selling, distributing, or advertising, individuals who are found to be manufacturing, causing to be manufactured, possessing, importing, exporting, or attempting to export counterfeit products could also be stopped and sued for damages by rights holders. These are overdue provisions.

Under the proposed changes contained in the combatting counterfeit products bill, a legitimate car parts manufacturer would be able to stop the manufacturers of counterfeit car parts under the new manufacturing provision. A legitimate hockey equipment company would be able to seize the storage units full of fake hockey jerseys under the new possessing provision. Under the new importing provision, a legitimate electronics company would be able to prevent an importer from bringing counterfeit smart phones into Canada.

These new provisions will serve to better protect the interests of rights holders by giving them the ability to ask a court to halt the actions of members of the supply chain for counterfeit products. The new provisions will also create a much-needed deterrent to those counterfeiters who, up until this point, had been able to participate in the supply networks critical to counterfeit operations with little risk that they could be targeted by the law.

To sum up, we need the expanded civil provisions contained in the combatting counterfeit products bill to effectively combat counterfeit products that pose serious risks to Canadian businesses and to Canadian consumers. I urge my fellow members of this House to swiftly pass the combatting counterfeit products bill.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. He is quite right because protecting patents and intellectual property, as well as ensuring the safety of Canadians, is something to be enthusiastic about.

However, I would like to know his thoughts on whether what is being required of border services is realistic. Can he say whether any projections have been made in that regard?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in fact CBSA and our border agents want the provisions contained in this particular bill.

In many cases, they actually see and witness counterfeit products crossing the border, but they are powerless to do anything. CBSA has underscored to us very clearly that they want these provisions and that they have the resources to apply these important new authorities and powers, and once they are provided, Canadians will be safer and our borders will be more secure.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was in the committee when we were doing the study on intellectual property. Certainly CBSA would be happy to have these new powers, but they also want the resources to go along with them so that they can actually get the training they need to identify counterfeit and other goods and the staff to be able to do searches and seizures.

I also want to ask the member, because he was part of the committee, why the government refused to agree to the NDP's amendment that there should be reports back to Parliament on this issue.

Earlier I raised with the parliamentary secretary the other issue, which is that we do not adequately measure what is actually being counterfeited and what has come in. We have anecdotal evidence, but we do not have research-based data to track the quantities of counterfeit goods.

Why is it that the member himself voted against reporting back to Parliament on this bill?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. I did enjoy the opportunity to work with him while at the industry committee.

My colleague mentioned the study on intellectual property. It was actually my motion that triggered that important and very comprehensive study of intellectual property at the industry committee, where we had the opportunity to hear from many Canadians and Canadian businesses and manufacturers about the importance of updating our copyright and combatting counterfeiting legislation in this country.

CBSA has indicated that it very much wants to have these additional powers and will have the resources to do so. We look forward to increased opportunities and the ability to deal with this important issue and to track this information.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague on the government side.

This is definitely a step in the right direction, and we are always delighted when the government goes in the right direction, but there are still not enough resources. This government seems to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that resources are needed to make improvements. Every time the government takes a step forward, it insists on taking a step backwards. For example, when it passes one regulation, it abolishes another. This government seems to go in opposite directions at the same time.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Communities says that the required resources will be available to implement what is being proposed by Bill C-8 today. Even the union is wondering where these resources will come from. Exactly what resources is he talking about?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Groundhog Day must be coming, because the NDP uses two or three different members to ask the same question.

In any event, I will give the answer, which is this: CBSA resources, specifically border guards, have increased by 26% under our government. The CBSA has clearly indicated that it has the resources to apply these new powers within the current envelope. This is long overdue, and we look forward to getting it done on behalf of Canadian businesses and consumers.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise today in the House to speak, for the second occasion, on our important work to update our intellectual property regime and, more specifically, to combat counterfeit products, Bill C-8.

This is not just a modernization of our IP regime here in Canada but a bill that would have major impacts on public safety, on economic activity and revenues, and on jobs, because counterfeit products not only lead to risk for Canadians but lead to job losses.

Our present legal framework for intellectual property is also incredibly out of date. Like many areas, our government is moving on important issues of public policy, while other previous governments preferred to kick the can down the road. In fact, the Trade-marks Act was last amended in the 1950s and is out of date. That is before many members of the House were born. Also, with respect to trademarks, it does not even recognize the current state of intellectual property.

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to have a column in Marketing magazine, and in 2012 I wrote a column on the emergence of sound trademarks in Canada. It might interest the House, especially on a Friday, to know that in the U.S. sounds have been trademarked for some time. We are all familiar with the NBC TV broadcast chime that started with radio and is on television. We all know the MGM lion roar. Well, the MGM lion roar is now a sound mark. In 2012, the Canadian intellectual property office allowed, for the first time, a sound mark. A lot of our big companies and big brands will use a sound to associate a connection with that brand. In the marketplace it is called a sound mark or a sting.

Even the language of the act would be modernized from using the old term “wares” to using the more broad and modern term “goods”.

The landscape has changed. Sounds, colours, three-dimensional shapes, textures, and even taste are a critical part of a brand's identity. Companies, employers in Canada, spend millions of dollars securing these brands and this intellectual property.

Speaking of colours being associated with brands, I cannot resist to note that the colour blue is widely known to associate with strength and trust, while the colour red is considered boisterous and flashy. I think these differences between blue and red illustrate the differences between the Conservative leader and Liberal leader perfectly.

Bill C-8 would also enable IP rights holders to stop counterfeit goods at every step in the process: ports, distribution, and retail. As I mentioned the first time I rose to speak on this subject many years ago, for five years I was in-house corporate counsel at Procter & Gamble in Canada. In 2006, I was confronted with the ugly face of counterfeit goods in my job as a lawyer for the company. I assembled a brand protection team, with the support of the company president, Tim Penner; my general counsel, Eric Glass; our head of security, a proud OPP veteran working for P&G, Rick Kotwa; and a regulatory scientist, Jennifer Cazabon, who was in the gallery earlier today with her daughter, Maya. We put together a team to investigate and stamp out counterfeit goods that were affecting that company. They were not only affecting its revenues, its investments in Canada, and its jobs but potentially the safety of people who buy products because they trust the brand. They trust the logo, the trademark.

Bill C-8 would allow rights holders, like Procter & Gamble and other companies, to stop counterfeit goods throughout the criminal activity used to bring them to consumers' homes. The bill would provide better tools to investigate commercial counterfeiting and help reduce trade and counterfeit goods by promoting new enforcement tools to strengthen our current enforcement regime. The bill would provide new criminal offences that criminalize the commercial possession, manufacture, or trafficking of counterfeit goods or trademarked counterfeit goods.

It would also create new offences for trademark counterfeiting and equip law enforcement and prosecutors with the right tools to stamp out this problem.

The act would also give border officials, the CBSA, the authority to detain suspected shipments and contact the intellectual property rights holders about their brands and their rights being attacked. It would allow Canadian businesses to file a request for assistance with the Canada Border Services Agency, in turn enabling border officials to share that information with the rights holders regarding suspect shipments.

This bill is yet another example of our government consulting widely with employers and key stakeholders, and listening. These changes, protections, and new enforcement mechanisms are what industry and rights holders have been demanding for over a decade. Increasingly, our well-trained and professional workers at CBSA have also been asking for these tools to do their job better and more efficiently.

It is also important to note, on the subject of counterfeit goods, that criminal networks around the world are feeding on counterfeiting as a highly lucrative profit to help fuel other enterprises. We know that these international criminal networks throughout the world bring tremendous harm and oppression, not just here in Canada but around the world, and the proceeds from these IP crimes fuel that. In 2005, the RCMP declared organized crime to be the primary actor in this area of malfeasance. Stamping out counterfeit products and IP crimes starves these criminal networks of funding and the ability to hurt.

The public safety elements of Bill C-8 are also very important and deserve highlighting. The bill would give border officers additional tools to work with their government partners at Health Canada and the RCMP. This would ensure that unsafe or unsanitary products that could harm Canadians are pulled from the market.

In my case, Procter & Gamble found that law enforcement officers could tell it that they knew there was a suspicious activity regarding one of its brands, but there could be no tracking and no proper investigation. There would be no prosecution because the tools were not there; so law enforcement, busy as it was, would have other priorities that were more likely to lead to criminal charges and jail time.

I hope we can move ahead quickly with the passage of this bill. By protecting consumers and families and by encouraging businesses through innovation, protecting their brands, and encouraging them to invest in Canada, these amendments would not only promote innovation and creativity; they would help stimulate job growth.

In my situation, while I was at Procter & Gamble, this one employer in eastern Ontario was the largest private sector employer in the communities of Belleville and Brockville, making important investments in manufacturing jobs in an area of our province that has chronic unemployment. Large companies around the world estimate losses in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars due to the theft of the goodwill surrounding their brands.

The Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, leading Canadian employers, brands, and academics have all been asking for us to update our intellectual property regime in Canada and provide law enforcement with the tools to stamp out these products, which will not only lead to job losses but will fuel crime and pose health risks to Canadians across the country. I truly hope that all my friends in the House will recognize that there has been a decade of asking for this. With our government, we are delivering.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the parliamentary secretary opposite that Bill C-8 is a step in the right direction and that certain tools will be made available to the Canada Border Services Agency. However, could the member tell us what additional financial and human resources will be allocated to CBSA officers? The national president of the Customs and Immigration Union commented on the CBSA cuts, which amounted to about $143 million. He said that these cuts could make it harder for border officers to ensure the safety of the public, to fight crime, and to crack down on the trafficking of arms, drugs and child pornography.

What financial resources will be made available? We did not manage to get an answer in committee, so I hope that the member opposite will be able to share some information with us.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, having worked in the private sector on this for one of the largest brand owners in the world, my perspective is that industry has been working with law enforcement and border officials on training and on preparing to have this registry and these rights. This is an area where active participation in partnership with IP rights holders will save money over time because it is the expertise of the people who own the marks, make the texture, or make sound, who are training and working with our professionals at CBSA in a way that would make its operations more efficient and give it the tools to move quickly. This is a terrific case where CBSA will get the tools it is asking for and partner with IP rights holders who are affected to save Canadians from the risks of counterfeit goods, while also making it more efficient and saving money.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I hail from the western GTA. My neighbours work in communities like Oakville, Burlington, Mississauga, and Brampton. They are primarily concerned with good-paying jobs that will pay for the mortgage and allow them to provide benefits to their family. Perhaps the hon. parliamentary secretary can tell us specifically how this legislation would improve the lives of working Canadians in the GTA.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is for job and economic promotion in Canada. In the parliamentary secretary's area of the province of Ontario, in particular that larger area of Mississauga and Brampton, is the highest concentration of headquarters of Fortune 500 companies in Canada. These companies invest in our country by manufacturing, distributing, and selling goods here. Their intellectual property rights have been robbed for years.

Over eight years ago, Canada was identified by the U.S. trade representative as a country that is not equipping its borders and does not have the IP regime to stamp out this crime. We were on a list with countries in the Middle East and in other parts of the world that do not recognize IP. This would bring it up and ensure that these companies and brands that invest in Mississauga and the GTA keep their investments flowing and keep jobs being created.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand today and speak to Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

It is also a particular pleasure to stand in the House when parties are in general agreement about a piece of legislation. We on this side of the House feel it is our constitutional responsibility and our political duty to provide a rigorous opposition to government. The flip side of that, though, as typified by our late leader Jack Layton, who was always looking for ways to work together in the House, is that it is incumbent upon us to congratulate the government when it does bring in a piece of legislation that would advance the legislative agenda in Canada. I think we would do that with this piece of legislation.

We are dealing with copyright and trademarks. I am wondering if the NDP should now trademark our policies and positions against the incursions that the Liberal Party continues to make.

The Liberal leader is getting kudos in the news right now for removing Liberal senators from partisanship by removing them from caucus. New Democrats put forth a motion in the House, in October, that called on the House to request exactly that. It called on the parties to remove senators in the Senate from their caucuses. The Liberal leader voted against that just three months ago, which leads to questions of hypocrisy. In terms of taking ideas that are not really owned by them, it is quite timely that we are talking about that here today. I am wondering if political parties should start taking advantage of it.

The official opposition New Democrats are going to support this legislation at report stage, and a brief summary of our position on this issue is as follows.

We New Democrats believe that dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important for both Canadian businesses and consumers, especially where counterfeit goods may put the health or safety of Canadians at risk.

Intellectual property requires an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. Again, I want to congratulate the Conservative government for tabling a bill that largely strikes that balance because it is a difficult area. I do not think the bill is perfect, but I am looking forward to seeing improvements and hearing from Canadians and interest groups at committee to hopefully find out where the bill can be improved and honed. I encourage the government to be open to those ideas because that can only make the legislation better.

Bill C-8 would amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act. Its purpose is to “strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trade-mark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies and counterfeit trade-marked goods”.

This legislation would add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for possession and exportation of infringing copies and would create offences for selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. The bill would create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods and introduces some balance to that prohibition by creating two exceptions: first, for personal use, items in one's possession or baggage; and, second, for items in transit control.

The bill would grant new powers to border officials to detain infringing copies or counterfeit goods. This is a significant policy shift, as until now border officials required these private rights holders to obtain a court order before being able to seize infringing copies or goods.

Bill C-8 would grant powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detained goods with rights holders and would widen the scope of what can be trademarked to the features found in the broad definition of “sign”.

I will stop here and pause for a moment to talk about the health implications of copyright or trademark infringement.

Many of us think of copyright infringement as the archetypical issue of buying a knock-off Prada bag. When a consumer travels to Asia and buys goods for personal use that are not the real item, that is a problem. That is a serious infringement of the rights holder's rights and the creator's rights, and that is something that nobody can countenance.

However, that is not the worst aspect of this type of issue. I went to the U.S. embassy in Ottawa about six months ago, where a presentation was put on by U.S. officials that was frankly nothing short of shocking. They gave us information and showed us material that indicated that counterfeiting is going on with things like automobile airbags and prescription medication. In other words, there are places in this world that are making knock-off airbags and selling them to Canadian autobody shops, which then will install in Canadians' cars what they think are factory-authorized airbags. They may pay the price for that mistake with injury or death when the bag does not function as it is supposed to.

Canadians are always facing issues with prescription medication costs. That is another idea that I hope other parties in the House will come to agree with New Democrats about, to finally get a national pharmacare program in this country so we can deal with the very real problem of people being able to afford their medications. Why would any Canadian want to buy knock-off or non-authorized medications? It is because medications are too expensive, and that should never be the case. There are other ways to get at an issue like that. However, in the meantime, when there are producers selling false medications, not only in Canada but the United States and Mexico, that presents a serious problem to Canadians' health.

I want to talk a bit about the background to this situation. Measuring the problem of counterfeit goods and copies in Canada, and its corresponding impact on our economy, is very difficult. Nevertheless, New Democrats support dealing with counterfeiting even if we are not able to fully quantify the extent of the problem. We know it is real and that it exists. However, it remains unclear as to how the Canada Border Services Agency would implement enforcement measures in the face of cuts that originated in budget 2012. Our analysis of the budget information shows that the current government has slashed $143 million in funding to CBSA, which has further reduced front-line officers and harms our ability to monitor our borders. I will be giving more numbers on that in a few moments.

I think it is fair to say that the government previous to the current one has long been aware of the difficulties that exist with respect to counterfeiting copies and goods in Canada. That was a challenge that was identified first in a 1998 OECD report on the economic impact of counterfeiting. The reason that there is difficulty in getting a firm handle on the extent of the problem is because of the clandestine nature of counterfeiting. By the very nature of the issue it is done underground and in secret, and the parties involved are trying to skirt and avoid scrutiny.

Therefore, much of the data we have is estimated based on actual seizures, anecdotal evidence, or from industry itself, in which case the collection methods may be unavailable to assess. Nevertheless, the 2007 industry committee report on counterfeiting recommended that the government establish a reporting system that would track investigation, charges, and seizures for infringing copies and counterfeit goods as a means of collecting some data. The recent 2013 report notes that it is difficult to obtain a precise estimate of the market for counterfeit or pirated products in Canada. I would repeat: as a piece of good policy in this country and good regulatory control, we should be looking for ways to collect actual data to monitor and track the extent of it. That would be so we not only know the extent of the problem we are dealing with, but also as a means of measuring the efficacy and success of our attempts to deal with it, such as is the goal of this bill.

Much of the information in Canada comes from statistics from actual seizures, as I mentioned. Industry Canada notes that the retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005, to $38 million in 2012. In 2009, the OECD estimated that international trade in counterfeit goods and infringing copies could be valued at up to U.S. $250 billion worldwide.

Again, we know anecdotally that counterfeit products can pose risks to the health and safety of consumers, whether we are talking about the issues I mentioned, airbags and medicine, or even counterfeit electrical components or unsanitary stuffing in the clothing that our children wear.

I have noticed reports that counterfeit batteries have actually exploded while in the custody of police officers, and there are at least eight cases of children in Canada being burned by counterfeit batteries, things that seem innocuous. People may ask, “What is the problem if people pick up a couple of batteries? They are cheaper than the real ones, and there is no harm being done.” Well, there is and there can be serious harm done by counterfeit goods. It is not just about economics.

I want to talk about the cuts to the CBSA. New Democrats believe that dealing with counterfeiting is important both for Canadian businesses and for consumers. As we said, we are not going to make much progress on this file if we do not start getting a good handle on what the extent of the problem is so that we can measure and track the success of our efforts to combat it, as well as provide the resources and tools to those we ask to enforce the principles of this bill, our Canada Border Services Agency staff. They are the men and women in this country who every day go to work and put their lives on the line to defend our borders, but who also have an incredibly important responsibility to protect our borders in every aspect, which includes ensuring that illicit goods do not come into our country.

In budget 2012, the Conservatives imposed $143 million in cuts to the CBSA. That reduced the number of front-line officers and reduced our ability to monitor our borders. This year, the CBSA report on plans and priorities alone indicates a loss of 549 full-time employees between now and 2015.

What is more, under Bill C-8 customs officers would be asked to make highly complicated assessments as to whether goods entering or exiting our country infringe upon copyright or trademark rights. Such an assessment for infringing copies could include, for example, considerations of whether any of the exceptions under the Copyright Act apply. That is something that even our courts have difficulty with. For this reason, New Democrats believe and want the CBSA officers to be adequately funded to implement the bill without compromising the other important responsibility of protecting Canadians and our border.

The United States, our major trading partner and the country with which we have so much trade and goods going back and forth every day, has wanted stronger enforcement measures in Canada for counterfeit and pirated goods for years. In fact, I believe that is why I, as the official opposition trade critic, was invited to the U.S. embassy last year to work with United States officials and hear their concerns.

In its 2012 Special 301 Watch Report, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative stated that the U.S. continues to urge Canada to strengthen its border enforcement efforts, including by providing customs officials with authority to take action against the importation, exportation, and transshipment of pirated and counterfeit goods.

In its June 2012 report on counterfeiting in the Canadian market, the Canadian Intellectual Property Council identified counterfeiting as a barrier to competitiveness and specifically recommended that customs officials have powers, that Canadian law be amended to bring criminal and civil sanctions for counterfeiting and piracy, and that enforcement officials have the power to seek and implement strong remedies for infringements.

In terms of trade, this piece of legislation effecting well-thought-out and well-resourced remedies to deal with this issue is important to Canada. In a speech I gave earlier this week, I mentioned that Canada is a trading nation, and exporting and importing are extremely important parts of our economic development. Therefore, I think any piece of legislation that would assist our competitiveness and help us protect Canadian businesses and rights holders is a good thing in terms of promoting trade.

A 2007 study conducted by the industry committee produced a report called “Counterfeiting and Piracy are Theft”.

This report shows the importance Canadians need to attach to what is often considered to be simply a minor commercial crime. It is something that hurts the rights holders. It hurts businesses and companies that invest in research and development and go to great lengths to produce goods and services in the market. We have to be respectful of their ability to derive an economic benefit from their hard work and research.

At the same time, we have to balance interests. New Democrats recognize that legislation in this area must balance the interests of copyright and trademark holders with those of consumers and users.

Bill C-8 contains some of the less controversial provisions in ACTA, and the NDP has publicly questioned whether Bill C-8 signals the government's intent to ratify it. ACTA, which Canada has signed but not yet ratified, contains copyright provisions that have been heavily criticized for failing to achieve this necessary balance.

ACTA refers to the piece of legislation the European Parliament rejected after an unprecedented outcry in Europe. The European Parliament was urged to reject that agreement because the benefits were far outweighed by the threats to civil liberties. It is an example of a piece of legislation that failed to achieve the balance the New Democrats are calling for in this legislation.

The European Parliament rejected ACTA because of the risk of criminalizing individuals and because of concerns about the definition of commercial scale, the role of Internet service providers, and the possible interruption of the transit of generic medicines.

New Democrats have taken those concerns to heart, and we have applied the same concerns very rigorously in our analysis of the bill before us today. We support Bill C-8, because in our estimation, the bill is much narrower than ACTA, and it contains a number of provisions that do offer balance. There are important personal-use exceptions and exceptions for goods that are in transit. The bill does not specifically address Internet service providers.

New Democrats do, however, continue to be concerned about the broader provisions in ACTA and will continue to speak out against any legislation that we believe infringes unnecessarily on civil liberties or digital rights in a digital world.

New Democrats want effective legal and policy tools to deal with counterfeiting and infringement that can negatively affect Canadian businesses and consumers, especially where the health or safety of Canadians is at risk. We want legislation that requires an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers.

New Democrats are calling for better information and data on counterfeiting. We want safeguards in place to ensure the appropriate use of any new enforcement powers for border officials, and we want to make sure that our border officials have the resources they need to carry out this important task.

I have already mentioned that budget 2012 included $143 million in cuts to CBSA over three years. That was $31.3 million in 2012-13, $72.3 million in 2013-14, and $143 million by 2014-15.

The government minimized the loss of full-time employees by saying that the numbers would be around 200. It was then 250 in a more recent order paper question, Question No. 846. That means that those budget cuts, according to the government's own admission, resulted in the loss of 250 border guards and border officials. However, this year's CBSA report on plans and priorities indicates a loss of 549 FTEs between now and 2015.

New Democrats find it very difficult to see how a bill like this would be implemented in practice in the face of that. We are asking our border officials to take on additional, onerous requirements in a very important area with fewer staff. On this side of the House, we are going to continue to pressure the government and urge it to make sure that we have the tools and resources necessary to carry this out.

It is one thing to be tough on crime. It is another thing to come up with smart policies and to put the resources there that would actually make a meaningful dent in that problem.

Again, I congratulate the government in bringing forth a thoughtful bill. The New Democrats will support it at second stage and at committee, and we hope we can work together to make this good bill an even better one for the benefit of all Canadians.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague and friend from the trade committee for this thoughtful speech in the House on this important subject.

I would note one question. Both the member and members of his caucus have suggested yet another round of study or audits and consultation, when he knows that there are goods that pose risks now to Canadians. He knows well that for the last decade, industry has been asking for these safeguards. Would the member not tell this House that it is better to move quickly than to suggest further rounds of committee study and audits?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this chance to tell the hon. member that it is a pleasure to work with him at committee.

What is really important in this case is to make sure that we start collecting meaningful data not only to make sure that we understand the scope of the problem but to track our progress.

According to RCMP Superintendent Ken Hansen, the former co-chair of INTERPOL's intellectual property crime action group, the RCMP can only investigate 25% of the goods the CBSA Toronto office flags as being fake. Only one-quarter of RCMP investigations and seizures of counterfeit products were potentially harmful to consumers in 2011, but that proportion has steadily risen from 11% in 2005. That tells us that we are seeing more counterfeit products. We are indicting them, but we are unable, with the resources we have, to actually fully investigate them. Those products are becoming more and more harmful to the Canadian public.

I agree with my hon. friend that we do not need to hear anymore about the existence of the problem. We know it exists. However, obtaining data so that we can more clearly understand what is happening and put resources in the right places to address that problem is simply smart implementation of policy.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway. I learn so much every time he speaks in the House. I appreciate that, since it helps me understand the bill and understand why we will support it. It also helps me understand the limitations of the bill.

The member spoke about something that worries me a great deal, which is that we are missing a lot of data. This government is not really concerned with that. Ever since it eliminated the long form census, it has been hard to keep track of things. We are less and less knowledgeable about what is going on. The member referred to that in his response to the question from the member for Durham.

Organizations like the OECD have clearly stated that there is a need for better data on counterfeiting. It is not just the RCMP that is calling for this information.

Could my colleague tell me why the government has not managed to gather better data on this issue or to propose some kind of plan to more effectively collect data? The Conservatives want to pass the bill as quickly as possible, but we need to know what we are dealing with. We need to know what this will entail and who will be affected.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for the wonderful job she has been doing representing the justice file in this country and for helping to build a progressive, responsible justice policy for us. I was going to joke and say that every time I rise in the House, I learn something new too, often by accident.

My hon. friend raises the issue of what the OECD has said. Here is what the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Canadian Intellectual Property Council has said:

...the Canadian system has no tools to track and report on the instances of counterfeiting that are actually detected in this country. According to European Commission regulation 1891/2004, customs authorities in all EU member states are obliged to report statistics on customs seizures.... the CBSA does not have a mandate for reporting...crimes at the border....

In other words, the position of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is that the CBSA, in addition to the RCMP, should and must include the combatting of intellectual property crime as part of its mandate. I think that is a very wise suggestion by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and I would urge the government to pay attention to that, because the New Democrats will certainly be pushing for that kind of data collection.

Before I sit down, I would say that we often hear politicians talk about red tape and creating regulations. Certainly there are cases when there are regulations that are unnecessary that ought to be reviewed, but regulation is also at the heart of enforcing good policy. The best policy in the world is not worth much if we do not have the resources to actually meaningfully track and deal with the problems. That is the difference between wise regulation, effective regulation, and red tape. I urge all members of the House not to lose sight of that distinction.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague on his speech. Knowing his good intentions and his hope for a better country, I cannot help but notice that he raised the good work done by the committee and validity of the bill.

I have a question for him. Does he believe that the righteous attitude by all the parties will carry over into the implementation, more specifically with regard to financial support for the Canada Border Services Agency?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, hope springs eternal. We on this side of the House believe in a well-financed government. We think Canadians see an important role for government to play, particularly when it comes to enforcing basic rights and freedoms in our country.

The ability of businesses in this country to make money and to protect their intellectual property rights, and the wishes of Canadians as consumers to protect their rights and their health and safety are things that require us as politicians to make the investments.

Unlike people on the other side of the House, who view government expenditures as unnecessary costs, I view them, and I think the NDP views them, as investments in our country. We will continue to urge having a well-financed federal government. The government has gone on quite a cutting splurge, and I think we need to be aware that cuts to these areas are not going to be a way to implement policy.

I cannot say that I am optimistic, given what I have heard about the government's budget intentions. We are seeing cuts across the board, across departments. We are seeing the closure of veterans' offices and coast guard services and cuts in the number of CBSA officers. I think that is regrettable. New Democrats will stand against those cuts that put Canadians at risk.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from January 31 consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.

We are now switching from the situation in Congo, but I want to finish pleading with my colleagues across the way to really consider that issue. If there is one issue that is not partisan, it is this one about what is happening in Congo. I think we can somehow find a way to agree on how to stem the violence in Congo.

The bill that I am now addressing is Bill C-8. Members will know that this legislation has quite a lengthy history. I do not mean just Bill C-8, but the whole issue of copyright and the Trade-marks Act and making consequential amendments to other acts.

This issue requires caution. It requires an understanding of not just the law but enforcement of the law as well.

Many people are concerned about how international treaties and copyright interplay. They are concerned about the fact that we are in the midst of finishing negotiations on CETA and how that agreement would relate to copyright. It is important to note that the international agreement dealing with counterfeiting also comes into play here. Many have noted that while a treaty to combat counterfeiting presently exists, not many countries have signed on to it, about which there is some concern. It is this international context, and how it would apply to this legislation, that we are dealing with.

If we abide by certain rules made by legislation such as this and there are trade deals or other treaties we have to contend with, it is important that we understand what those trade deals and treaties mean. In the case of CETA, it is important to understand how it would apply.

I am pleading with the government yet again to at least tell us what is going on with respect to CETA, because it would affect trademark and copyright legislation. My understanding is that there could be consequences from the CETA deal for copyright and trademarks. I would like to hear about what action the government is taking. I would like to know what success, or lack thereof, the government has had with respect to CETA, and the sooner the better.

Here we are trying to find a way to help people create in an unhindered and legal way, while also making sure that the creative class will be able to access technology and ideas and material and will not be suppressed. The law has to find a balance. By the same token, we want to make sure that what we are creating and what we have copyright protection for will not be usurped or be taken and used without the creators benefiting from their work. It is obviously a delicate balance.

I would like to go over some of the aspects of the bill and what it proposes to do.

As I said, this legislation has a long history. I remember previous Parliaments that attempted to deal with the copyright issue. It should be noted that many of our trading partners have been pleading with us, particularly our friends south of the border, to get this done and get it right. The new ambassador brought it up in a recent meeting with us. He indicated that this was an important issue for the United States because most of our trade is done with that country.

Bill C-8 deals with counterfeiting and infringement, which is important. It proposes to add two new criminal offences to the Copyright Act for the possession of and export of infringed copies. The bill would also create offences for the selling or offering of counterfeit goods on a commercial scale.

There is some contention as to the degree of the export and import of counterfeit goods.

I cite Michael Geist, because he is the expert in the country on this issue. His testimony at committee raised some questions about the extent to which there is counterfeiting. He should be listened to, because he is an expert. He asked this very good question: what is the scope of the studies that are referenced by government and officials? In other words, do we have accurate data?

That said, it is important that we have legislation that would deal with counterfeiting and the trade of counterfeiting materials, as contemplated in this bill.

That is the first part. The bill adds two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for possession and exportation of infringing copies and creates offences for selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale.

The other aspect is that it creates a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods. It introduces some balance to that prohibition by creating two exemptions. One is personal use. As I referenced earlier, it relates to the creative class and those in the knowledge industry. I will use educators as an example.

I come from the business of teaching. As educators, it is important that we have access to knowledge and make it available to students. There is a balance that has to be struck so that we will not arrest teachers if they are just sharing materials with their students to allow them to gain knowledge. That is one of the areas we have to keep in mind.

The other one we have to look for is items in transit control.

Finally, the bill would grant new ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies or counterfeit goods. That is a significant policy shift, because until now border officials required these private rights holders to obtain a court order before seizing infringing copies or goods. The bill grants new ex officio powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detained goods with rights holders. It also widens the scope of what can be a trademark to the features found in the broad definition of “sign”, which includes all sorts of things: shapes, colours, scents, et cetera. What we want to see on this side is that we strike that balance. These are fairly important new powers that are being given to the government.

I will finish by saying that it is fine to pass laws on copyright and trademark to make sure that we deal with what we are focused on—that is, those who decide to get into the business of knock-offs and use the creations of others to benefit themselves when they have not had any input into the creation of any goods, ideas, or products. By the same token, how do we enforce these measures?

Members will hear from my colleagues tonight about some of the problems we have with the government's cutting of border services in this area. On the one hand, it is fine to give powers to border agents to say, “Here it is; you make sure that you deal with the infringements on copyright”, but on the other hand it has cut the budgets of those who are responsible for dealing with this authority.

This is an issue with our friends south of the border. They are aware of this. We have had issues with our friends south of the border regarding regulations. Let us make no mistake, this is a trade issue. They want to know if we are serious about this issue and will bring in laws that are modern and up to date with current copyright thinking. That means little unless we have an enforcement mechanism, to say the least. It is not only about passing laws; it is also about ensuring that we have resources on the ground to enforce them.

Members will hear from my colleagues and me that we have to get it right and make sure that we do not go too far in terms of infringing on those in the creative class, those in the knowledge business, and those who need to have access to materials, while on the other side making sure that if we bring in new responsibilities for our border agents, we do not cut their budgets. It is important that we give them support and training as to what these new powers mean and how they will exercise them.

At the end of the day, we will be supporting the bill to ensure that we do our bit as a country, that we have a balance in terms of the copyright obligations, that those in the creative and knowledge classes have access to the materials they need to create, and that, on the other hand, we provide our border agents with the proper support that they need in material supplies and training.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to congratulate my colleague for his bill on conflict minerals. His speech was very eloquent. I congratulate him on this initiative that all members strongly support.

With respect to Bill C-8, my colleague spoke at length about the lack of available data. Experts have pointed that out as well. It is very difficult to determine the impact of counterfeiting. It certainly has an impact, but the data are lacking. As he mentioned, we support the bill.

My colleague spoke about resources and mentioned Mr. Geist, who said that it was not always easy to detect counterfeit goods.

Have we allocated the resources needed for border officers to be able to detect counterfeit goods?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to tell a very quick story about my father, who worked for his entire career with Customs and Excise. He worked on the GATT side, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It was really important that everyone understood the nomenclature and that when we had to enforce copyright, our trading partners agreed on the rules and understood that nomenclature, such as we declare that a book is a book. It sounds simple, one would think, but these debates often go on in trade agreements. In the case of GATT, it was really important to get it right.

I would say to my colleague that if we are handing these powers over to our border officials to use these powers to crack down on counterfeiting, they need to understand exactly what the legislation means. These resources for Canada Border Services agents are absolutely critical. They need to have the proper training so that this legislation will actually work.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, counterfeiting is clearly a criminal activity sometimes. We do not talk nearly enough about the fact that these people can not only counterfeit a product but also sell a dangerous product.

At the international level, if we integrate these products into products made in Canada, our entire production chain loses its value.

Could my distinguished colleague tell us about the impact of counterfeiting on our international image?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

It is an incredibly important one. I think of the example in aerospace. Recently there were some investigations in the United States about certain parts for planes. When some of them were examined, they were found to be counterfeit. This is very serious. Imagine if planes have counterfeit parts and there is no oversight as to the quality. We are talking about putting people's lives in danger.

[An hon. member]

The Hercules.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

My colleague just reminded me of the Hercules. These are the workhorses for our military. If we find we have counterfeit materials in the supply chain, this is very serious. That is an extraordinarily important question.

The other aspect relates to very small items, such as pills and prescription drugs. In the European Union there was a crackdown by Germany in the whole area of counterfeit medicines. Again, people's lives hang in the balance if they are provided with counterfeit drugs that are not effective.

It is an extraordinarily important question. We have to get this right, because it is important to make sure that we create things to very high standards and with proper oversight. We could criticize the government about the need to strengthen the oversight it provides, but we have to make sure we get this right. We want to fight counterfeiting because it can affect people's lives.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party will support Bill C-8 at third reading, because the fight against counterfeiting is so important to our economy.

First of all, it is a matter of respecting the economic rights of creators and copyright or trademark owners, who have invested their research into developing their product. This requires time and money. Very often, they invest in advertising and marketing for their product, to demonstrate its quality and the significance of buying it.

Some people pay the bills, while the counterfeiters run off with the profits. This is a great recipe for making a respectable company go under. In addition, when the counterfeit items are of poor quality, both the company’s market and the value of its trademark collapse. If we want to protect our businesses, we must ban this kind of practice.

We must make sure that consumers are really buying the product they are paying for. If you pay $3,000 for a beautiful Rolex watch, you expect it to contain a little bit of gold and silver. If you pay $15 for it in a back alley in New York, of course there will not be any gold or silver in it. It cannot be anything but a toy. Nonetheless, the brand of the watch is being undermined.

Let us imagine that a counterfeiter makes an almost exact copy of a watch but replaces the gold and silver with lower quality metals. First of all, he increases the amount of profit he makes from this inferior product. Then the legitimate company loses the sale and the brand value declines, because the owner believes the watch should last a lifetime but it stops working after six months. It is the value of the brand name that takes a hit. It is important to preserve it.

Very often, it is just a question of keeping the public safe. For instance, children’s toys cannot have lead paint in them. All the major brand companies know this, and the counterfeiters do as well. However, the counterfeiters sometimes like to make a little more money and do not comply with essential international public health standards. They use hazardous products.

If these people started making prescription drugs, there would be a problem. In Canada, we feel it is absolutely awful that prescription drugs we import may be of poor quality, depending on the plant where they were manufactured, even within a company. The plant manager lowers the quality of the brand-name product. This has happened in the United States, where some companies have been banned from selling prescription drugs. We hope of course that control will happen in Canada. It is a matter of public health.

If we expect a prescription drug to contain 70% of active ingredients, and there is a problem if it only contains 50% or if it contains 115%. Doctors write their prescriptions for medications whose properties they know. If someone starts playing around with them, it becomes a public health issue.

With regard to food, Canada bans a certain level of pesticides. If this level is exceeded, the food in question is not safe. The counterfeiters will use poor quality products in their cans and stick on a label from a company that has a good reputation to sell them. They do not meet the standards and this also poses risks.

This is why the NDP is in complete agreement with Bill C-8. We have to make sure this protection is provided in order for food, toys, drugs and even construction materials to have real value. This is the era of globalization, and very often we receive by-products that are incorporated into our own national production. That is what the problem of contamination is all about. If a contaminant enters our production chain at some point, then when the product comes out the end, our chain of production will have a lower value. The estimated value of our product will not be what we had hoped because we will have been duped. This is therefore important. It is a question of security, not just physical but also economic.

One major flaw must be noted, however. It is all very well to enact the finest laws in the world, but if there is no one to enforce them, then things are not going to work. Unfortunately, in recent years, a significant amount has been cut from the budget of the Canada Border Services Agency. That has led to 549 jobs being cut. That is a huge number. We can imagine how many containers inspectors can check and how many long-term investigations they can do into counterfeit products that appear on the market. Those investigations are important. Legislation is nothing if there is no structure to ensure that it will be enforced.

We recently discussed a free trade agreement with Honduras. The problem I raised at the time was that there is no point in having a law that prohibits murder in that country if the leaders of the country can go around killing people with complete impunity because the police will never bother them for it. This is somewhat the same problem.

Prohibiting counterfeiting in a piece of legislation is all very well, but it is not going to stop a fraudster from trying to do it. What is really going to stop them from doing it is telling them that all the lovely dishes from China with lead paint that we find in their container are going to be destroyed with a crusher and the container is going back to China. If we do that once or twice, I guarantee that the third time, they are not going to be interested in bringing in a container with dishes that have lead paint. That is the border. That border is important. It is called the law and the justice system. It is not just thinking that because we are pure of heart, everyone is going to have the same ethics as we do. Ethics have to be protected.

Obviously, it goes without saying that this is difficult to quantify. As I said, we do not have the number of inspectors we need. We know that counterfeiting exists and is here. We have a general idea because companies say their sales are down. How do we determine the value of an underground activity when it is hidden and there is no one to ferret it out? We have seen it grow. The RCMP says that in 2009 it seized $7.6 million worth of goods, and that in 2012 it seized $38 million worth. That is just the tip of the iceberg, because we cannot determine the extent of this underground activity. It is hidden and we do not have the personnel we need to shed light on it.

I will quickly conclude by saying that giving our customs officers the powers they need and instituting civil and criminal penalties for counterfeiting trademarks enables them to share information with the owners of the trademarks and the products. These are things that the NDP and the international community agree with entirely.

We are going to support the bill and we are even going to try to improve it in committee.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin for his very eloquent and very enlightening speech. I would like to take advantage of his qualifications as an economist and get some further information about one of the last points he made. In my opinion, the issue of counterfeiting or piracy, is similar to the issue of under-the-table work in the construction industry, for example.

We can roughly estimate the revenue that society loses as a result of people working under the table. Although it is difficult to do, because of its illicit nature, has anyone been able to put a value or a number on the extent of the problem for the Canadian economy?

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have a general idea.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has indicated that it amounts to $250 billion per year, which is a huge amount. Here, we know only about the portion that we catch, but we know it is enormous and that it is important. The companies that are the victims tell us. They see their market shrinking even though their product is still just as popular. There are therefore commercial indicators, namely, the fact that the sales of the companies that sell the products are affected. There is economic harm. Does it have to be measured within Canada? No. That is the problem, and it relates to our credibility with our own market and our financial and economic partners. They tell us that things are not going well in our country and we are causing them to lose money. For example, Adidas says that it sees its products everywhere here, but it is not selling any, so something is not quite right. Obviously, an ambassador is going to be called in and is going to be told that his country is turning a blind eye to fraud. Canada must not get this reputation. In fact, that is the reason why Bill C-8 needs to be implemented quickly and effectively.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my colleague briefly addressed the issue of counterfeit drugs. Since I am a nurse, the subject is of particular interest to me. At the international level, it is a veritable epidemic. In some African countries, there are more counterfeit drugs than legally produced drugs. When the counterfeiters started out, of course, they had a very shoddy way of doing things. Now, they go so far as to reproduce the packaging and holograms. It is very disturbing. Canadian hospitals have unknowingly bought counterfeit drugs and doctors have prescribed them to their patients, thinking they were the real drugs.

I would like to hear my colleague’s opinion on this epidemic. How can we solve the problem? How much of a risk do counterfeit drugs represent for Canadians’ health?

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a danger for Canadians and it is also a danger for those who buy Canadian products.

In the United States, they sell a drug made from a flu medication. One of the ingredients of that medication is basically freely available in Canada. Sometimes it is also imported from foreign countries.

If that product is tainted, it will affect the entire production chain for Canada and the United States, where people take it legally. In addition, and this is the worst part, some of the production is misappropriated so that the illicit drug can be made.

Clearly, we are on thin ice. However, it is important to understand fully that not having absolute control over the quality of medications is harmful to people's health. Even worse, in this age of globalization, we import medicinal ingredients that are reassembled chemically to make another medication. If one of those ingredients is not good, we are selling medications that we think are of high quality when, in reality, they are not. That is the crux of the problem.

I would like to remind hon. members that counterfeit medications are rarely quality medications. They are produced by illicit activity and the people who engage in it have no scruples. Selling tainted medications does not bother them.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House for a third time today, this time to discuss Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. It is the NDP's intention, of course, to support it at third reading.

We in the NDP could not agree more with protecting consumers. It is only right to support bills of this kind that have that intent. It is important for Canadian companies and consumers to fight counterfeiting, which, we must remember, is a breach of intellectual property rights. That is no small thing. It is particularly important when the counterfeit products can jeopardize Canadians' health or safety.

The reason I have risen three times today in the House to speak on various bills is because they have one thing in common: the health and safety of Canadians. We can never be too careful to make informed decisions and to really make sure that everything is being done with respect to health and safety because, ultimately, lives are at stake. Once again, this is the issue here.

It is hard to see how a bill such as this one could be implemented when, last year, the Conservatives cut $143 million from the Canada Border Services Agency. That, of course, reduced the number of front-line officers even further and undermines our ability to control our borders.

The Conservatives added to the agency’s responsibilities while cutting its funding. That is where we are risking problems and where that is a concern. That is why we are here tonight in the House to raise this concern and express these well-founded fears.

This government has refused several times to take a balanced approach on copyright. The NDP believes that intellectual property requires an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers.

When we look more specifically at Bill C-8, we need to point this out. It adds two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for the possession or export of infringing copies and creates offences related to the sale or offering for sale of counterfeit products on a commercial scale. It prohibits the import or export of infringing copies and counterfeit goods, and it ensures a balanced approach to this prohibition by creating two exceptions. One is for personal use and the other is for copies in customs transit control.

It gives customs officers new powers to detain counterfeit goods and copies. That is an important policy change, since up until now, border officials required copyright holders to first get a court order before they would seize infringing copies or counterfeit goods.

It gives the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and border authorities new powers enabling them to share with rights owners information relating to the detained goods. Lastly, it expands the scope of what can be registered as a trademark, as described within the broader definition of “signs”, including colours, shapes, scents and tastes.

In June of 2012, I rose in the House to ask the government a question. I referred to a report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce stating that one-third of all products pose a real threat to the health and safety of Canadians. That is why we have to take action against counterfeiting. This is not just about jeans and handbags.

My colleague said that whenever we talk about counterfeiting, people think we are talking about a handbag sporting a recognizable trademark that someone saw in some back alley in New York. That is the kind of thing most people think of. However, we are also talking about drugs, and that is very serious. They can contain uranium and lead.

We are talking about safety and security because it can be that serious. It is important to have the necessary resources to keep one-third of products from being hazardous to people's health and safety. It is really important for us to take action on this.

Many people support our position, and that is an important thing to add to the debate. Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, commented on the 2012 budget cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency. He explained how those cuts would reduce border officers' ability to do their work:

These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons and illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, sexual predators and hardened criminals.

Mr. Speaker, before I talk about some more of the support we have been receiving, I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the wonderful member for Trois-Rivières.

According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Canadian Intellectual Property Council, the Canadian system has no tools to track and report the instances of counterfeiting that are actually detected in the country. According to European Commission regulation 1891/2004, customs authorities in all EU member states are obliged to report statistics on customs seizures, and the Canada Border Services Agency does not have a mandate for reporting on intellectual property crime at the border. That is another important source of support.

We also have support from the World Customs Organization, which published Model Provisions for National Legislation to Implement Fair and Effective Border Measures Consistent with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights at the WTO. In its introduction, the World Customs Organization indicates that model provisions ensure the effective enforcement of intellectual property rights at the border without undue restriction of the flow of trade in legitimate goods. The extent and effectiveness of customs interventions are dependent upon the resources available for customs administration.

We have the support of Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, a field in which we will most certainly have to make some major progress. In relation to Bill C-8, he said that officers are not experts in intellectual property. The purpose of the assessment is to determine whether one of the exceptions in the Copyright Act may apply. This is a complex process. The courts often have a hard time deciding. Nevertheless, the bill still plans to give these powers to border officers without judicial review or a limit on the types of goods concerned.

I could cite more examples of support, but I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Trois-Rivières. It is important to do something about counterfeiting. It is not just a scourge. Counterfeiting results in economic losses, but it is also a health and safety issue.

We cannot allow drugs to be sold on the Internet when we do not have any information about them and they might contain uranium or lead. Honestly. We must absolutely make sure we have better legislation to truly fight counterfeiting.

I think that we have the full support of various players across the country, people who think that it is high time we do something about this.

As the deputy critic for consumer protection, I have risen in this House a number of times. I would obviously like us to move forward with this.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. As the deputy critic for small business, she has raised a number of important points about the damage counterfeiting does to the Canadian economy.

Although we do not have any conclusive data and it is not always easy to determine exactly what impact counterfeiting is having on the Canadian economy, I think the testimony we have heard shows that there is an impact on small and medium-sized businesses.

My colleague also said that resources are needed to be able to protect consumers and ensure that imported products are safe and healthy. I would like her to talk about the fact that this government is constantly cutting funding, whether for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or for all sorts of programs that protect consumers. Could she talk about that and about the resulting impact on the health and safety of Canadians?

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I think she did a good job of summarizing the key points that are keeping our debate going tonight.

It is difficult to measure the impact of counterfeiting, because it is illegal. Industry Canada points out that the retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012. That is quite a substantial amount. I think action is long overdue.

In terms of health and safety, I know that the government has overlooked a number of issues. Must I repeat this? I have said it several times today in my remarks. In the case of XL Foods, the government did not take the appropriate action by cutting the number of inspectors. Inevitably, consequences, such as the tainted meat crisis, ensue. There is also the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City, in my riding. Clearly, being understood in their own language is a question of safety for people using the river. In short, these are health and safety issues.

I could name a whole host of issues that the government has failed to address, but I know that there will be other questions, so I will leave it at that. I want people to take action on this.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since my colleague has spoken a lot about counterfeit drugs, I would like to make a comment. I do not know what she will think of it. Some scientific and medical articles I read indicate that, currently, 75% of the Viagra on the market is counterfeit. Since men are embarrassed to ask their doctors for this drug, they try to get it without a prescription. An enormous amount is counterfeit. There are even pills that are blatantly counterfeit: somewhat handcrafted, they are simply painted blue.

I would like her to talk about the risks associated with counterfeiting when it involves products that people are a little embarrassed to ask for or go and get, even if they could probably do so legally. If they took the time to see a doctor, they would not get a counterfeit product.

Could my colleague share her observations with us?

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am imagining the scenario of a man who decides one night that he would like Viagra. He has the choice of going to the pharmacy or going on eBay. Since it would be more discreet to get it on the Internet, perhaps he would choose that method. However, it would really be unfortunate for him to end up with a counterfeit product after placing his order. Instead of getting any kind of benefit from the drug or pill, he might only have a negative reaction, because the government did not legislate as it should have.

Obviously, his plans for the evening would be much different. I agree. Let me give a very specific example, Mr. Speaker.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I will be finishing my session with this speech on Bill C-8, but I am always pleased to take part in this democratic exercise, too often abused in the House, of exchange or debate among parliamentarians on the various bills introduced by the government or by private members.

However, I cannot help but note that we set an extraordinary record of 76 time allocation motions a few days ago. I get the impression we will soon need an Excel file to follow all the bills that have been subject to a time allocation.

Speaking of software, or rather counterfeit software, obviously none of the examples I will be citing involve the members here. No one here buys counterfeit products, and no one encourages piracy. However, everyone knows someone who has done so and who has had problems. I will come back to that subject later.

Getting back to my 76 closure motions, unless the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rises in the next few minutes to make the traditional announcement and trigger the 77th closure, Bill C-8 seems headed for an open, democratic debate in accordance with the rules of the House. I should be happy, but, after 76 closure motions, you will allow me to feel somewhat pessimistic and to say I am skeptical of that prospect. Why? Obviously because government members are probably glad and very much aware that the NDP, a dynamic and structured official opposition if ever there was one, agrees with most of the bill’s content and is preparing to support the bill at the this stage, still hoping that a few improvements can be made at the final stage.

What are we to understand from that? The Conservatives allow all members to speak if they think as they do or if their thinking is similar to their own. However, the axe falls the moment we have a different opinion to express on another bill.

I can cope with closure personally, but I do not think our Canadian democracy can afford that luxury or option. Even if my remarks were not true, there is still a perception. As they say in the advertising industry, perception is very often reality. I hope that the Canadians and Quebeckers who vote and re-elect their members to the House of Commons will have a perception that corresponds to reality. That is the end of my comments on that subject.

The subject before us is the bill entitled An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. I would have been more comfortable debating the part of the Copyright Act that deals, for example, with artistic creations such as musical works, artworks, choreographies and many other things. Where intellectual property or value are at issue, I must admit I always join the debate because that was a battle I waged for a very long time in my previous careers.

The same is therefore true of products of all kinds. To ensure that a trademark that is valued and used by consumers can continue surprising them with its creativity and affording them the means to pursue their objectives, we must combat counterfeiting and piracy to the best of our ability.

Of course, no one in the House has done this, but we all know someone who has travelled to a city in or outside Canada and not exactly scoffed at items offered to him or her at absurdly low prices.

We may think of watches that in all respects resemble watches by Gucci and Tag or Swiss brand watches. We may also think of handbags that our spouses dream of but that we cannot afford to give them. The prices of these products are absurdly low. Most people know very well that these are counterfeit products, and the booths where they are sold obviously provide no invoices. We can imagine that the after-sales service, long-term guarantees and product quality vanish, not to mention the fact that, on every occasion, we are undermining the original product.

Counterfeit products sometimes seem real to the eye. With wear, however, everyone knows that the quality is not there and that someone is trying to take advantage of someone else’s creative process to make a fast buck, without offering any after-sales service or reinvesting in the business whose product has been copied. This is also the case of sunglasses.

There has been a wave of flea markets over the past 10 years, particularly in Quebec, although they have recently been somewhat less popular. I do not know whether that was the case in the other regions of Canada. People thought that, by going there often, they would unearth the find of the century at an absurdly low price. Of course, someone may once have picked up a Renoir for $150 because he found it in the closet of a grandmother who did not know the value of the work she owned. Most of the time, however, what people found were counterfeit pieces.

Counterfeit works can be particularly dangerous. I have heard my colleagues speak at length about drugs. Although people did not shop at flea markets to buy a lot of drugs, equally dangerous things could be found there. I am thinking, for example, of electrical components found at lower prices than at regular hardware stores. These were not used items. They looked new and were properly packaged but did not meet CSA standards. CSA standards are the Canadian standards that, according to the government, are the responsibility of the provinces, for example where pyrrhotite is concerned, but that is another debate I do not want to engage in.

Let us imagine that, to save a few pennies, someone buys switches that do not meet Canadian standards and installs them on his electrical panel. While he sleeps peacefully, parts of the electrical panel could overload and cause a fire that, at best, might result in material damage or, at worst, could have a serious impact on the health and lives of the people living in the house. This is a common occurrence.

Another example is those hunting jackets that were purportedly made of goose down. They were comfortable and very warm. After getting the coat caught on a tree branch, someone realized that what was supposed to be goose down was instead a kind of padding that was hard to identify and probably highly inflammable. That made the product dangerous.

I will now skip right to the conclusion of my speech since time is short. I hope to have the opportunity to discuss these matters at greater length when I answer my colleagues’ questions.

In conclusion, I would like to echo the sentiment expressed in the title of the report that the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology prepared in 2007. The title of that report was, “Counterfeiting and Piracy are Theft”.

I believe the title was very much inspired by a campaign that was designed to make music users more aware of the fact that not only was copying theft, but also that theft takes money away from the creators who allowed consumers to enjoy the products of their creativity.

It is not easy to strike a balance between rights holders’ interests and those of users and consumers. My NDP colleagues and I believe that that balance should serve as a guide for all of the suggested improvements to the wording of this bill.

I will stop there and will be pleased to answer my colleagues’ questions.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

He did not have time to discuss a particular aspect of counterfeiting and piracy: the question of information. By definition, any criminal activity is very difficult to measure. Criminals do not declare their activities. It is always difficult to get a true picture of a criminal activity, and the only numbers we can refer to are the ones from actual seizures. I would therefore like my colleague to explain how reducing the resources available to carry out more seizures has a direct impact on the number of seizures actually carried out. It necessarily has an impact on the quality of the information and statistics. Reducing the resources available for carrying out actual seizures has consequences not only for the seizure, but also for the presumed statistics about the criminal activity in question.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker that is a very complex and important question. It would definitely deserve a longer answer than I am able to give in the time available to me.

I will say two things in reply. First, I think that the theory that we will have to do more with less has to stop. Let us draw the curtain on cost-cutting.

Another point is particularly worth mentioning. In this area, secrecy reigns supreme. That is one reason why the NDP had proposed an amendment that I thought was very wise, appropriate and intelligent, which was to require that an annual report be submitted to Parliament containing information about the goods forfeited. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the Conservatives. We would have been able to create a database, with incomplete data, of course, but data that would then have been used for making relatively credible extrapolations about seizures carried out by the RCMP in Canada.

We would thus have started to take the measure of the Canadian counterfeiting and piracy market. This was a brilliant amendment, but it was rejected for some reason I find hard to explain. I hope that in the hours of debate we will continue to hold this evening, someone on the government side will rise and explain to me what the reason was for rejecting this amendment, other than pure partisanship. I admit that I do not see an angle from which such a sensible amendment could be rejected.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech because, once again, he brilliantly explained certain aspects of this bill. As well, he told us about his personal experience, particularly in relation to copyright, which is important. Our creators should be paid and should receive royalties when they create.

My colleague also mentioned the current dysfunctional state of the House of Commons, in terms of the repeated gag orders imposed by the government. I would also like to note that in the monster bill, Bill C-31, the budget implementation bill, division 25 deals with amendments relating to international treaties on trademarks.

Could my colleague explain why the government did not split this bill? We could have examined this part of Bill C-31 in greater depth. I would like to hear his comments on that.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer I would like to give my colleague from LaSalle—Émard is essentially found in the final words of his question.

Why is the government not allowing us the resources and the time to examine this bill in depth? The answer is in the question. This is what we have been seeing for three years now: bills that can be termed monster, mammoth, dinosaur or omnibus bills.

Whatever we call them, the result is always the same: we do not have the time that we, as opposition members, need. The same is true for the witnesses who come before the committee and are often asked to focus on a very specific aspect of the question they are asked, rather than sharing their expertise with us, which would allow for a thorough examination. When you say thorough examination, you are saying New Democrats rather than Conservatives.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue working in the House and to continue talking about the NDP's proposals and vision on a variety of subjects. In this case, it is about copyright, counterfeiting, smuggling and intellectual property rights.

Since the Conservatives asked all parliamentarians to sit in the House later, that is, to debate and work until midnight every night, they have set a record of 157 or 160 missed turns to speak, if not more, because they refuse to rise in the House and debate and speak. However, we in the opposition are doing the work. They ask us to sit but they refuse to speak, to debate or even to ask us questions. They sit speechless and silent, kind of like the 21 members from British Columbia who for two days now have refused to give interviews about the approval of the northern gateway pipeline project. That is rather significant. I think we can talk about a deafening silence. Blaise Pascal himself would be a little terrified if he were aware of the silence of these infinite spaces. It has been very revealing.

I have the pleasure of rising to speak to Bill C-8, which, it must be acknowledged, contains some good provisions and good intentions. Some parts of it are on the right track, which does not happen often. There are quite a few problems that are going to cause us concern, in particular a certain inconsistency. First, they are going to impose more measures to reduce smuggling and counterfeiting at the borders, but at the same time they are going to eliminate hundreds of positions for employees who enforce those measures. I will try to come back to this a little later.

We are talking here about intellectual property and trade law. My father is a writer and my brother is a musician; consequently, coming from a family of artists, I am very aware of copyright, smuggling and counterfeit issues. Artistic creation is the bread and butter that brings in income every day. People work and the fruit of their work brings them an income and results. If the fruit of their labour, their inventiveness, their artistic genius, their innovation, or their creativity is stolen, this represents money that is not coming in to pay their mortgages, send their children to school, travel or buy clothes. When I think of them, I tell myself it is important to have measures that will curb and fight against smuggling and counterfeiting, because this has an impact on the people who create, think, innovate and bring new products and new ideas to the marketplace, whether we are talking about artistic works or commercial products. These two elements are not incompatible.

The NDP and I are pleased to note that Bill C-8 also establishes a balance between the rights of creators and respect for consumers, so that we do not have a police state that will interfere in private life. When the trade considerations in the massive transfer of goods are not involved, but it is rather a matter of individual consumption, the bill will ensure that there is also some balance and some moderation.

My wife and I have two daughters, Marianne and Aurélie, and they have iPods that they use to listen to music. I do not always know where their music comes from, or which Internet site they visited to get it, because they listen to a lot of music. It is even difficult to talk to them because they always have their earphones in their ears. I would not want them to be punished because they are music lovers. The Internet today allows you to access files for which the creator has not received compensation, unfortunately. We must think about this balance and have an Internet that is accessible and free.

That being said, we must look at how Bill C-8 responds to the issue of copyright and to the issue of contraband and counterfeiting. My colleague from Trois-Rivières spoke earlier about products that can sometimes be found on the sidewalk or in public markets. It is very difficult to know how many of these products are legitimate and whether they have come from the real company that invented the product or whether it is a really exciting cheap copy.

I once was a young student in New York and I was shown a lot of different things. Today I am quite sure that those were not real Guccis for $10. However, it is extremely difficult to assess the scale of counterfeiting and copies in Canada, whether for digital files or real objects such as a tie, a jacket or a shirt.

It is difficult to understand how we are going to be able to fight against counterfeiting if we do not have a real idea of the scale of the phenomenon and exactly what it is we are fighting against. Industry Canada states that the retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012.

My colleague from Saint-Jean—and I must point out that Saint-Jean is my home riding, where I spent my childhood and my teenage years—said earlier that this is a somewhat simplistic view that we must be careful about, because these are only the goods that were seized by the RCMP. There has been an explosion in the number of goods that have been seized. However, what percentage of all the contraband or counterfeit items on the marketplace do the goods that were seized represent? There is no way of knowing.

I am seeing some frantic waving. I have a confession to make, Mr. Speaker. I am going to share my time with my eminent colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, who has just come to my rescue in an extremely professional way.

We cannot rely solely on the number of goods that were seized by the RCMP when determining the full extent of trade in contraband or counterfeit good in 2009. However, we can say that, in 2009, the OECD estimated that international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods could account for up to $250 billion. That is huge. What methods has this government implemented to address this problem?

We see that Bill C-8 is a step in the right direction, but we do not know how the enforcement scheme it proposes will be financed. This is a small problem. There are a lot of bills that have good intentions, which could even be called wishful thinking. I am referring, for example, to the Victims Bill of Rights, which contains no budget for training, compensation or support for families who might need it. It is good that some political progress has been made over the past eight years on victims’ rights and on the fact that opposition members are bad guys who control and always defend the criminals, but sometimes it is necessary to put some money into the proposals that are made.

In the 2012 budget, the Conservatives cut $143 million from the Canada Border Services Agency. Border officials are the ones who are going to be enforcing the rules set out in Bill C-8. The Conservatives say that they are going to crack down on smugglers and counterfeit goods, but then they make budget cuts of $143 million over three years, which includes a loss of 549 jobs by 2015.

I would like to hear my Conservative friends and colleagues say again that they are tough on crime and tell us how they are going to be able to limit contraband and counterfeit items at our borders—as the United States has asked us to do, by the way—with 549 fewer jobs by 2015. It means squaring the circle. They have increased the responsibilities and set even higher objectives and, at the same time, they have slashed the resources available in the field to do the work. Unfortunately, this is the Conservatives’ trademark.

If they do not walk the talk, or vice versa, there is a problem.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his excellent speech on Bill C-8.

Although he said the official opposition would be supporting this bill, he pointed to some significant deficiencies. The first one that comes to mind is the lack of funding despite the government’s good intentions. I am trying to imagine how such a bill could be implemented when the Conservatives cut $143 million from the Canada Border Services Agency’s budget last year.

I know my colleague closely monitored the last Conservative budget and saw that many budget cuts were made to numerous services, which affected various departments. Now, once again, we have been presented with a bill that is inconsistent with the budget envelopes and the cuts made by the Conservatives. I would therefore like to know how my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie feels about that.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not really feel very good about it.

The Conservatives do not put their resources where their mouths are. This is a kind of betrayal or pointless political game. They make people believe they will act, but they do not act. That will have very bad consequences for the Conservatives.

According to Ken Hansen, Superintendent of the RCMP and former co-chair of the Interpol Intellectual property crime action group, the RCMP can investigate only 25% of the goods that the Toronto office of the Border Services Agency flags as being fake.

Consequently, even when the goods are reported as potentially fake, the RCMP, which has also undergone cuts, can investigate only 25% of the cases reported to it. We can very well thump our chests and say we are going to make sure the law is enforced and the bad guys go to prison, but, when cuts are made to the Border Services Agency, 55 jobs are cut, and the RCMP then tells us only 25% of cases reported as potentially dangerous will be investigated, there is a major problem.

The Conservative government cannot be serious.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I am going to pretend I am a Conservative for 15 seconds, but not for very long or else I will feel sick.

If a Conservative dared rise to justify his position, I believe he would tell us that it is okay to cut staff because the technology is so advanced that they can now use sophisticated rays to see through containers more quickly and effectively.

The word “counterfeiting” always conjures up an image of containers on a dock in a port with a customs agent on hand. However, counterfeiting increasingly involves an individual behind his computer ordering a product that will come from outside the country, probably via Canada Post. The product will likely not be shipped in a container or involve all that technology.

Will there still be employees to monitor parcels that pass through the Canada Post network?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his question.

One may legitimately ask that question since 549 jobs will be cut from the Border Services Agency by 2015 and Canada Post will lose 9,000 jobs over the next five years, according to what my colleague from Alfred-Pellan tells me. I am satisfied that her figures are absolutely reliable.

When public services and monitoring are cut to that degree, we open the door to potential criminals, fraudsters and smugglers, who will cheerfully go about their business. This shows the full extent of the carelessness and inconsistency of the Conservatives, who would have us believe they will be tougher, whereas they remind us of the anti-doping agencies that are always two or three steps behind because they do not invest enough to determine exactly what future fraud artists will be doing. That is extremely harmful.

If we equipped ourselves with the resources we need to act, I am convinced we could not only enforce copyright and intellectual property rights, but also protect the safety of Canadians. Many of these counterfeit and smuggled products pose health and safety risks for the people who buy them. This is a concern that we in the NDP have.

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their incredible support. It really is an honour to be part of the NDP.

We support this bill, but I am pleased that a gag order has not been imposed and that we now have the opportunity to express our opinions. Since the beginning of this Parliament, 76 gag orders have been imposed. That makes 76 bills that we have not been able to debate appropriately. That is deplorable. I am therefore pleased that no gag order has been imposed this time, although, at the same time, we are not too sure what is coming.

I also find it deplorable that the party opposite and the third party have not taken part at all in the debates that have been held in the evenings for several weeks. We sit until midnight and we are the only ones rising to speak. I want to take this opportunity to speak out against that situation. I find it particularly galling.

We support Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, despite its imperfections. However, we still feel justified in questioning certain aspects of it. The government will therefore not be able to say that we are opposed to everything.

Bill C-8 is designed to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trade-mark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies and counterfeit trade-marked goods.

Clearly, we always support companies, consumers, authors and musicians—my colleague was talking about music earlier on—and the whole area of the intellectual property of scientists, for example. There is also considerable mention in this bill of the health and safety of Canadians. I feel that the bill has a lot of merit in this area.

When we talk about counterfeit medication, for example, it can be a serious matter. A person ordering medication online for some kind of problem could choose the wrong product. If the person is allergic to that product, problems arise. That is one of the reasons why we support this kind of measure, which will help to keep Canadians healthy and to protect them.

Bill C-8 creates two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act, prohibiting the possession or export of infringing copies; it also creates offences for selling, or engaging in commercial activity with, counterfeit products.

It also creates a criminal offence prohibiting the importing and exporting of infringing copies and counterfeit goods, while introducing some balance by creating two exemptions, one for personal use, that is, items that a person has in their possession or in their luggage, and another for items in customs transit control.

The bill also gives customs officers new powers to detain counterfeit goods and copies. That is an important policy change, since up until now, border officials required copyright holders to first get a court order before they would seize infringing copies or counterfeit goods.

The bill also gives the Minister of Health and border authorities new powers that allow them to share with rights owners information relating to the detained goods. These are meaningful and significant changes that needed to be made to fight the counterfeiting of all kinds of items that could harm the health and safety of our fellow citizens.

The bill has also expanded the scope of what can be registered as a trademark, as described within the broader definition of “signs”, including colours, shapes, scents and tastes.

What concerns me as I read this bill is the fact that several million dollars have been cut from the Canada Border Services Agency. The bill gives border authorities new powers, but how will everything be appropriately financed? How can they continue to be effective and to do their jobs? We agree that counterfeiting is a scourge and that something must be done about it. We also agree that they have other responsibilities as well. Are they going to be asked to work twice as much? I am not sure how it is all going to work. Are we going to clone them? I do not know. In short, this is something that really must be given particular attention. This is not the only situation where there have been budget cuts and increases in responsibility for the staff of an agency.

Take tax havens, for example. They say they want to fight against tax havens and allocate more resources to doing so, but the Canada Revenue Agency has undergone budget cuts. The same applies to Canada Post and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The number of inspectors has been cut but they are being asked to provide the same level of service. That is particularly worrisome to me. I am curious and I would really like to know how this is all going to be implemented.

Naturally, we support political and legal tools that will combat counterfeiting and copyright violation effectively. Such violations can have a negative impact on Canadian businesses and consumers. As I said earlier, that is especially the case when the health and safety of Canadians are at risk, which often happens when counterfeiting is involved. On the other hand, intellectual property calls for an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. We have to strike a fair balance there too.

We also need better ways to share information about counterfeiting with people. We have to implement measures to ensure that border services agents use their new law enforcement powers appropriately. That also includes better information about the extent of the problem. We have to raise people's awareness about what counterfeiting, intellectual property and copyright are. We have to explain that in terms people can understand. These are things of importance to society that I think have been somewhat neglected over the past few years.

Bill C-8 does not feature the same lack of balance as other copyright bills this government has come up with. It is a good improvement even though it is not perfect. Nothing is perfect, after all.

As I said earlier, we still do not know how the bill will be enforced. We would like the Canada Border Services Agency to have enough resources to carry out this work without interfering with its priorities. Those people have a lot of work to do, and cuts will not help them do more work. If we overload them, it will not work.

It is in the interest of Canadian businesses and consumers to combat counterfeiting, especially, as I said earlier, when counterfeit goods can jeopardize the health and safety of Canadians. To do that, we have to give those involved the tools they need. There has to be money for that. I see no other way. It will not happen if the government puts some relevant provisions in a bill but continues to make cuts.

I would like one of my colleagues opposite to share some thoughts about this. That would be really interesting.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for a very informative speech on this topic.

She talked about person-years and the employees who will be lost between now and 2015, totalling 549. What is interesting about this number, along with some facts and figures that I have here, is that the budget cuts introduced in 2012 amount to $31 million in the first year, $72 million in the second year, and $143 million in the third year. The number is going up, doubling each year, so that the big impact is going to be in 2015, when this new responsibility will likely be passed on to the border guards.

It seems to be a pattern throughout. Agencies and departments and all aspects of government are going to be hit with this all in one year. How is it that the government, which wants the border agency to do more to enforce this legislation, would ask it to do the job with 549 fewer employees? That pattern is going to occur throughout the entire public service.

Would the member care to comment on that phenomenon and the Conservative government's approach?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his very relevant question.

I must admit that I am rather confused by the way this government is working. I do not really understand how it intends to achieve its goals while cutting funding, eliminating positions and preventing competent people from doing their job. It is particularly appalling. The government should work on this problem.

I understand perfectly that choices must be made. However, there are necessities in a budget, and when something is added, more funding is needed. The government wants the Canada Border Services Agency to do more but it is eliminating 549 jobs. That does not really make sense. We have no choice but to find a solution.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her fine speech and for so kindly agreeing to share her time with me.

I would like to come back to my concern about the resources that are not made available to the government to enable it to concretely apply the measures set out in Bill C-8. I would also like to remind honourable members that money supposedly allocated for the border infrastructure fund two or three years ago ended up being used to build arenas and gazebos. Once again, the government did not allocate the resources needed to secure our borders.

Now the government is saying that it will make an additional effort to fight contraband and counterfeiting and will cut $143 million and 549 jobs. I would like to know what the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot has to say about that and whether she shares my concerns.

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question that I believe is very relevant.

I absolutely share his concerns on this. I am wondering where we are going with this kind of ideology. We were talking about arenas and gazebos in some committees where it related to votes from certain people. I find it particularly appalling. In whose interest is this being done? Our constituents are the ones being penalized. These are people who have been on the job for a long time, competent people, who will lose their jobs. I find that particularly worrisome.

2015 cannot come soon enough.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to speak to this bill without being restricted by the time limits that the Conservative government usually has in store for us.

Bill C-8 is important to me because the riding of Saint-Jean is in southern Quebec, on the United States border. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and Jacques Villeneuve were born in this riding. It is a riding that has to deal with the problem of smuggling and trafficking in illegal substances. This mostly involves counterfeit cigarettes and drugs.

Although there is no real border crossing between the riding of Saint-Jean and the United States, in practice two government agencies are responsible for controlling the flow of goods between the United States and Canada. There is the RCMP station in Venise-en-Québec, in the riding of Brome—Missisquoi, and the border crossing at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, which is in the riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry. Those are the two main points of entry for certain goods.

Goods are transported by standard means through Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, because they arrive by truck, even though some goods are counterfeit. However, the RCMP is responsible for monitoring the boats on the river. We are obviously not dealing with cargo ships, but individuals with small boats transporting goods they are not authorized to move. These two situations are different and are managed by two different government agencies that each have their own mandate: the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.

This is why it is also important for our riding. A certain number of people living in our riding work in Montreal—even though that city is not in our riding—in businesses where piracy and counterfeiting have serious consequences. As was mentioned earlier, there is the pharmaceutical industry.

There is another example, which is also important for those of us living in Quebec and in the Montreal area in particular, and that is the video game industry. This industry is very aware of piracy because millions of dollars are invested in research and development. Montreal companies need these protections to earn a return on their investments, which are investments in intellectual property. People working in these industries live in the greater Montreal area and therefore in my riding.

If I were also to digress and talk about the Conservative government, I would say that the people in my riding who are going to work in those industries—and who are therefore very sensitive to the issue of piracy and counterfeiting—are obviously using the famous Champlain Bridge, which the government has unfortunately neglected for a number of years. What the government, through the Minister of Infrastructure, has repeated today is unacceptable to the constituents in my riding. It is the infamous “no toll, no bridge”. That sounds a bit like the famous Asterix and Obelix quote: “No stones, no construction. No construction, no palace. No palace...no palace.”

This type of mindset assumes that, when there is no P3 project, residents will be asked to pay for infrastructure that they already use, national infrastructure used not only by Quebeckers, by people in the region, but also by our American friends when they trade goods with the Montreal area. Contrary to what the Prime Minister said in a speech in the Quebec City area, the Champlain Bridge is not local infrastructure, it is not a small bridge over a small river, it is national infrastructure, as highways 10 and 15 converge on the Champlain Bridge, where Brossard is. That is why it is major infrastructure.

I will end my digression by saying that the NDP will oppose the toll for replacing the Champlain Bridge. In fact, the NDP has always been opposed to a toll.

This part of my speech had to do with the economic consequences of counterfeit and piracy in general. Clearly, the economic consequences for the Montreal area and for Quebec are critical, because the Montreal industry relies on high tech.

We are also talking about aircraft manufacturing. As surprising as it may seem, there is also counterfeiting of high-tech components, which are vital to aircraft safety. There are two aspects to consider here. First, companies that manufacture the parts are losing money. Second, there is the issue of health and safety. If an aviation accident is caused by a defective part, both of those consequences of counterfeiting come into play.

I would like to come back to information and statistics for a moment. It has already been said that various agencies have figures on counterfeiting. That is the case in Canada as well as the United States and Europe. Government agencies provide figures. As I said before, there is a paradox in that the figures we have are just a snapshot and not the entire picture. Criminals obviously do not fill out packing lists when they ship counterfeit items, let alone when they traffic drugs. If only criminal organizations did fill them out, check the box marked “counterfeit goods” and then send them to the Canada Border Services Agency when shipping counterfeit toys, medication and so on. All we know about this type of crime is the information that has been gathered from seizures. It only makes sense that the amount of goods being seized would be proportionate to the effort being put into seizing them.

If the number of people working to seize goods is reduced and those who remain are no more productive than before because no one has found a new way of seizing goods, it is only logical that the snapshot will not be as good. If we extrapolate based on the quantity of counterfeit goods that are being moved and add in the fact that the number of people working on these investigations is going down, it only makes sense to assume that the market is larger than we envisioned.

This is not being taken into account, and when you look at the raw numbers, you can see that the number of goods seized increases considerably—exponentially, even. We can only conclude that the statistics we have are not representative of how this fraud has evolved and that the statistics are under-estimated.

We know that the Conservative government does not particularly like statistics. We saw evidence of that in 2010 when it decided to get rid of form 2B, Statistics Canada's long form census. That is a classic example.

For decades, we had continuous knowledge of populations and communities, since form 2B enabled us to ask more specific questions to 20% of the population, which is a more-than-representative sample. No other Statistics Canada study asks specific questions to 20% of the population. Form 2A was sent to 80% of the population and form 2B was sent to 20% of the population.

This provided specific information. The survey asked questions about language spoken at home, modes of transportation—which is very useful for projecting public transit needs—and other important topics such as the representation of age groups, which is useful when municipalities are creating schools, daycares or sports facilities. This enabled us to get a detailed and localized view of the needs of the population.

Unfortunately, in 2010, when the Conservative government made the decision to stop collecting the data we had been collecting on an ongoing basis for decades, we lost our ability to learn specific information about our communities. It spoke to the fact that the government had only a short-term vision and did not have a long-term vision for how crucial this accurate, specific, and localized information was to making extrapolations about the public, its needs and the infrastructure required by different communities.

This is a pattern. We are seeing the same thing with how the government deals with skills training needs, particularly in the case of the renewal of labour market agreements with employment insurance. That information is missing. I am obviously not going to talk about information from Kijiji, since I am not in the know about that. However, we know that information is missing.

The Conservative government has this strange logic of not gathering information and statistics from reliable sources that use a proven methodology, such as Statistics Canada. The statistics used by the government are usually concocted out of thin air or wildly unrealistic. We also saw that with Bill C-36 on prostitution. The statistics used are bogus because the government does not want to know what is really happening on the ground. When they do not have statistics, they make up their own. This is like the old saying, “give a dog a bad name and hang him”.

It is always the same thing. They make up their own statistics to support their views and to introduce bills that reflect an ideology, rather than the statistical reality measured with scientific means and representative samplings, like Statistics Canada does with its social surveys.

That covers the part on information.

I will now return to a point raised by several members, namely the issue of resources. Investigations are conducted by the RCMP, among others. As recently as May 22, operation Pangea VII was conducted in 111 countries and led to the arrest of 237 individuals. During this operation, more than 9.5 million unauthorized pharmaceuticals with an estimated value of $35 million were seized.

These specific examples show the need for resources to conduct such investigations. This operation is an example of an international investigation completed in May 2014 that required the co-operation of 111 countries. It is really a huge operation. We are talking about 140,000 counterfeit pharmaceuticals seized at the Canadian border alone. There were also seizures in other countries. Between May 13 and May 20, a total of 2,282 packages were seized.

Incidentally, these packages are often delivered by Canada Post. The corporation does not have the mandate to monitor the content of these packages, or to determine whether the pharmaceuticals are genuine or not. This requires special expertise that Canada Post employees do not have and that border services officers do not all have.

As was mentioned earlier, counterfeit products are very sophisticated. They look so much like the real products that, in the case of drugs, some holograms are the exact replica of genuine security holograms. Therefore, it becomes increasingly complicated for law enforcement agencies, for the Border Services Agency in particular, and for the RCMP to detect counterfeit products when they arrive at the border. Counterfeit products are increasingly sophisticated. This means that more advanced investigations relying on international co-operation are required.

This example shows that resources are necessary. We need the same number of trained resources, not less. The government did the opposite in 2012, when it announced that over 500 members of the Border Services Agency would lose their jobs. In fact, the number is higher. Indeed, in 2012, more than 1,000 employees received notice that their position was potentially threatened by the restructuring of the Canada Border Services Agency.

Since I have one minute left, I will end my speech here and take questions from my colleagues. There is a contradiction between wanting to move forward with this bill, which would target counterfeiting and piracy, and wanting to cut the amount of resources allocated to doing so. This is a contradiction that the NDP has pointed out.

Unfortunately, the government has set a goal to reduce spending, as part of its opportunistic attempt to garner votes in 2015. It wants to be able to claim to be a government that balances its budget, when in reality, it is balancing the budget at the expense of Canadians' safety, whether we are talking about medications or the profitability of our businesses that invest in research and development. We need to speak out against this.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for sharing his statistical expertise. He clearly showed us how important conclusive data are, whether we are talking about getting a snapshot of the Canadian economy or a snapshot of all Canadian communities. He showed that Canada is now missing data as a result of the massive cuts made to Statistics Canada.

When the bill was studied in committee, the NDP suggested that a report be drafted every year to assess the results of the measures in this bill.

Could the member tell me how important it is to accurately assess the effectiveness and results of the new measures this bill would implement at Canadian borders, and how this assessment can be done?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

As I was saying, it is not easy to measure the flow of illegal goods, because criminals do not necessarily make official declarations.

It is true that if we cut resources, we will see a proportional decrease in the number of seizures that could be carried out. I cannot believe that this government does not want to collect more information on the existence of contraband and counterfeit goods, but at the same time it is pushing to implement more heavy-handed measures.

I think that it does not want to have information about the impact and the effectiveness of these measures. If that information does not exist, the government can always claim to have its own statistics to support the fact that the direction it took was the right one.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Saint-Jean for his excellent speech.

He raised issues I certainly would not have thought about.

I want to go back to the aerospace industry. I found it very relevant that he mentioned the counterfeiting of highly technical parts in the aerospace industry.

My mother works at Bombardier Aerospace, at the finishing facility located in Dorval. I am thinking about all these highly specialized jobs in the manufacturing of private aircraft or bigger jets such as Boeings. It worries me to know that highly specialized parts can be counterfeited.

Could the hon. member elaborate on this issue and tell us what it could mean for jobs in the Montreal area? Could he comment on that?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think there are two aspects to this.

First, for the past 10 or 20 years, some airlines have begun relocating activities related to the maintenance of their aircraft. Some European or American companies have relocated these activities to Persian Gulf countries, where costs are lower because workers' safety and working conditions are also lower. This is the first aspect.

Relocating to these countries also allow these companies, which are subcontractors and which do aerospace maintenance, to get parts that do not necessarily come from manufacturers such as Boeing or Airbus, the two largest builders. This allows them to do business with subcontractors from China, who supply them directly with parts that are not always of good quality.

There are then two aspects. The relocation of technicians results in a loss of revenues and skills on the maintenance side. Then, there is the fact that, in these countries, it is easier to use counterfeit parts that do not have the same safety characteristics.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Saint-Jean, who has clearly done his homework, as we saw during his remarkable and enlightening speech.

I am so confident in his knowledge of the issue that I am going to ask a question a little outside his remarks to get his views. We are dealing with a bill on trademark protection and we have also seen the quiet emergence of that infamous trademark of the Conservative Party, namely increased powers for the minister.

I think every bill introduced in the House by the Conservative government includes increased ministerial authority. Here, the legislation grants the Minister of Public Safety, as well as border authorities, new ex officio powers allowing them to share information with rights owners about detained goods.

Does my colleague think this expansion of the minister's powers is necessary under this legislation?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that each time the Conservatives give more power to a minister, they should have to prove that the legal process, for example, is ineffective or inefficient.

Bill C-24, on immigration, is often cited as an example where a minister is being granted more power. The government has not proven that the courts were overrun with terrorism or high treason cases. With respect to Bill C-24, I did not hear that the courts were being flooded with high treason cases because Canadian officers were committing high treason and giving information to foreign powers every five minutes.

They did not prove that the legal system was overrun with cases and that the minister needed to be granted more powers. This is no different. They have not proven that the minister needs this additional power because the courts would be overwhelmed with cases that would not be heard in time.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Jean for his speech.

I would also like to point out one part of his speech that may have gone unnoticed. He reminded the House of a famous quote from an animated film: “No stones, no construction. No construction, no palace. No palace...no palace.” What lessons should we be learning from that grandiose plan to build a fictitious Egyptian palace that we could apply to Bill C-8?

I would also like to give him the opportunity to tell us about the dangers related to counterfeit products and children's toys in particular. For example, I am thinking about cases where there is too much lead in the paint or it does not meet Health Canada's health and safety standards.

What are the potential consequence for our children, for Madeleine, for example, if Bill C-8 is not backed with enough resources?

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie on his vast knowledge of Asterix. Indeed, this saying describes more the Conservatives' philosophy on infrastructure planning. This philosophy is aptly represented by the saying he used.

As far as safety is concerned, there are two major aspects to the negative consequences of mismanaging counterfeiting, which I mentioned. There are economic consequences, because there are revenue losses for businesses that invest in research and development and do not enjoy the fruits of those investments. Unfortunately, as I was saying, there are also consequences for health and safety.

It is true what the member says about toys. There were a number of cases of major companies such as Mattel, that were copied and the copies contained toxic products. Indeed, it seems obvious that any responsible government, whether in Canada or anywhere else, has to provide enough resources to deal with this counterfeiting, which is dangerous for children.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to debate Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, the short title of which is the Combating Counterfeit Products Act.

In fact, I am also surprised to be speaking, because I remember very clearly that the Conservatives have had a lot to say about this issue over the years. In 2007, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology submitted a rather lengthy report that said specifically that counterfeiting and piracy were theft. The committee made numerous recommendations to that effect.

What surprises me this evening is that not one Conservative has spoken on this important government bill. This is a bill that was introduced by the Minister of Industry, which is somewhat rare. As well, during the time for questions after each speech, there have been no questions from the government.

As the member for LaSalle—Émard, when I debate a bill, I always ask myself whether it affects the people in my riding. The riding I have the honour and pleasure to represent is very diverse. It is a residential riding, but it has a very large industrial park. There are a lot of businesses in my riding and a lot of small and medium-sized businesses. When I look at this bill to combat counterfeiting, I wonder what impact counterfeiting has on the people in my riding.

There are numerous examples of counterfeiting that I will talk about briefly and that were discussed earlier. There are certain counterfeit products, and a number of cases in the media have shown this, that affect people’s health and safety. Combating counterfeiting means preventing products that could be hazardous to the health and safety of my constituents in LaSalle—Émard from coming in and circulating, and that is very important to me.

There is another perverse effect of counterfeiting: when counterfeit products are in circulation, there are consequences for our economy and intellectual property owners, Canadian companies and companies from elsewhere, that have invested in research and development to create a product, a trademark or a new product for which they hold the patents and the intellectual property—which they own, in a word. If those products and trademarks are copied, there is an economic loss for the owner of the intellectual property.

That is why I rise today to speak to Bill C-8, a bill to combat counterfeiting. I do it on behalf of the people of LaSalle—Émard.

Let us look a little more closely at what the bill is going to do.

(2.11) It is an infringement of copyright for any person, for the purpose of doing anything referred to in paragraphs (2)(a) to (c), to export or attempt to export a copy—of a work, sound recording or fixation of a performer’s performance or of a communication signal—that the person knows or should have known was made without the consent of the owner of the copyright in the country where the copy was made.

This bill has a long history. As I said, there was the big report after which the Copyright Act was changed. That was a very long process. In the last session, the bill was introduced as Bill C-56. Then it was sent to committee. Now it is Bill C-8.

I have been in charge of several files since being elected. I was the science and technology critic and the industry critic. I was a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, where I participated in a very long study of intellectual property. During that long study, we had the opportunity to hear from many experts and many witnesses who talked about the importance of protecting intellectual property. They talked about how we could improve that protection. They also emphasized the importance of intellectual property to the Canadian economy, especially in that it stimulates innovation. Intellectual property is often the result of research and development, which is what can make Canada a leader in innovation.

Over the past few years, unfortunately, Canada has lost ground on the innovation front and is no longer a leader. The Canadian Intellectual Property Council pointed that out recently. It mentioned the importance of having a solid framework for protecting intellectual property.

I believe that the copyright bill and Bill C-8, which we are talking about now, are a step in the right direction toward greater protection for intellectual property. The Canadian Intellectual Property Council also says that it is important for small and medium-sized businesses. In Canada, a lot of them do not exercise their rights. They develop innovations, but they may not be aware that their innovations can be patented and can be considered intellectual property. The Canadian Intellectual Property Council would like small and medium-sized businesses to take advantage of this tool, which can help them continue to innovate and profit from intellectual property.

Bill C-8, which was studied in committee, is a step in the right direction to stop counterfeit goods at the border. Now, how does that work in practice?

We noticed that the bill gives increased powers to border services officers so that they can seize counterfeit products. We stressed that this desire to give new powers to border services officers should not just be put in writing, but should also come with the necessary resources.

Some experts wondered what tools should be given to these officers to recognize counterfeit products and what exceptions exist for these products. Also, will expanding their powers give officers the necessary resources to effectively combat counterfeiting?

It is very important to combat counterfeiting effectively, but we must also provide the means to do so in order to protect people's health and safety. I am not sure the current government is prepared to give the Border Services Agency the necessary means to do that.

What will happen once the bill is passed? Will it produce the expected results? Will border services officers be able to shoulder the burden and effectively combat counterfeiting?

As I mentioned, we support the bill because we feel it is important to the health and safety of Canadians. We do not want counterfeit products to be used in Canada and to affect the health and safety of Canadians. We also recognize the impact of those products on the Canadian economy, on certain businesses, and on copyright violations. However, the necessary means must be available.

It is difficult to get a clear idea of the situation with the data from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for example, or the Canadian Intellectual Property Council, which produced a document on how to stop counterfeiting in the Canadian market. What types of products cross borders? Which products do we manage to intercept?

The NDP made a very good recommendation in committee on how to measure the impact of this bill. Indeed, after its implementation, we will have to find out whether Canada is really combatting counterfeiting effectively. Unfortunately, that recommendation was ignored.

However, I must admit that when the bill was studied in committee, the government agreed to amendments that would clarify the bill. I commend the government for working with us. This shows once again the importance of studying these bills properly in committee in order to make them better. That was done with this bill when it was studied in committee.

This bill deals with imports and exports. It does not deal with the fact that, without realizing it, a person could cross the border with a counterfeit product for his personal use. This bill only deals with large quantities of goods that would be held at the border when they arrive in Canada. We have to make that distinction when debating this bill.

Recently, when I was researching a bill on a free trade agreement, I took note of Canada's trade imbalance. In the past 15 years, Canada's imports of manufactured goods have been increasing steadily.

There used to be manufacturers in Canada. There were foundries and factories that made industrial machinery. In the region where I was born, for example, there was a manufacturer of large industrial machines. At that time, Canada was much more self-reliant in terms of manufacturing production. Instead of relying on imports, Canada was independent, that is to say it had a very strong manufacturing sector. We made the clothes we wore, and we built the machines used to make telephones and all kinds of parts.

In the town where I was born, there was a die casting plant that made parts for snowmobiles, cars and so forth. We no longer have this large manufacturing sector. We import more and more parts from other countries. The trade imbalance is due to the incredibly large number of all kinds of parts that we import, and this makes it increasingly difficult to know under what conditions they are manufactured. These are things I wonder about.

That is why we need a bill like this to fight counterfeiting. Canada is becoming increasingly dependent on parts of all kinds that are used in the manufacture of the equipment we use. Bill C-8 adequately addresses the problems I just raised. It helps protect us from some of these counterfeit parts, drugs and trademarks.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her remarks. We are always acknowledging the skill of my colleague, who does good research and provides relevant examples throughout her presentations. However, there is one image she evoked in her speech that struck me and stayed with me for the 20 minutes that she spoke.

In the very first words of her speech, she said that Bill C-8 is a first step. We have heard this expression many times. The image that came to mind is that with a first step we are not actually going anywhere. We need to take at least two steps to move forward. One step can be used to pivot and skirt around the subject, but it does not move us forward.

In the case of Bill C-8, it seems to me that the second step was proposed by the NDP in a very good amendment, which called on Parliament to produce an annual report based on RCMP seizures, in order to have the clearest possible picture of a situation that is hard to grasp, as it has to do with the black market.

Given the Conservatives' refusal to adopt the proposed amendment, why have they not managed to come up with a plan to collect better data, which would allow us to take the second step and give us the sense that we are making progress?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for such a relevant question. While he was asking his question, I was reflecting on the lack of data.

How will this bill actually be enforced? How much money will be invested? If we keep flying by the seat of our pants, how will we know what impact counterfeiting is having on the Canadian economy? What effective measures could we be using? Did we listen to the people who will have to enforce the legislation?

When the bill was introduced, I met with people from the Canada Border Services Agency. They said that right now they do not have the means to tackle such a broad, complex issue.

A number of questions remain unanswered. Will the government move forward? Will it allocate the necessary resources? We have our doubts.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

Since her arrival in the House, she has done a wonderful job with the economic development files, which can be extremely complex at times. She is one of the MPs who knows the most about industry and co-operatives. I want to commend her on the extraordinary work she is doing.

Her speech was both very detailed and very impressive, and in it she mentioned cuts and the possibility of strengthening the legislation.

Could she share her thoughts on the cuts to border services and the public service, which are eroding the public sector as a whole?

Could she also talk about strengthening the bill's provisions?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his encouraging words and his compliments. I also thank him for being here with us during the long nights we have spent here in the House.

We have some interesting numbers about cuts to border services. What we have to keep in mind when we are talking about counterfeiting is that this is a very complex world that operates internationally. We have major ports like the ones in Vancouver and Montreal. We have to know what goes on with investigations there. Are resources provided for that both upstream and downstream? Have appropriate techniques been developed?

Personally, I think that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Do we have ways to fight counterfeiting effectively? The question is not whether counterfeiting is a problem we have to solve. There have been some very well-known cases affecting people's health and safety. What tools do we have not only for detecting and preventing counterfeiting, but also for prosecuting counterfeiters and enforcing penalties when necessary?

This bill gives border services and the minister more powers. That is because the government is focused more on reacting than on preventing.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech.

I was very interested in the part of her speech where she said that in the town where she was born there were industries that have probably disappeared today. I was born in Laval. I still live there and there are many pharmaceutical companies.

If we do not pass this bill, I am wondering if the same thing could happen and if the pharmaceutical companies in Laval will disappear.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question.

I am pleased that my colleague asked it, because we have seen a lot of research centres and pharmaceutical research labs shut down. This is a huge loss for Quebec, and particularly for the Laval region. These are good, well-paying jobs.

This provides just a little window on the complex nature of intellectual property and on the impact of agreements. I want to talk about the infamous agreement that has not yet been ratified. With great pomp and fanfare, the government went to Belgium to sign an agreement, but we still know nothing of the content and scope of that agreement or what kind of impact it will have. We do not know what impact it will have on pharmaceutical research centres. That was one of the contentious issues with the Canada-EU free trade agreement. For example, we did not know how long patents would be valid for. Apparently, pharmaceutical companies have already closed several research centres, which resulted in job losses, to our great dismay.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions between the parties, and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at 12 midnight.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Therefore, pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 9:22 p.m.)

The House resumed from June 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-8 this morning. I will start off with an example that I think people would be able to relate to on why it is important that we bring forward legislation of this nature.

As everyone knows, Winnipeg had the opportunity to have the Winnipeg Jets NHL franchise. That was just a couple of years ago now. At the time, there was a great deal of hype built around the Winnipeg Jets, what the new logo was going to look like, and so forth. It was kept secret until a certain release date when the new logo was announced.

When that business plan was developed, part of the business plan included the sale of merchandise, wanting to capitalize, no doubt, on the fresh, newly minted Winnipeg Jets. The NHL franchise came up with a very unique and, I suggest, wonderful logo. Within months of the release of that logo, NHL material was authorized, copyrighted, and so forth, and was up for sale. Many would argue the price was a little steep for these NHL freshly minted Winnipeg Jet jerseys, at well over $100 each, but it was the authentic jersey, the real thing, if I can put it that way.

Within weeks of the release of the logo, jerseys started appearing that were not authorized. They were infringements on the copyright. What ended up happening was that it caused quite a bit of a commotion, and I can appreciate why. The NHL and the Winnipeg Jets franchise were quite concerned about how this counterfeit product was being produced in such a quick fashion and being sold to the thousands of Manitobans and many others who were quite fascinated and wanted to purchase some of this merchandise. It had a fairly profound impact in terms of sales and the franchise would argue that, ultimately, it lost a great deal of revenue because of it.

I use that as just an example of why it is that, as a Parliament, we need to provide protections for the copyrights of entrepreneurs and others. That is, in essence, what Bill C-8 is really all about.

It would create new civil causes of action with respect to sustaining commercial activities in infringing copies and counterfeit trademarked goods. It would also create new criminal offences for trademark counterfeiting that are similar to existing offences in the Copyright Act. It would create new criminal offences prohibiting the possession or exporting of infringing copies or counterfeit trademarked goods, packaging or labels.

It would also enact new border enforcement measures enabling customs officers to detain goods that they suspect infringe copyright or trademark rights, and allowing them to share information relating to the detained goods with rights owners who have filed a request for assistance, in order to give the rights owners a reasonable opportunity to pursue a remedy in court. It would exempt the importation and exportation of copies and goods by an individual for his or her personal use from the application of the border measures.

It would also add the offence set out in the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act to the list of offences set out in the Criminal Code for the investigation of which police may seek judicial authorization to use a wiretap.

The enactment also amends the Trade-marks Act to, among other things, expand the scope of what can be registered as a trademark, allowing the Registrar of Trademarks to correct errors that appear in the trademark register, and streamline and modernize the trademark application and opposition process.

My colleague, the member for Toronto Centre, the Liberal Party critic, has done a wonderful job ensuring that the Liberal Party was well represented at the committee stage, getting and providing positive feedback. On occasion, she did propose amendments. Unfortunately, the government did not see the merits of the amendments, which were ultimately defeated. It is somewhat sad to see, given the importance of the legislation, that the government did not allow amendments to pass, whether Liberal or New Democratic.

Yesterday, I was talking about the importance of the committee stage and how we can improve legislation by bringing forward amendments. One of the things we have noticed with the majority Conservative government is that its attitude toward amendments in committee is not positive at all. The government seems to be of the opinion that unless an amendment originates from a Conservative member of Parliament, or more particularly, from the ministry or the Prime Minister's office, that amendment should not pass. That seems to be a general rule that applies to all pieces of legislation, which is most unfortunate given the importance of trying to pass good, solid legislation.

The idea and principle behind legislation going to the committee stage is one of allowing members to participate and be engaged in the process. If members feel they have something to contribute they can bring forward amendments, either on their behalf or behalf of their political party, as the Liberal Party critic attempted to do.

There are a number of things that are worthy of noting. In terms of the actual cost, the RCMP has increased, virtually fivefold since 2005 to 2012, the number of seizures that have taken place. As members can appreciate, we are talking about millions of dollars' worth of product. This really emphasizes the degree to which the RCMP, if they are engaged on the file, are finding that much more counterfeit product being recognized.

We know there is a great deal of counterfeit product coming in through the Internet. There are many different ways in which one could sell product over the Internet. At the end of the day, we suspect there is a great deal of counterfeit product being sold through the Internet. We challenge the government to be more proactive in regard to that particular issue. As an example, I made reference to the Winnipeg Jets. Once could also talk about other consumer products.

The other day someone brought this issue to my attention with regard to purses. If one were to go into some of the more upscale commercial facilities, purses sell in the neighbourhood of $400 to $600. They can be very expensive. Copies provided by someone who is prepared to infringe on copyright and provide a duplicate that is incredibly close to the original are sold for a fraction of the cost. There might be a retail value on a certain type of purse at the upper end, somewhere around $450 to $500, but through unethical organizations or business individuals, they can produce that purse at a substantially lower cost and then undersell the retailer. Instead of $450, they might be able to sell that same look-alike purse for $30 to $40 and still make a substantial profit. These are the types of things we need to be aware of. As more and more consumers look to the Internet to acquire goods, I suspect this is going to be a larger problem going forward.

Today through our border officers and customs agents, we get a great deal of commercial activity. One of the areas that is really growing is the Internet. This is something the government has fallen short on in terms of providing some sort of assurance or protection for copyrighted material.

It is also important for us to recognize that even though the legislation is a step forward in the right direction, as I have tried to emphasize, it could have done so much more. One of the things I want to emphasize is that even though there is more power going to our Canada border control, we need to put that into perspective in terms of what the government has done in recent budgets in terms of cutbacks to border control and customs offices.

On the one hand, we recognize there is a problem with copyright and trademark infringements. A major aspect of that problem comes from international borders where product comes in or is leaving, which is growing every day. On the other hand, we have a government that is reducing the resources that are being allocated at our borders.

I have a difficult time with that. There is a larger problem and it continues to grow. The government responds by saying it has legislation, Bill C-8, which is its attempt to deal with the problem. Conservatives present it and try to appease the different stakeholders by saying they brought in the legislation to deal with this issue, but on the other hand, they did not provide the proper resources for our customs officers and border control people to provide the types of assurances through checks, and so forth, that show we are serious about dealing with it, that we are compensating product and ensuring there is a consequence to those who are trying to illegally bring in material for resale purposes.

Yes, it is great to see that we have legislation before us today and it is a step in the right direction, but we should not try to give false impressions because the legislation is only one aspect of this. The other aspect is to ensure that we provide additional resources to our law enforcement agencies. This is where the government has really fallen short.

As I indicated, the Liberal Party has some concerns with regard to the legislation. We recognize the need to provide new enforcement tools to help strengthen Canada's existing enforcement regime for counterfeit goods. We believe that the Canadian business and industry associations must be protected to ensure the well-being of those domestic businesses and the health and safety of Canadians, as well as the integrity of the Canadian economy as a whole. When we make reference to the issue of health and safety, this is something that quite often gets overlooked.

Whether it is medication or something that might be used for prescriptions, there are many products being brought into Canada, and we do not know if those products are safe for use.

I have emphasized that the Liberal Party would like to investigate how e-commerce may provide a loophole for counterfeit products. That is why I have suggested that the government has missed an opportunity where there may be great deal of potential abuse. I suggest that the government might want to reconsider.

Border officers are not copyright experts. They do their best, and we must compliment them on the fantastic job they do. Having said that, they would be given new and increased powers that are not overseen by courts, which may lead to some illegitimate seizures and violations of the Charter of Rights. To what degree has that been taken into consideration?

There are several further concerns that have been raised. If there are more seizures due to increased powers for border officers and the RCMP, how will the government fund these extensive investigative operations? Should genuine non-counterfeit products be seized and destroyed, how will the government compensate companies and individuals that might have been exploited? Moreover, how will the government protect the information of legitimate importers from potential misuse of the request-for-assistance mechanism? How will the government determine whether importers of counterfeit products are aware that products are counterfeit? These are the types of questions that have been raised. We have found that the government has been wanting in terms of providing the answers.

Why are there no provisions for counterfeit goods being shipped through Canada? That is a bit of a surprise. The legislation does not seem to deal with that issue. We know that counterfeit products will come into Canada and ultimately leave Canada. How big the problem is, it is hard to say. To what degree do we have products coming into Canada, being labelled as coming from Canada, and being sent to other regions? These are legitimate concerns.

There is so much one could say about this particular bill. However, at the end of the day, it is about protecting Canada's economy and ensuring that we bring in legislation that enhances our economic activity. This is something that is important to the Liberal Party as we strive to ensure that the middle class is given the opportunity to grow and prosper. Legislation of this nature, if it is done properly, will actually protect jobs. It will ensure that Canadians are healthy and that the products they are acquiring are legitimate products from the original manufacturers.

If I pay a price believing that I have acquired something that is under trademark or copyright, I would like to think that this is what I am receiving. The Government of Canada has a role to play in that.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments on this important piece of legislation. I heard him discuss the inadequacy of the government's actions. During the 12 years of successive majority Liberal governments, what actions did the Liberals take to combat counterfeiting to protect Canadian consumers? Perhaps he could explain that to the House, because I certainly was not here then. What kind of investment did they make in border services to ensure that there was effective enforcement of any goods coming in or going out of the country?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I made reference to the fact that in the last five or six years, we have seen counterfeit products acquired by legal authorities increase fivefold.

I have noticed that in a recent days the NDP members have, as much as possible and wherever possible, taken shots at the Liberal Party. That is fine. I can appreciate that they are a little sensitive in terms of their potential future and what might lie ahead.

Having said that, I can assure the member that there was adequate funding of resources, such as border controls, that was maintained, whether through the Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin governments. The greatest deficiency today is that the government has instituted cutbacks in border control and to a certain degree in the RCMP. That will have a negative impact on protecting us from copyright infringement and from those who choose to break the law.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

I am pleased to join the debate today on Bill C-8, an act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. People watching at home might think this is something that does not really concern them, that it is an arcane piece of legislation that does not affect their daily lives. I want to emphasize to them that, in fact, this is something that affects Canadian jobs, Canadian consumers, and Canadian safety in our homes and in our communities.

In brief, the purpose of the bill is to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trademark rights and to basically curtail counterfeit goods coming into Canada. Specifically, it would add two new criminal offences under the copyright act for the possession and export of infringing copies. It would create offences for selling and offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. It would create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods.

It would introduce some balance to that prohibition by creating two new exemptions. One is personal use, and this is important. In other words, a person might have something in his or her personal possession, perhaps in personal baggage, that happens to be counterfeit and he or she does not know it. The second is for items that are in transit control.

It grants new ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies or counterfeit goods. That is a significant policy shift, because until now, border officials required private rights holders to get a court order before seizing or infringing any copies or goods.

There are other measures as well, but let me, in the limited time I have, elaborate a bit on what this means for Canadians. Most of the counterfeit goods that come into Canada today are from China, but some come in from the U.S. and some other countries. How does this affect Canadian jobs? Companies that manufacture here in Canada, that trademark their name on the quality and value of the product people buy, become subject to cheap knock-offs that get sold at discount prices.

Let me give a very specific example. On a cold winter day, all across Canada, we can see many people wearing Canada Goose jackets and coats. Canada Goose jackets have a distinctive logo that is very clear to see. The coats are fairly expensive, but they are super warm and good quality and when people buy them, they know that they are getting that quality. These coats are made here in Canada. They are designed here. They are manufactured here under tight quality controls. Canadian workers make these coats. They do an excellent job and provide good value. For these cheap knock-offs that come in, we have no idea what the labour conditions are. They could be produced in very hazardous conditions. They could be produced by child labour. We have no idea of the conditions that these, or any counterfeit products, are produced under.

Consumers might think they are getting a heck of deal. These are expensive products, and if they can get them on sale online cheaply, why not do it?

Let me quote Canada Goose. It talks about counterfeits of its products that have come into Canada.

Made illegally in factories in Asia, the fake jackets are found on many rogue websites as well as in the flea markets of Shanghai, Beijing and Bangkok. Counterfeiting is illegal. It often funds organized crime and counterfeit factories in regions where labour standards are lax and often employ child labour.

Counterfeiting is not only illegal, but also dangerous.

After analyzing the content of counterfeit jackets, we know that instead of the sanitized, Canadian down used by Canada Goose, counterfeiters often use feather mulch or other fillers. These materials are often coated in bacteria, fungus or mildew, posing significant health risks to unsuspecting consumers. As well, raccoon, dog or other unknown animal hair may be used in place of our functional coyote fur ruff.

Even more frightening is that for a person in cold climate, an authentic Canada Goose parka could mean the difference between life and death. Without real down and fur, the chance of frostbite or freezing becomes a real possibility.

This is one very concrete example of what the proposed legislation is designed to combat.

We also have examples of counterfeit batteries that have exploded. There are a number of cases of children being burned by products that had counterfeit batteries in them. The bill is designed to combat that, and certainly New Democrats support the notion of dealing with counterfeiting.

For those who are concerned about what this might mean for the Internet, the proposed legislation does not deal with websites. It does not block content or take down websites. As I outlined earlier, infringement goods are limited to personal exemption in one's personal baggage.

New Democrats support taking on this issue and dealing with counterfeit goods. However, I will say that it is difficult to understand how a bill like this would be implemented when the Conservatives' 2012 budget cut $143 million in funding from border services. That means that the very border guards who would be required to enforce the legislation would have less resources to do that.

Those budget cuts in 2013-14 meant a loss of 549 full-time equivalent jobs between now and 2015. What is more, under the bill, customs officers would need special training because they would be asked to make highly complicated assessments of whether goods entering or exiting the country infringe on any copyright or trademark rights. This is an assessment that sometimes the courts themselves struggle with, yet we would ask border guards to adequately implement the bill and protect Canadians and our borders without a full complement of staff.

The NDP will be supporting the bill at third reading. We think it is important that we deal with copyright in order to protect Canadian jobs and consumers, and certainly for the health and safety aspects, where we have seen real problems in the past.

The bill speaks to the notion of labour rights and making sure that people have adequate protections in the workplace. However, we do not want to, through shoddy or weak enforcement of the bill, inadvertently be subsidizing counterfeit goods or organized crime that trades in counterfeit goods.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech. She spoke about many aspects of the bill. Of course, the NDP supports the fight against counterfeiting, but we want to be sure that the measures are balanced for both rights owners and consumers.

She also made a brief allusion to the economic impact that counterfeiting has on the economy in general. Can she explain what this bill does to address that negative impact on the economy?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for that important question.

Clearly, there will be economic consequences if we refuse to allow counterfeit products into the country, and it is difficult to measure the scope of the problem. However, the federal government was wrong not to properly assess the impact that counterfeit products have on the Canadian market.

It is a good idea to try and block counterfeit products because that is how we will defend Canadian jobs and protect our economy.

The fact remains that billions of dollars' worth of counterfeit products are likely entering our country every year, and we do not know the true extent of this problem.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Parkdale—High Park for her work as our industry critic and for her work on this file. I know that counterfeit products are a big problem.

The member mentioned cases coming from China, but what she highlighted and what was really important for me was that while the government is coming up with new regulations and laws, and we support them because they are a step forward, in practice the government is cutting resources.

We have seen it happening in transport. We saw it with what happened in Lac-Mégantic, where costs were cut with respect to the organization of Transport Canada and less surveillance. We also saw it with XL Foods, because the government has been cutting inspectors.

What are the impacts of government cuts with respect to the borders? The government is saying one thing, but its actions are saying another.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. He spoke about rail safety and Lac-Mégantic. Tank cars like the ones that exploded in Lac-Mégantic go right across the northern boundary of my riding every single day. I can tell the member that people are very concerned about the impact of cuts to government offices and inspectors, and the move to self-regulation.

We had a community meeting on this exact issue a couple of weeks back. It was a packed community meeting with residents who were very concerned and who had very basic questions that they were hoping to ask Transport Canada. Sadly, the minister refused to allow any officials from Transport Canada to attend that meeting.

It is really parallel to the enforcement of counterfeit goods. Whether we are trying to protect Canadians from runaway tank cars or food poisoning, or whether we are trying to protect consumers from counterfeit goods, we not only need the laws in place, but we need the staff and the public investment to enforce that.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill touches on relatively complex issues such as copyright, intellectual property, trademark rights and the ethical and legal challenges related to Internet regulations. There are many types of counterfeit products, and depending on the case, Canadians can suffer very different consequences. As with the Criminal Code, some infractions could endanger peoples' lives or safety, while others have economic consequences. When it comes right down to it, counterfeiting is a form of fraud and, like all fraud, sooner or later it will affect Canadians' quality of life.

The International Chamber of Commerce “puts the cost of lost tax revenue and additional welfare spending due to counterfeit goods up to USD 125 billion in developed countries alone. And 2.5 million jobs have been lost as a result of fake products.”

Globalization makes it easier for countries to engage in trade, thus considerably increasing the opportunities for this type of activity. The counterfeit products intercepted in Canada in 2012 and seized by the RCMP were worth nearly $40 million a year. That number has increased more than fivefold in the past 10 years, from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012.

By 2015, the International Chamber of Commerce expects the value of counterfeit goods globally to exceed $1.7 billion U.S. That is over 2% of the world's total current economic output.

The government introduced this bill on March 1, 2013, as Bill C-56. Interestingly, that very same day, the U.S. International Trade Administration published a report asking Canada to adopt specific measures in line with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to combat counterfeiting in Canada. Specifically, it recommended that customs officers be given the necessary authority to intercept suspicious goods.

The problem is that Canada has not yet ratified the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement despite the fact that it signed the agreement on October 1, 2011. For its part, the European Parliament rejected the agreement, which means that neither the European Union nor any of its member states will be able to ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the United States and Europe, Canada seems to want to have its cake and eat it too by taking a vague position on the importance of combating this phenomenon without talking about the agreement specifically.

The American authorities can certainly suggest that the Canadian government improve its customs services and give them the authority they need to seize or at least intercept products that they suspect are counterfeit, but nothing can force the government to allocate the necessary resources. Without adequate training for officers and additional resources for inspection services, especially the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and customs, they can write whatever they want.

Not only do officers have to know all of the laws in addition to the Customs Act and details about trade agreements that have a bearing on these issues, they also have to have the expertise to recognize problematic situations and counterfeit goods. However, the government is cutting jobs and the agency's budget the same way it is cutting other departments and organizations.

We always get the same answer: the cuts are not affecting services. However, we must not kid ourselves. Border officers did not have these responsibilities before this bill was implemented, and with the staff cutbacks, there are fewer people doing the same amount of work. The agency was asked to cut back by at least 10%, as were all departments and agencies, which has resulted in a shortfall of over $140 million since 2012. The border officers' union said that some 1,000 jobs would be lost over the next few years as a result of those budget cuts.

In fact, that was one of the main criticisms of the members of the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, a not-for-profit group made up of individuals, businesses and associations that have joined forces to combat fraud, counterfeiting and copyright violations. In a letter to the Minister of Industry prior to the parliamentary committee's study of Bill C-8, which we are currently debating, the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network outlined five contentious issues in the bill, including the lack of resources.

The letter states, and I quote:

While the Bill empowers Canadian customs officers more than before, we are concerned that insufficient resources may be allocated to allow for effective enforcement by CBSA.

We fully agree that more powers need to be given to border services officers. However, they must know what their rights and responsibilities are, since they will have no legal supervision. The agency must also have the resources needed to train them and properly enforce this legislation.

The Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network is currently fulfilling its mandate by helping to train customs officers and members of various police forces to recognize fraud and counterfeit products. In committee, the group's representative expressed his frustration with staff turnover and layoffs. He said:

I'm continually frustrated by the fact that it's like a drop in the bucket. If we go to the Niagara Falls border and train 50 border guards, as we did last year, and then come back in three months, 50% of them have gone on to other jobs, and we start over again. It's very difficult to maintain a level of understanding of what products look like.

They need some help on their side, and we're willing to help them, but we don't have funding either.

Let us be clear: strengthening the rules and legislation on counterfeiting is a good idea, but we have to put words into action.

According to a number of witnesses, the financial burden that comes with penalties and the administrative costs of a seizure falls to the rights owners, who are already stung by the counterfeiting.They therefore become financially responsible for the legislation put in place to protect their rights. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology heard from several witnesses about that, including Michael Geist, Wayne Edwards and Martin Lavoie.

At the very least, I would like to cite part of the testimony by Michael Geist, who is well known in the field of digital law and copyright:

Further, detention of goods can be used to harm small Canadian businesses that could find the goods they are seeking to import detained, oftentimes by competitors. The absence of a misuse provision in this bill is particularly notable in this regard.

Those remarks were echoed by Martin Lavoie of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association:

...I would like to raise a number of concerns that we and our members have with the bill in its current form.

One of them is about the responsibility of the right holder—or in other words, the victim of counterfeiting—to pay the fees associated with the detention and destruction of goods. We do not understand the rationale for this.

We believe that the importers should be responsible for these costs, since they are the ones introducing these goods into our country in the first place. They should not be given a free ride. Where is the disincentive [for importers of counterfeit products] in that? Moreover, these costs, which will largely be incurred in court proceedings, are likely to be onerous and difficult to support for smaller companies that are the victims of counterfeiting. I know that you've heard this from other witnesses. We share this concern.

That is a concern that we on this side of the House also share. We are going to support this bill at third reading, but it is important to recognize that the bill still has shortcomings that were not corrected by the committee.

The NDP proposed nine amendments, which were all rejected. The only amendments that were accepted were technical amendments. This happens regularly in every committee when the Conservatives see certain flaws in their bills.

Like all opposition parties, our role as the official opposition is not only to oppose—which will not be the case with Bill C-8 since we are going to support it—but also to point out any significant flaws in the text and any negative effects that the government did not take into account when drafting and examining the bill. We therefore strongly criticize the government for failing to listen to the arguments made by the opposition.

We are going to support this bill, since it is a step in the right direction on the important issue of counterfeiting. Given that trade with our major trade partner, the United States, is fairly free, this is a way to coordinate our efforts in the fight against counterfeiting, a practice for which there is no justification. As I mentioned earlier, counterfeiting is a type of fraud that must be dealt with.

Will the government now put words into action? Will it provide the resources necessary to implement this bill and ensure that border and other officials responsible for identifying and seizing counterfeit goods can do their work effectively?

With regard to funding for these agencies, whether it be border services, food inspection or customs as a whole, the government still has a long way to go to ensure that Bill C-8 becomes law and that authorities have the strength and power to enforce it.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on one particular part of the bill. I had the privilege of being on the industry committee when this bill was before it and had the opportunity to talk a little with the RCMP and border services officers who were going to be enforcing the bill. One of the questions they were asked is whether there are any numbers on how many Canadian manufacturers have been convicted of importing or exporting counterfeited goods. The superintendent of the RCMP did not have those figures at hand, which is fair enough, so we asked whether he could provide the committee with a written response.

The written response to the committee stated that the RCMP information systems do not capture or track a sufficient level of details in order to provide the number of Canadian manufacturers that are convicted of importing or exporting counterfeit goods. It seemed odd to the committee that we have no way of actually tracking the problem. How do we decide what kinds of resources we need to bring to bear on the problem if we do not know the magnitude of it?

New Democrats moved an amendment asking that Parliament receive annual reports with information on detainments that were made under this scheme. I wonder if the member wants to comment on whether he supports that amendment and why he thinks it is an important one.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I followed her work on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, a file previously under my responsibility. Industry and trademark issues are very interesting.

My colleague has raised an important question because this is not the only file where the government has not paid attention to elements important to the application of future legislation. The government must give the agencies, in this case the RCMP, the powers and resources they need to do their job.

How can we ensure that the work is done properly if we do not have the ability to monitor progress made in terms of their capacity to detect and seize counterfeit goods or even to improve processes that can help border services officers or the RCMP do a better job?

Data collection is an important aspect, whether in the private sector or, in this case, the public sector. It helps ensure that effective tools are available or that existing tools are improved so people can do a better job. In that sense, it is fine to feel good about a bill that has more teeth, but we must help these officers effectively detect counterfeiting.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech.

He mentioned the fact that this work at the border is vital because it stops the counterfeit goods. However, cuts to the CBSA budget will reduce the number of front-line officers and impair our capacity to monitor our borders.

We will support this bill. However, can my colleague tell us whether this bill will attain its objectives with respect to counterfeiting?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Saint-Lambert raised an excellent point.

Indeed, that point was raised in committee by people such as border officers, who are on the front lines when it comes to enforcing this proposed bill. The border officers' union raised two specific problems, contrary to what the Conservative government has claimed.

The first problem is downsizing. In the coming years, we expect that border services will lose 1,000 positions as a result of cuts. The second problem has to do with training. If there is no stability within border services, meaning that border crossings are being shut down and reopened, as was the case in Niagara Falls, we lose people who were already trained and who would simply need to update their skills, especially when it comes to detecting these goods. We are losing them because they have no job security.

These people eventually turn to other fields. Not only are we losing these resources, but we are also losing the training that was invested in them. We are forced to start from scratch. Those are two extremely relevant points raised by the union that represents border officers and that the government and proponents of the bill have not addressed.

This is very unfortunate, and we have some concerns on this side of the House that do not necessarily have to do with the effectiveness of the bill—even if it does have some flaws that could potentially be fixed—but rather with the ability to implement and enforce this bill properly.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for my colleague. He raised two issues. If he has the time, I would like him to talk about the enforcement and monitoring of the proposed rules and the proposals that were made. How can it all be improved?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it would be difficult to respond to that in 30 seconds. I think that is all the time I have.

There are improvements to be made to this bill, which is not perfect. A number of criticisms were not considered by the committee. I think that once the bill passes, we will have to ensure that the resources are there to enforce it. That is the most important thing once the bill passes.

The House resumed from September 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-8, the combating counterfeit products act. What a great short title for a bill. Who could possibly not be against counterfeit products coming into our country, especially when they may pose serious health and safety risks for Canadians? Certainly New Democrats are against that. However, despite the fact that the bill tries to frame the debate in the now infamous George Bush way of suggesting “you are either with us, or you're against us”, my NDP colleagues and I take our responsibilities here in the House very seriously, and we proposed a number of amendments that would have vastly improved the bill, so yes, despite supporting the thrust of the bill, we were at times critical of some of its provisions.

Let me not get ahead of myself. I will speak to our proposed amendments in due course. First though, let me spend a moment commenting on the bill as a whole. Bill C-8 would amend both the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act so as to strengthen enforcement of copyright and trademark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies or counterfeit trademark goods.

To that end, the bill would add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act, for possession and exportation of infringing copies, and create offences for selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. It would also create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods and introduce some balance to that prohibition by creating two exceptions: one, for personal use, meaning items in one's possession or baggage; and two, for items that are in transit.

On the enforcement side, the bill would grant new ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies or counterfeit goods. This is a significant policy shift. Until now, border officials required private rights holders to obtain a court order before seizing infringing copies or goods. I will have much more to say about that in a moment, but first let me continue with my quick overview of Bill C-8.

The bill would also grant new ex officio powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detained goods with rights holders. Lastly, it would widen the scope of what can be trademarked to the features found in the broad definition of “sign”, including colour, shapes, scents, taste, et cetera.

There can be no doubt that dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important to both Canadian businesses and consumers, especially as I said before, where counterfeit goods may put the health or safety of Canadians at risk. However the bill is only as good as its enforcement. The strongest laws in the world do not mean a thing if governments are not willing to dedicate the necessary resources to crack down on counterfeit products coming into our country. When I look at the Conservative government's track record in that regard, I fear that we might be creating a paper tiger.

It is very difficult to see how a bill like this would be implemented, when last year alone the Conservatives slashed $143 million in funding to the Canada Border Services Agency, which further reduced front-line officers and harmed the agency's ability to monitor our borders. In fact, CBSA's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss of 549 full-time employees by 2015.

When I asked the minister about that at committee, he said that no new resources would be needed to implement the bill, but that means that border officials and the RCMP would have to reallocate existing resources to enforce this new law and that begs two questions. Which of the functions that they are currently performing to keep Canadians safe are they going to drop to enforce Bill C-8; or are they really not going to get serious about combatting counterfeit goods, in which case, why are we passing this bill? We never did get a satisfactory answer to that question, but it is a point that we will continue to press because it is critical to the successful fight against counterfeiting.

I want to move on now to a different issue. Canadians will remember that my NDP colleagues and I have often criticized the Conservative government for failing to take a balanced approach to copyright legislation in the past. The government's record was far from stellar. I do want to give the government some credit where credit is due. Bill C-8 contains important measures to protect consumer and individual rights, and my NDP colleagues and I worked hard at committee to make sure that these measures were maintained and strong.

When dealing with intellectual property, it is imperative that we adopt an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. At first, alarm bells went off when the deputy minister for the Department of Industry said that Bill C-8 would bring Canada in line with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA contains copyright provisions that have been heavily criticized for failing to achieve this necessary balance. The European parliament rejected ACTA after an unprecedented outcry because its benefits were far outweighed by the threats to civil liberties.

Those threats included the risk of criminalizing individuals, concerns about the definition of “commercial scale”, the role of Internet service providers, and the possible interruption of the transit of generic medicines. In the end, the European Parliament rejected the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement.

I was therefore happy to see that Bill C-8 is much narrower than ACTA and that it contains a number of provisions that offer balance. There are important personal-use exceptions and exceptions for goods that are in transit. Most important, the bill does not address Internet service providers. Therefore, while my NDP colleagues and I continue to be concerned about the broader provisions in ACTA, we are comfortable supporting Bill C-8.

Ironically, it was the Liberal Party that, at committee, threatened to undermine the important balance that Bill C-8 struck. In fact, it moved two amendments that we worked hard to defeat precisely for that reason.

The first Liberal amendment was to remove the personal-use exception for individual travellers, a provision my NDP colleagues and I believe is absolutely crucial to bringing some balance to the bill.

As Dr. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, put it in his blog:

Given that personal use exceptions are even included in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, it is shocking to see any party proposing their removal, which would result in longer delays at the border and increased searches of individual travellers...“this was one of the important provisions that brought some balance to the bill.”

Professor Jeremy de Beer added that:

...the personal use exception...[is] important...to make the whole system workable, manageable, and cost-effective. It's not possible to do everything within the resource allocations and the training parameters that our agents are provided with. So the system in the bill as it is creates a very pragmatic, workable starting point, and I would encourage us just to leave it there.

Thankfully, the Conservatives agreed with us, and the Liberal amendment was defeated.

The same was true of the Liberal amendment to add statutory damages to the bill. Having already proposed removing the personal exception for travellers and a simplified procedure for the seizure of goods that would remove court oversight in the destruction of goods in a greater number of cases, the Liberals proposed an amendment to add statutory damages, with a mandatory minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $100,000 in liability. The provision would limit the discretion of judges to order damages based on the evidence.

Again, I am going to quote the expert testimony by Dr. Geist at our committee:

With respect [to trademarks], statutory damages...are unnecessary. Rights holders frequently cite the specific value of their goods and the harms associated with counterfeiting. If the claims are accurate, demonstrating the value for the purpose of a damage award should not be difficult.

Moreover, other countries have experienced problems with statutory damages for trademarks. For example, Taiwan reformed its trademarks statutory damages provision when courts began awarding disproportionate awards. In the U.S., statutory damages for trademarks has led to trademark trolls engaging in litigation designed primarily to obtain costly settlements against small businesses that can ill afford to fight in court.

Again, my NDP colleagues and I were adamant that this amendment be defeated, because it not only undermined the delicate balance achieved by Bill C-8 but actually went beyond what even ACTA had envisioned.

Not all proposed amendments were bad, however, and as I said at the outset, there were sections of the bill that could, and should, have been strengthened. To that end, I want to spend the remainder of the time available to me here to highlight just a few of the amendments my NDP colleagues and I moved in committee in a sincere effort to improve the bill.

The first was one that all parties ended up agreeing to, which was that we needed to return to the original definition of “distinctive” in the Trade-marks Act.

I understand that squabbling about definitions may seem as exciting as watching paint dry, but in this case, it was important that we get it right.

As the generic drug industry persuasively argued before our committee, there is significant case law to make it possible for a generic version of a drug to have the same colour, shape, and size as the brand-name drug with the same effect. This is absolutely crucial for the patients who are using those drugs, since any confusion could have deadly consequences.

To throw that case law into doubt by changing the existing definition for no demonstrably important reason made no sense to any of us on the committee.

I am pleased to say that the original definition is now restored in Bill C-8. Sadly, the spirit of co-operation did not extend to other amendments that would have been equally important to ensuring that the intent of the bill was actually reflected in its language. For example, the NDP moved amendments to Bill C-8 that would have ensured that parallel imports would be excluded from the bill's reach.

Intellectual property lawyer Howard Knopf told us:

The bill should propose appropriate declaratory language for both the Copyright Act and Trade-marks Act that makes is [sic] absolutely clear that, with the exception of the sui generis book importation scheme now found in s. 27.1 of the Copyright Act, neither of these acts shall in any way restrict the importation, distribution or sale of any product, whether tangible or digital, that has been manufactured or first put on the market anywhere in the world with authorization.

This is crucial, because parallel importation is an important tool for many businesses for participating in perfectly legal trade, which we would not want to discourage, yet the bill is unclear as to whether trade like this could unintentionally get caught under this bill. We of course continue to expect that important health and safety standards are met by all parallel imports, but at the same time, we want to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses, and in fact businesses of every kind, can continue to engage in parallel importation.

We heard from Jeremy de Beer at committee. He said:

...I've consulted with a number of my expert colleagues, other intellectual property experts—we don't understand how this doesn't apply to parallel imports. If it's inadvertent, then it's an easy fix. If everybody agrees this shouldn't apply to parallel imports, then we just add an exception for parallel imports and the matter's closed.

We could not agree more, but unfortunately, the government rejected the amendments that would have added that much-needed clarity to the bill.

Our NDP amendments to create a duty to use the measures of the bill in good faith unfortunately met the same end. The intent of our amendments was to counter vexatious litigation and to prevent a rights holder from using detentions and delays to harm a competitor in cases where there was no legitimate counterfeit infringement concern. This is especially important for small-business owners whose businesses may not be able to survive the costs of malicious or bad-faith claims. Again, this was a concern that was raised in testimony to our committee.

Michael Geist made this clear:

...detention of goods can be used to harm small Canadian businesses that could find the goods they are seeking to import detained, oftentimes by competitors. The absence of a misuse provision in this bill is particularly notable in this regard.

Our amendments should have been seen as friendly. They were in keeping with the spirit of the legislation and simply sought to improve enforcement mechanisms without creating new barriers to competition. Sadly,the government rejected our good-faith efforts to improve the bill.

In a similar vein, we tried to amend Bill C-8 to address the costs that may be borne by small businesses for the wrongful and mistaken detention of goods. As the bill is currently written, it contains a “no liability” provision for the crown and provides for damages against rights holders in cases where court proceedings are dismissed or discontinued. In attempting to strike an appropriate balance between consumer and industry interests, Bill C-8 would place the cost of detaining suspect goods on the rights holder. However, as we heard during testimony at committee, Bill C-8 is clearly lacking misuse provisions to ensure that actors are not engaging in frivolous claims as a means of acting anti-competitively. As a result, our amendments sought to provide the courts with the clear authority to provide for damages where any court action is determined to be frivolous, vexatious, or made in bad faith.

Without creating a new barrier for rights holders to protect their copyright or trademark, this amendment would create a safeguard to ensure the integrity of the system and would protect small businesses from the possibility of a company abusing the provisions of Bill C-8 for anti-competitive purposes rather than for protecting their legitimate intellectual property. Although we again believed that these amendments would be deemed to be friendly by the government, we were mistaken. These two were defeated, and in our view, it was an important missed opportunity to make the bill stronger.

The last NDP amendment I want to highlight here was our effort to create a tool for assessing whether the bill would actually be effective in combatting counterfeit products, as the bill's title would have us believe it would be. When my NDP colleagues and I asked in committee whether it was possible to ascertain the extent of the problem of counterfeit goods coming into our country, the answer was a resounding no. At best, we know the value of the seizures that were made. As the RCMP told us, the retail value of counterfeit goods they seized increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012. However, that does not account for any of the goods that were not detected as they crossed our borders.

That is a significant concern, especially since, as I said earlier, the government has cut the ability of Canada Border Services to do its job by slashing the agency's budget by $143 million. That cut has seriously harmed our ability to monitor our borders.

We know that the problem is bigger than the numbers reflected in the RCMP's seizure stats, but accurately measuring the scale of counterfeit copies and goods in Canada remains difficult. This is owing to the clandestine nature of counterfeiting. In addition to the actual seizures, much of the data are estimates based on anecdotal information or are from industry itself, in which case, the collection methods may be unavailable to assess.

What we do know is that counterfeit products can pose risks to the health and safety of consumers, whether we are talking about counterfeit electrical components, faulty brake pads, or unsanitary stuffing in goose down jackets.

According to the Chamber of Commerce's Canadian Intellectual Property Council, counterfeit batteries have exploded in the desks of police who have stored them, and the acid leaking from counterfeit batteries has caused burns to at least eight Canadian children. It is precisely for those types of safety reasons that it is essential that we know the scope of the problem. How else can we know whether we are assigning the appropriate resources to dealing with the problem of counterfeiting?

When I raised this issue with the Minister of Industry in committee, he acknowledged that there are no more accurate estimates out there. When we asked the RCMP whether it had numbers, just with respect to the number of Canadian manufacturers who have been convicted of importing or exporting counterfeit goods, we were told that it had no figures for that either. Therefore, it seemed to us that the bill could create an important opportunity to require accurate information to be both collected and reported so that Parliament, and more importantly Canadians, would have a better way of evaluating whether we were being successful in addressing the concerns at the heart of this bill. In fact, we were simply echoing the recommendation of the industry committee in 2007, which called on the government to establish a reporting system that would track investigations, charges, and seizures for infringing copies and counterfeit goods as a means of collecting some data.

Our proposed amendment had the support of the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters. Joy Nott, the president and CEO of the organization, responded to a question from me by saying:

Do I support the monitoring of this sort of thing? Absolutely I do. I think that's a great idea because, from a business perspective, business lives on metrics and on data. This is how they help to make decisions. Right now when it comes to copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and the ability to import into Canada, it's a little bit like the wild west in that there's nothing that stops these shipments at the border currently unless the owner of the trademark takes specific, very onerous action through Canadian federal courts to register something.

Since there seemed to be agreement that a reporting requirement would be an important improvement to Bill C-8, we moved an amendment to require an annual report to Parliament with information on detainments made under the bill. We had hoped for information on the number of detainments, the number of requests for assistance under both the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act, and the number of inspections conducted. Sadly, the government members voted to defeat this amendment, and once again confirmed for me that this government has complete disdain for evidence-based decision making.

Despite the fact that our amendments were defeated, we continue to be supportive of the bill as a whole. In this case, at least it is a start. Dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important for both Canadian businesses and consumers. Members can rest assured that with or without a report back to Parliament, we will not stop holding the government to account on this important file. Without adequate resources for enforcement, C-8 will prove to be a paper tiger. That cannot be allowed to happen, especially when the health and safety of Canadians may very well be at risk.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very in-depth speech. It seems to me that we are flying blind on this. My colleague mentioned the fact that there have been a certain number of seizures. However, is there any evidence as to what percentage of the total counterfeiting issue these seizures represent? Is it 10%, 50%, or 30%? I would like to ask my hon. colleague that question.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. The statistic we have is that a quarter of RCMP investigations and seizures of counterfeit products were potentially harmful to consumers in 2011, and that proportion has gone up from 11% in 2005. Both of those were a response to an order paper question that my colleague from Sudbury placed on the order paper. That was the only way we were getting the information from the government.

The question we still have, as I indicated in my speech, is this: when is the government going to focus its efforts, in the area of counterfeiting, on the health, safety, and security of consumers?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest. We saw the main problem with ACTA, and certainly the backlash in Europe. It was the attempt to blur the line between criminal counterfeiting, which we need to go after, and going after individuals who may infringe copyright but are certainly not criminal actors.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the Liberals' attempt to amend the law so that they could stop people travelling internationally and go after them for personal use. This seems to be way beyond what ACTA envisioned and way beyond what anyone else has brought forward. With statutory damages of $100,000 and limiting judges, it seems to me that we are talking about criminalizing a whole class of consumers as opposed to focusing on the real criminal element.

I would like to ask my colleague why she thinks the Liberals came forward with such an extreme position.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, trying to get into the heads of my Liberal colleagues is a very daunting proposition. I am not really prepared to do that.

I do know that when we were at committee my colleagues on our side of the committee room were quite surprised at the Liberals' approach. Every bit of expert testimony we had suggested that their proposed amendment would be a huge infringement on civil liberties. We found ourselves in the very strange position as New Democrats of voting with the Conservatives in maintaining the balance. It is indeed a very crucial balance that we tried to achieve in the bill between consumer rights and still being able to go after counterfeit goods.

I very much appreciate the question. I do not have an answer. I have no idea why the Liberals wanted to infringe civil liberties through the implementation of Bill C-8. It certainly made no sense to us.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize one of the things the Liberal Party has spoken at great lengths about. That is the importance of ensuring the safety and health of our children, in particular, as well as seniors and others. There are many benefits within the legislation that would in fact enable safer importation of pharmaceutical medications, for example. There are many fraudulent games and toys that are brought into the country that have all sorts of potential chemicals put into the paints, and so forth, which are all quite dangerous to our population, our children in particular.

I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment, if the NDP were successful at bringing any amendments, to deal with those two specific issues, pharmaceuticals and children's toys. I use those as examples.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed we were. As I suggested during my speech, particularly with respect to the definition of “distinctive”, as it was rewritten in the bill, it was imperative that we return to the original so that it would be possible for people to have confidence in generic drugs and that we were not inadvertently affecting people's health and safety by making a change in the bill for which there was no demonstrable reason.

One of the things that was really fascinating to me during the committee's deliberations on the bill was the magnitude of counterfeit goods that have been coming into the country. We learned, for example, that many of the counterfeit Canada Goose goose-down jackets have chicken feces and chicken beaks instead of just down in the coats. We heard of batteries exploding and the deaths of police officers. I did not know that when one buys a Team Canada hockey jersey, the way to know whether it is a fake or it is real is to check to see if it was made in Canada. If the jersey was made in Canada, it is actually a fake.

There are all kinds of consumer issues that we need to address in a very serious way, and frankly, we need to do much more consumer education as well so that we can detect, as consumers, which goods are officially licensed and which ones are counterfeit.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my distinguished colleague for having so ably defended Bill C-8.

Clearly, the NDP always sides with Canadian consumers. The best example of that is when it comes to medication. The government waited three years to take medication with major defects off the market. That is a mistake that an honest and experienced leader, such as the Leader of the Opposition, would never have made. He would not have waited three years, I can tell you that.

Like all our policies, Bill C-8 is very much in line with our support for the minimum wage, our insistence that the health care cuts be reversed and our call for an inquiry into missing aboriginal women. In other words, with Bill C-8, is the NDP not demonstrating that it wants the government to work for Canadians, first and foremost?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question. On raising the integrity of medicines and the health and safety of Canadians with respect to the medications that they take, he is, of course, spot on.

I think the member was referring to matters that we raised in question period here on this side of the House with respect to Apotex and the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health effectively said that they raised the issue of unsafe drugs with the company but the company refused to act, as if that somehow were good enough for Canadians. Clearly, it was not.

Now, in Bill C-8, we have that issue before us again. We moved amendments in committee to make sure, as I said, that consumers would still be able to take generic drugs with the confidence that they were taking the right medication. We are now able to have generic drugs with the same shape, colour and size as the original medications precisely so that consumers can have confidence in the system. That is absolutely imperative.

The other question we have to ask ourselves is this. If we are creating this framework to keep Canadians safe, why are we cutting the resources for both the RCMP and Canadian border officials, which would make it impossible to enforce that regime?

Those resources have been cut dramatically. Over 500 full-time jobs will be gone. How can Canadians have confidence that, even with this new regime, the necessary enforcement will be there to keep them and their families safe?

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before we resume debate, I would inform the House that we are now almost to the five-hour point in the debate, so this will be the last 20-minute speaking slot.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Surrey North.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton Mountain made a very passionate and eloquent speech on this particular bill, and I would like to thank her for providing that very useful information to the House.

I rise today on behalf of my constituents in Surrey North to speak to Bill C-8, the combating counterfeit products act. The title of the bill requires that we all agree to issues like this in the House. It is very rare that all parties agree on certain issues in the House and move forward an agenda that is in the best interests of Canadians.

It is a pleasure to speak to the bill today to support a piece of legislation on which all parties are in general agreement. Often in the House, it seems impossible to move forward and create meaningful legislation that all parties can agree on. Of course, no piece of legislation will ever be perfect to every party, but when we have the opportunity to advance the legislative agenda in this country and create legislation surrounding important issues, I gladly welcome the progress.

As members of the official opposition, it is our duty to ensure that legislation is carefully considered and questioned, and that dissenting opinions are publicly expressed and debated. However, as embodied by our late leader, Jack Layton, there is also great value in working together. I believe that the bill will be a step forward for all Canadians.

Issues surrounding counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringement, and intellectual property are, without a doubt, complex matters that may seem far removed from the lives of normal Canadians. However, in reality, these issues have a direct impact on all Canadians, especially with regard to their health and safety. I truly believe that as elected officials, we should work to make this country as safe as possible for all citizens. Counterfeit goods have the potential to put the health and safety of Canadians at risk, and as such, it is time that we strengthened our laws against counterfeit goods.

Dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important in protecting Canadian consumers who may unsuspectingly purchase counterfeit goods that could put their health and safety at risk. As the member for Hamilton Mountain pointed out, there is a lack of awareness with regard to counterfeit goods across the country, with many consumers not knowing whether a particular product is counterfeit or not. Certainly, more education and information for consumers would be another step that we could take to inform consumers, but that is another issue.

The talk of counterfeit products intuitively brings to mind images of the knock-off designer handbags, sunglasses and watches that we frequently see. I am sure that it is hard to imagine how these products might pose a risk to the health and safety of Canadians. These types of products breed different problems in that they undermine the value of the original product and capitalize on the creativity of another company by infringing on its intellectual property. By dealing with counterfeiting and infringement, as we are attempting to do with the bill, we will hopefully also cut down on counterfeit products of this nature, which are serious infringements on rights holders.

What concerns me most are the products that pose a health and safety risk to Canadians. While researching the bill, I read about counterfeit batteries that exploded in the desks of police officers who had stored them there. I also learned that acid leaking from counterfeit batteries has caused burns to at least eight Canadian children.

I am a parent myself. My young son is eight years old and he has a number of electronic gadgets that he plays with. It is not just my son who plays with these toys, as his friends from around the neighbourhood play with them, too. The batteries often run out and he comes to me or his mom and asks for new batteries for those gadgets. It scares me to think there are counterfeit batteries out there that my son or another child could be exposed to, which could be hazardous to their health. As a parent, I am concerned. We need to take steps to ensure that these counterfeit products are not on the market.

It is terrifying to hear that these types of goods are in our society and our kids could be using them. It scares me to think that Canadians have to fear that the batteries their children use in their remotes for their video games or TVs might injure them. This is merely one example of an ordinary household product that we unassumingly utilize in our everyday lives. We hardly expect something like this to harm us.

I will give the House one more example of counterfeiting that poses a serious health and safety risk. Just a few days ago a man from Surrey was sentenced to six months in prison in the United States for selling counterfeit vehicle airbags. All Canadians would be seriously concerned if they found they had counterfeit airbags in their cars that might not deploy properly. This is a safety device that we often take for granted. On the rare occasion that they would be used, we assume they would protect us. The consequences of counterfeit products like this not working are serious. Serious injury or even death could result. This is a prime example of a safety risk stemming from a counterfeit product. We need to protect all Canadians from this type of counterfeiting.

The technical details of Bill C-8 would add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act: the possession of and the exportation of infringing copies and selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale.

The bill proposes to create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods and introduces a balance to the prohibition by creating two exemptions: for personal use and for items in transit control. I will speak to that aspect of the bill later in my speech.

Bill C-8 would also grant ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies of counterfeit goods. This is a significant policy shift as until now border guards required the private rights holder to obtain a court order before seizing infringing copies of goods. This policy change would grant much greater power to front-line officers to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the country.

Additionally, Bill C-8 would grant new ex officio powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detailed goods with the rights holder.

I have another serious concern with Bill C-8 in regard to how the provisions of this legislation would be implemented.

Over the last four years, I have seen the government bring in legislation which could basically be considered a paper tiger. Legislation needs to have teeth. There also has to be the necessary resources to implement legislation that the government brings into the House. That is the case with this legislation as well.

This legislation would help Canadians look after their health, but no resources have been allocated as to how the legislation would be implemented or how CBSA would implement some of the provisions in the bill. It is extremely unclear how CBSA would implement enforcement measures introduced in Bill C-8 in the face of the cuts from budget 2008.

Budget 2012 slashed $143 million in funding to CBSA, which in turn reduced front-line officers and weakened our ability to monitor our borders. The New Democrats understand that CBSA needs to be adequately resourced in order to carry out this new work that we expect from it in a manner that does not take away from the other very important work it already performs.

This $143 million in cuts to CBSA over three years will equate to a loss of 549 full-time equivalents between now and 2015, according to this year's CBSA Report on Plans and Priorities.

The changes proposed by Bill C-8 will require that CBSA dedicate additional resources to areas such as intelligence analysis, port of entry examination and officer training. However, to accomplish the goals set out in the bill without additional funds, CBSA will have to re-allocate internal sources. This puts at risk many of the other extremely important work that CBSA perform.

If we look at some of the other bills the government brought in, on one hand, it brings in some legislation that will be tough on crime. On the other hand, it cuts funding to preventive programs that require either monitoring of individuals or reintegration of some of the people who will be out of jail. The government is creating these paper tigers, while at the same time it is not only cutting the very people who will be enforcing the legislation, but it is also cutting some of the remedial funding that is needed to ensure these kinds of laws and regulations actually work in real life.

It is very discouraging that we are trying to protect the health of safety of Canadians, of balancing that with the copyrights, while at the same time cutting the funding for the very officers who would be monitoring all of this. That is very troubling.

The men and women of the Canada Border Service Agency have the extremely important job of defending our borders in every respect, and they put their lives on the line every day to ensure our borders and our citizens are safe. The New Democrats believe that CBSA needs to be adequately funded in order to carry out the provisions of the bill effectively so it can continue to do its job without compromising its other important responsibilities in protecting our borders and our citizens. I hope the government will take steps to ensure CBSA has the resources needed to perform the duties that are being asked of it under Bill C-8.

As I mentioned earlier, I want to speak to the exceptions that are included in the bill, including the exception for personal use and for items in transit control. The personal use exemption means that border officials would not be permitted to seize copies that would be in one's possession or baggage. The provision for items in transit is also important in providing balance in the bill for items that may be destined for a location to which they are being imported lawfully. These are important exemptions to ensure that on the whole, this system is workable and cost effective.

As I mentioned earlier, budgetary restrictions on border officers already pose challenges to the implementation of the bill. These exemptions would ensure that Bill C-8 would not create longer border delays, increased searches of individual travellers as well as put an additional burden on CBSA officers.

I come from Surrey, which is only a 10 or 15-minute ride from the border, and I have already seen long lineups at the border going both ways. In the Lower Mainland of B.C., a lot of the jobs are created by tourism. As we know, one of the best places to live is British Columbia, in Surrey, Vancouver and greater Vancouver. There are a lot of visitors from the states and, likewise, Canadians go south of the border. Many times I have seen hours and hours of long lineups either to get into the United States or to come to Canada.

There should not be cuts to the very people who look after our borders. The cuts to CBSA over the last number of years, and cuts that will happen in the next few years, have put extra burden on these individuals. I hope the government takes into consideration that cutting the very people who are patrolling our borders, CBSA officers and RCMP, is going to have an impact not only on the movement of people from one side to the other, but also goods, which would hurt the economy in which we operate. It also hurts jobs. Cutting the funding for these border services officers will impact not only how we implement this bill, but will have an impact on the movement of goods and services across the border.

The New Democrats believe that intellectual property requires an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. These exceptions are important provisions that work to maintain this delicate balance.

I am glad to see the Conservative government put forward legislation that essentially all parties can agree on. That is an important step in protecting both businesses and consumers in Canada. Although I am not hopeful, I hope the government will take my comments about the need for more resources to be allocated to CBSA under advisement and work to ensure the bill is implemented effectively.

The member for Hamilton Mountain talked about the New Democrats introducing amendments that would improve the bill. I have seen in other committees where the government brings in legislation, many experts testify before committee and offer very thoughtful suggestions that could improve bills further to ensure they are workable, in the best interests of Canadians and close any sort of loopholes. As usual, time after time, whether it is this bill or other bills, the government has failed to take those suggestions into consideration.

Surely, after many thousands of suggestions, whether by the official opposition, the New Democrats, or experts from many different organizations across the country, the government would consider some of those suggestions to improve bills. Time after time, it has not accepted amendments offered by us.

I hope the governing party takes my advice with regard to providing more resources and implementing Bill C-8.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition party mused about a Liberal position around trying to assume some individual responsibility in this situation. I would like to ask the member this question.

Does he not think that curbing demand by individuals is also a way of managing this issue? In particular, in the riding I represent, many artists, musicians and writers suffer from copyright infringement and the transmission of that copyright across borders. Does he not think that taking steps to somehow curb the market and the demand may also be a way of protecting income and copyrights for individual artists who are suffering because it is only a systemic approach, a corporate approach, to managing this situation?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that excellent question, and I actually agree with him in regard to the Liberal position.

I am actually puzzled by a lot of the positions they take on a number of issues. I have seen this on the issue of Iraq. The leader of the Liberal Party has a statement one day and another statement on a different day. One day he is supporting the mission, which—

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is rising on a point of order.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my hon. friend from Surrey North, we have limited time to debate Bill C-8 in this place, and his response has gone slightly off topic unless there are Iraqi goods to which counterfeiting measures would apply.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The member raises the point of relevance. As all members know, members are given some latitude, and certainly making a short reference to another issue is acceptable. I am quite confident that the member for Surrey North will keep remarks relevant in general to the question.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I only brought up that issue because the member asked about the Liberal Party.

To answer his question, any time an issue or bill that concerns health and safety risks to Canadians is brought to the House, we will certainly support those kinds of initiatives, whether they are by the government or by the opposition. That is why we are here: to act in the best interests of all Canadians.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP will support Bill C-8. Of course we will, because this bill will protect Canadians. We are in favour of that, just as we are in favour of daycare and minimum wage. Voting for a good law is fine, but making sure it gets implemented is essential. This is becoming quite scandalous; an experienced leader like the Leader of the Opposition would never have done such a thing. In this particular case, what can we expect from the legislation when the people responsible for enforcing it have had some 500 positions cut? What can we expect from a bill that does not apply to generic prescription drugs? There are criteria governing the quality of patented drugs, but the government takes no responsibility for generic drugs. That is the problem. I would like an answer about that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have repeatedly seen legislation in this House, whether it is first nations legislation or other, that creates paper tigers but does not allocate funding to implement some of the provisions in those bills or some of the regulations that are going to be created. The result is that the responsibility to implement those measures is downloaded to the provinces, and I have seen the impact it has on them.

If we are creating these laws and regulations, there have to be resources behind them. As I indicated earlier, there have been cuts to the funding for CBSA officers to the tune of about $143 million over three years. That is equivalent to about 549 full-time jobs.

If we are going to be creating these laws and regulations to protect Canadians, whether for health or safety reasons, then we owe it to Canadians to ensure that adequate funding and resources are available.

I do not see that from the government, either with this legislation or with other legislation that has been brought in. It has failed to provide the resources.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest, and I was rather shocked to see the Liberal position on this issue. They would go further than the Conservatives, further than the secretive agreement did, because of their desire to go after individual consumers, and this after 35,000 lawsuits against kids, mothers, and even dead people in the U.S. over downloading a song or two.

My colleague from Trinity—Spadina seems to believe that what the Liberals attempted to do is a good economic driver. They wanted to make it possible to stop people at airports, check out what they have on their iPods, find out if it was actually downloaded it from iTunes or if their kid sent it to them, and then be able to pull them out of line and charge them. Everyone recognizes that it would be an outrageous infringement of individual rights to no purpose. It would allow criminal counterfeiting gangs to carry on, but individuals would targeted.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why the Liberal Party is so out of touch with what it means to support artists in this country and to support the right of individual consumers to travel across international borders without being stopped and harassed.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually very puzzled by the position of the Liberals on this particular bill and the kinds of amendments they wanted to bring in. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised.

The Liberals had the opportunity to bring in measures for these sorts of issues on health and safety risks and infringements on the Copyright Act when they were in government. However, they did not bring them in back then, and I do not expect them to provide any insightful amendments for the bill before us.

The member for Timmins—James Bay is absolutely correct when he talks about how Liberals have failed to protect artists in our community and the very culture that artists create in this country. Again, I am very puzzled as to how the Liberals responded to this particular issue. It is truly amazing.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned examples of dangerous counterfeit goods, such as the acid in batteries that go in children's toys and airbags that do not deploy. That is dangerous. He believes that this is a very important bill; he said so himself.

I would like him to tell us more about how the importation of those kinds of counterfeit goods into Canada affects the health and safety of Canadians, particularly given the budget cuts at the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as a parent I am very concerned about some of these counterfeit items. I talked about batteries exploding, and a number of Canadians have died from these sorts of products.

As a father of two children, I am very concerned, especially about batteries and such, because my son uses batteries in a number of different gadgets that he has.

The other case I pointed out was on the airbags that were being sold into the United States by an individual from my city. He has been jailed for six months in the United States. This is a very recent case. One would think that airbags would deploy and work properly when they are needed.

These are very serious health and safety issues for all Canadians. To detect these products and ensure that they do not come into the market, we need CBSA officers to inspect the goods that are coming in, so making cuts to the numbers of those officers is not going to help.

I encourage the government to provide the resources so that we can properly implement Bill C-8.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise in the House and speak to Bill C-8 on counterfeiting measures.

I have spoken many times over the last 10 years on these issues. In terms of legislative issues, often the issues regarding copyright, counterfeit, and trademark have been blurred, and there is a need to come up with coherent policies that protect citizens and rights holders.

This is not an easy situation, because we are in a market that has transformed itself incredibly since Lord Macaulay, in 1841, talked about the need to protect the writers of the time. He said we have to stop “the knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men”. Lord Macaulay believed there needed to be copyright provisions, but he also said there had to be a balance, that it was not about creating a monopoly for a certain group of book holders in London to stop upstarts who wanted to come in.

We know the story of the reason Hollywood exists. It is because California at that time was beyond the copyright laws of the Thomas Edison corporation. They moved out to the desert, not because it was beautiful but because they were the original pirate culture. They set themselves up and created an industry. The issue of these balances throughout history is a difficult act.

We have seen WIPO and ACTA, the secretive anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that received great international backlash from ordinary citizens because it was blurring the roles between domestic copyright policies, citizens' rights policies, and the issue of counterfeit.

Where this comes in is that we need to ensure that we can protect our rights holders and citizens from the counterfeit goods and bootleg operations that are undermining our economy. We need to ensure that we have the tools to go up against them.

When we see large corporate rights holders say they want to spread that across the board, we end up with an overreach, as with my colleagues in the Liberal Party saying we should go after individuals when a kid downloads a song and sends it to three friends.

The United States attempted, through its Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the 1990s, to create a legalistic response to the issues the digital culture was creating. After 35,000 lawsuits against citizens, the market did not come back. What was missing from the market at that time was a coherent plan for the remuneration of artists, who were facing some very difficult and challenging conditions because of the ease of copying. It used to be the only people who could actually copy were the ones who had the means of production, the bookbinders and record companies, but suddenly ordinary citizens could make copies, so the right to make copies became very challenged.

Canada had come up with one of the those solutions, which was the private copying levy. We recognized in Canada that people were going to make all manner of copies and that it would be impossible to remunerate artists for all the copying going on, so for every cassette that was produced, a few pennies were put aside into a fund for artists. The decision by the Conservative government to kill the private copying levy has cost the Canadian music industry $25 million a year. Given the conditions of the music industry in Canada, that is $25 million we cannot afford to lose.

Under the latest copyright act, the government killed the mechanical royalties for musicians and for the record industry, which is millions more. At a time when the artistic culture of our country is suffering very much, the need to remunerate those artists has been steadily whacked away. There is the issue of collective copying regimes in schools. It certainly needs to be updated because of the digital culture, but to simply undermine it would leave artists working for free and would make the intellectual and artistic development of our country much more challenged.

The other issue we are seeing now is the copyright board's rules on live streaming. In the United States, it is an abysmal situation. As an example, Lady Gaga was paid $162 in royalties for over a million plays. I think that was through Spotify, the streaming service.

For someone of the magnitude of Lady Gaga to receive a $162 cheque shows you just how impossible it is for any other mid-size artist to make a living and run a business doing the kind of music that is Canada's premier export. We can talk about our oil and gas and mining, but the talent that has come out of Canada in terms of music, our artists, playwrights, internationally, this is an industry that we cannot afford to undermine anymore.

In the United States the streaming royalties set by its copyright tariffs are so low that it is undermining the ability of any artist to survive. The Copyright Board of Canada has set it at 10% of the American rate. Therefore, they are living as paupers in the United States with what their copyright board has set for this new medium and in Canada it is only 10% of what the rate is in the United States. We would assume then if Lady Gaga had one million plays in Canada, she would get $16.50, which would make anyone decide to go and work at Tim Hortons rather than be an artist in this country.

Those are the issues we are facing in terms of the need to protect our artists. How do we protect our artists? We do not criminalize the consumer. We create a monetary stream. That is a reasonable solution. In terms of counterfeiting we have to separate the issues around protecting our artists and giving them the tools they need to be able to prosper, from the issues around being able to go after the counterfeit gangs.

I will stay on the artists' situation for one more minute. Where we have small businesses or small creative artists, if their trademarks or arts are taken by some counterfeit gang in China and reproduced, they have no mechanisms to go after them. Individual and small rights holders have no ability to go after these counterfeit operations. Sony and Warner Bros. can, but the individual creative rights holders who has their work stolen has no ability. If we are looking at international trade agreements, how do we provide provisions so that the small creative artists who are having their works stolen can respond?

The bill is really an attempt to bring Canada in line with what came out of the ACTA negotiations, which were secretive. It was an overreach. It was a process too beset by lobbyists to be credible and when it came to the public, there was a huge backlash. It was interesting to see that the backlash was in Europe. Therefore, we see some of these provisions have been modified somewhat.

Now the border guards are able to seize counterfeit goods at the border. That is a good provision because rights holders actually had to go to court and get a court order before, so it was very difficult. Giving border guards the ability to seize goods at the border is a reasonable solution to dealing with criminal counterfeiters. Counterfeit operations undermine our economy and they also undermine basic health and security in this country.

Again, I want to point out that our Liberal colleagues wanted to extend this to be able to go after individuals who are travelling, which would have made it the ultimate harassment tool for anyone travelling anywhere internationally. You could be pulled out of a line and told that officials wanted to look at your iPod and go through every one of your songs. My kids send me songs that they have downloaded, maybe from iTunes, but I would be liable for that. That would be an overreach, so the Liberal position of going after individuals and criminalizing individuals when the focus of our border guards should be going after the criminal gangs is very wrong-headed and out of step with pretty much the rest of the world, although maybe North Korea might side with them on that one.

If we are going to have counterfeit laws we need the resources so that border guards can go after counterfeiters. We have seen massive cuts in border services. We also need resources for the police because they still do not often see that this is an issue, going after the knock-off goods, going after the bootlegged DVDs. Perhaps we need to look at provisions that provide our police services with the incentive to clean up some of the illegal trades in goods that have undermined our economy and undermined safety for Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to questions and comments, I would just remind hon. members to address their questions and comments to the Chair. A couple of times this morning in the questions, members used the structure of “Mr. Speaker, through you to the member, why did you do this or why did you say that?” Members cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his very eloquent understanding of the situation. We did work together on the committee for Bill C-11 to reform copyright.

I would ask the member if he could comment further on these issues. He was speaking about the issues regarding artists and the limitations now placed on the remuneration for artists because of the changes to the mechanical rights regime, the copyright regime and the private copying regime. He spoke about how that differs, for example, from the more tangible counterfeiting of DVDs, Prada bags, or things that can be seized at the border.

Could the member comment a little bit about how he sees it being more difficult, if he does, in finding remuneration for artists under this copyright regime, as opposed to simply seizing goods at the border?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 1928, the recording industry in the United States collapsed. It was the biggest single loss in the history of the recording industry. It happened because the radio came in. Why buy records when people could listen to the radio?

The industry was in deep crisis until it found a solution where it forced the radio stations to pay a share. Part of the reason that people were listening to the radio was because they were listening to music. That remuneration stream then brought in an unprecedented artistic development of artists across North America and Europe because they were able to be paid.

What we are seeing now in this changing culture is that artists have incredible new opportunities for getting their product out there, but they do not have any way to get paid. It is decimating our artists at a time when they have incredible international opportunities.

The issue is needing a balance. We have to find a remuneration monetization stream for our artists, but our legal issues need to be focused on going after the counterfeiters and bootleggers who are undermining the overall economy with commercial operations that use products and sell them, making money off of the backs of other people's work.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject. That is why I would like him to contrast the New Democrats' approach to the Liberals' and Conservatives', especially with respect to striking a balance between the rights of consumers and those of artists.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when my colleagues and I were working on the Copyright Act, one of the issues was that the only thing brought forward by the Conservatives was digital locks. Digital locks will not create a market. Digital locks will not stop theft. Any kid who wakes up in the morning probably breaks three digital locks.

What we said was, rather than simply saying that we would put in all kinds of legal provisions for digital locks, let us find a monetization formula. It does exist. This is not rocket science. It has been done before. It is possible.

The focus for the New Democrats is to say that our artists have a right to be paid and a right to be protected. We are not going to go the route of the Liberals, which was to criminalize consumers, because young people share. Sometimes they share movies, whether it is right or wrong, and we could debate that all day. Going after families and taking them to court for millions and millions of dollars, which we saw happening in the United States, is a wrong-headed move. In the States, it undermined the market and kids just walked away from it.

How do we establish that balance? It is not by criminalizing consumers but by finding the monetary stream to protect our artists.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Today, I want to express my support for this bill. It is difficult to disagree with the principle. Clearly, combatting counterfeiting is important for Canadian businesses and consumers. I will certainly not speak out against virtue.

However, I would like to express a few reservations that I have, particularly with regard to this government's true commitment to protecting copyright in Canada and the enforceability of the bill. I hope that the government will listen to what I have to say and that my comments will help to improve the measures that will be taken if this bill is passed.

I think that everyone here can agree that we have to crack down on counterfeiting, both because of the negative impact that counterfeit goods can have on our economy and the economies of our neighbours and because of the danger they can pose to Canadians' health.

The clandestine nature of counterfeiting prevents us from being able to accurately determine the scope of the problem for our economy. According to the RCMP, in 2011, 80% of counterfeit goods came from China, a 46% increase as compared to 2005.

According to Industry Canada, counterfeiting has increased in recent years:

The retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012.

Of course, that is only counting the goods that were seized.

In 2009, in a report entitled “Magnitude of Counterfeiting and Piracy of Tangible Products: An Update”, the OECD estimated the value of counterfeit and pirated goods in international trade at $250 billion. These numbers speak for themselves. There is an urgent need for effective measures to combat this growing phenomenon.

The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology recently conducted a study on intellectual property. Many businesses testified in support of taking action at the border to fight the increase in illegal counterfeit goods.

In its 2013 report entitled “Intellectual Property Regime in Canada”, the committee made a number of recommendations regarding action to be taken at the border to prevent the import of counterfeit goods.

Similarly, in a dissenting opinion, the NDP members of the committee argued that the Canada Border Services Agency should be given sufficient funding to combat counterfeiting without compromising the other important responsibilities it has in protecting Canadians and defending our border.

Of course, because this was an NDP recommendation and would require an increase in government spending, even though this measure would protect the Canadian economy, the NDP was forced to submit it in a written dissenting opinion, because the Conservatives are too blinded by their ideology to see the benefits of such a measure for our industries. It makes no sense, but this is not the first time something like this has happened, and it probably will not be the last.

This government is full of contradictions. Only now has it come forward with Bill C-8, a nice collection of good intentions, although for years now, our American neighbours have been calling on Canada to bring in tougher measures against counterfeit products.

In its 2012 Special 301 Report, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative made a statement regarding the Americans' position.

It said, in part, that the United States “continues to urge Canada to strengthen its border enforcement efforts, including by providing customs officials with ex officio authority to take action against the importation, exportation, and transshipment of pirated or counterfeit goods.”

This bill adds two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for the possession or export of infringing copies and creates a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods.

Those are great principles. This could help fight counterfeiting, thereby protecting copyright, and help prevent counterfeit goods from entering the Canadian market—which hurts our economy—or passing through our borders and entering the U.S. The problem is that this will take mare than just words.

I actually have to wonder how this government can possibly claim to be serious about fighting counterfeit goods when in their 2012 budget, the Conservatives announced cuts totalling $143 million over three years to CBSA funding. Some $31.3 million was cut in 2012-13 and $72.3 million in 2013-14, for a total of $143.4 million that will be cut from the CBSA budget by 2014-15.

It is not hard to see that these very cuts will reduce the number of front-line officers and impair our ability to monitor our borders.

What is more, this year's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss of 549 full-time equivalent jobs by 2015 at the Canada Border Services Agency. This will reduce the agency's ability to discharge its responsibilities.

In other words, the government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth yet again. On one hand it says it wants to fight fraud, which is a good thing, but on the other hand it makes cuts that will prevent our border services from doing their job.

This bill gives even more responsibilities to CBSA just as the government keeps reducing the agency's ability to discharge them. Is that really what the government is proposing? I fail to see the logic in that.

Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, commented on the 2012 budget cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency and how they would reduce border officers' ability to do their work:

These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons and illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, sexual predators and hardened criminals.

That is frightening.

In 2012, the union president was already saying that the agency would have a hard time protecting our territory. I wonder where the government thinks the necessary resources will come from for combatting the import of counterfeit goods, protecting Canadian industries, their transit from Canada to the United States, or for protecting Canadians from counterfeit products that might be dangerous for their health and safety, when it keeps cutting the agency's budget.

To effectively combat the entry into Canada of counterfeit goods, we need a lot more than words and good intentions. We need the means.

The NDP supports the measures that would help Canadian businesses keep jobs and production here, instead of transferring them to countries that have stricter copyright protections.

The NDP also wants to ensure that enough funds will be available so that laws like the one proposed in Bill C-8 can realistically be enforced, and so that the agencies responsible for enforcing them do not have to make choices that could compromise their other responsibilities, thus jeopardizing the safety of Canadians.

In this case, if the government is truly serious about wanting to crack down on counterfeit products coming into our country, it will have to give Canada Border Services the means to fulfill all of its responsibilities. The government will have to revise its decision to decrease the agency's budget and reverse the trend of reducing the number of front-line officers.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the New Democrats support the underlying principles of the bill and will vote in favour of the bill. We just want to ensure that this is not in vain.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hochelaga for her very relevant and informed speech.

What would she suggest we tell Canadians in the big cities, most of whom are well aware that a $20 Rolex is very likely not real and that a $25 Coco Chanel purse is a knock-off?

The sale of counterfeit products tends to be trivialized, especially in Quebec, where all kinds of counterfeit products can be found at flea markets. How can we inform Canadians that this is a real problem? How do we explain this to the average Canadian watching us today?

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. We need to start by showing Canadians that, of course, counterfeit items may include handbags, but may also include things that harm not only people's health and safety, but also the Canadian economy.

For example, some bicycles are manufactured in Canada. However, the manufacture of bicycles or furniture generally goes to China. Canada is losing industries because of counterfeiting. I am not necessarily saying that counterfeit bicycles are arriving from China, but that this is an example of the Canadian industry losing to other countries. The same is happening with products counterfeited here since Canadian industries are being prevented from producing good products, which is also harming the reputation of good Canadian industries.

If we want to keep good jobs in Canada, we need to explain to Canadians that buying counterfeit products means that they are harming the Canadian industry and economy.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on Bill C-8, which is a bill that deals with quite sweeping changes to copyright infringement and intellectual property rights in Canada.

I presented numerous amendments to the bill before committee, and I am sorry to say that, shockingly, my amendments did not carry. I am afraid that this has become the custom due to the passage of, astonishingly, identical motions in 20 different committees at the same time, intended to deprive me of my rights to present substantive amendments at report stage. Since I have been going to many committees under this new edict, I have not had a single amendment carry at committee. However, I remain hopeful that one day the reasoned efforts I am making will meet with favour.

In the case of Bill C-8, as I mentioned, we would be making sweeping changes, perhaps the most sweeping changes in intellectual property rights law in Canada in over 70 years. We would make these changes without adequate hearings, study, or the proof of any need.

As a matter of fact, one prominent member of the Canadian bar, Howard Knopf, describes the effort to deal with counterfeiting and fake products with this headline: “Is Parliament Rushing to Respond to a Fake Crisis About Fake Products?”

So, we have copyright infringement and we want to protect, and I completely agree with all members of the House who have spoken to our desire to protect artists, innovators, and creators from having the products of their intellectual efforts pirated and stolen without adequate response. However, I will share with this House quite simply what we fear is happening here: we would create multiple offences for relatively minor matters, criminalize things that would normally be dealt with in civil efforts, and we would create new charges under the Criminal Code for offences for which we already have adequate measures within the Criminal Code to handle such infringements.

I want to first begin with the question of invasion of privacy, which is found at clause 59 of Bill C-8.

The definition of “offence” under the Criminal Code section dealing with wiretapping would be amended to include infringements found and created in Bill C-8. It is important to note that this section is not before us at the moment because when we are amending one legislation and creating Bill C-8, we do not always go back and look at the legislation we are changing. However, I think it is important for all members in this place to look at the Criminal Code section that Bill C-8 would amend.

Bill C-8, intended to deal with copyright and trademark, would amend section 183 of the Criminal Code. If we look at section 183, we find that the definitions of “offence” deal with the following: first is high treason; second is intimidating Parliament or a legislature; third is sabotage; then is forgery, sedition, highjacking, endangering the safety of aircraft, offensive weapons, breach of duty, using explosives.

This category of offences, I think all members of this House would agree—even those who do not have statutory interpretation training—are offences of a high order and significant, dangerous activities in the Criminal Code for which we want to be able to have access to wiretap. However, we would now add offences under copyright and trademark infringement, as created by this proposed act. Now, that is a step too far for the Green Party.

It means that, immediately upon passage of Bill C-8, we would see the day that people who, for instance, in a number of fact settings that we certainly do not contemplate as dangerous, could have their phones wiretapped. There is accidental downloading, as the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay mentioned, and most high school kids could break this proposed law any day of the week without planning to make a fortune for themselves or do anything other than download illegally from a website.

A noted lawyer in this area, Howard Knopf, was not a witness and was not allowed to speak before the committee. However, he mentioned that “The DNA and fingerprints of the movie and record industries are all over this bill”. Why else would we want to allow the RCMP and law enforcement agents to have the ability to wiretap the phones of people they suspect have downloaded illegally?

Copyright infringement in this new scenario, the brave new world of Bill C-8, goes quite far into activities that one would not ordinarily consider dangerous at all, not even criminal, but they will be criminalized. For instance, under some sections of the bill, it would not be hard to imagine that someone had infringed copyright under the bill by playing at a private function, such as a wedding, tunes that normally would be played by disc jockeys at various events. That could prompt a wiretap if they were so inclined.

These changes are quite sweeping. I do not believe the Canadian public is aware of what Bill C-8 proposes to do or the complexities and confusion that would be created by the way this legislation is structured.

Under Bill C-8, if criminal remedy is available for anyone who knowingly distributes copies of a work in which copyrights exist, that could capture a kid downloading or using files on BitTorrent. We do not want to encourage those activities, but on the other hand, the level of criminality and the ability to wiretap for those offences is certainly extreme.

The trademark and copyright area is a difficult area. People who work in this area are concerned that the bill could also inadvertently capture parallel imports. Parallel imports are also referred to as grey products. They are in a murky area. A parallel import is not actually infringement of copyright at all. It is not a counterfeit or a piracy measure. I will use an example from New Zealand that I found when I was looking for a commonplace example to explain what I mean by parallel imports.

In New Zealand it is common for luxury car dealers to go to Malaysia, buy a Mercédes Benz, which is cheaper there, then import that vehicle legally into New Zealand and sell it at the price Mercédes Benz wants to sell that car for in the New Zealand market. People who go to the trouble of getting the car in Malaysia have not broken any law and they make a fair bit of money on this.

It is generally considered that parallel imports increase consumer choice, aid competition and keep prices low. The way the bill is structured, it could quite easily capture parallel imports inadvertently, not counterfeit nor pirate imports. Not only do we capture parallel imports, we could then have the ability to wiretap to find out what that group is doing.

This legislation has a lot wrong with it. The failure to make any effort to make it more precise is astonishing when one considers that these fundamental changes to our copyright law are being pushed through without adequate time to consider the implications.

My colleague from Hamilton made an interesting point. How could a border guard be expected to have sufficient grasp of this complex area of international copyright law to distinguish between a parallel import and a counterfeit or pirated good? It is simply beyond the scope of even people who practise this area of law full-time to make such a determination on the spot at the border.

I will turn quickly to the recommendations that Howard Knopf would have made had he been allowed to speak at committee. I will quote from an article he wrote. The first recommendation was:

The numerous references apparently intended not to interfere with the free flow of parallel imports are inconsistent and present potentially serious drafting problems that require further study. The bill should propose appropriate declaratory language for both the Copyright Act and Trade-marks Act that makes is absolutely clear that, with the exception of the sui generis book importation scheme now found in s. 27.1 of the Copyright Act, neither of these acts shall in any restrict the importation, distribution or sale of any product...

The second recommendation was:

It would be mistaken and harmful to criminalize routine copyright and trade-mark infringement activity and there is no need to add additional criminal sanctions, much less wiretap enablement provisions or any provisions that would authorize the warrantless search of travelers to determine whether they have infringing items in their baggage...

The third recommendation was:

The bill should contain no provisions that are not essential for the purpose of combatting counterfeit...

I urge this place to accept that this legislation will require massive amendments very soon.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the leader of the Green Party put on the table, but when I listened to her remarks, it concerned me that a very important witness was not invited to the committee. Could she inform the House why that was the case?

I know committees have not worked well in recent years, but they are supposed to look at all the angles. It seems rather strange that consistently amendments from no one other than the government seem to be accepted. That is not how this place is supposed to work. Opposition members and other witnesses have good ideas, too. It might even prevent the government from having their legislation tossed back by the Supreme Court.

Could the member tell me the credentials of the witness and if she knows any reason why that person, with his expertise, was not invited to come to the committee to assist all Canadians in making better legislation?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Howard Knopf has over 30 years' experience in copyright infringement law. He attached a CV and sent it to the committee. In his letter to the committee he said the following:

—if there is to be a bill - we need to get it right. Here is my offer to appear sent to the Committee on November 11, 2013. It seems that that the Committee does not wish to hear me on this.

He went on to say:

I would like to offer to appear before your Committee in my own personal pro bono capacity as a witness in order to address certain issues of serious concern regarding Bill C-8. While the overall purpose of the Bill is commendable, namely to reduce commercial counterfeiting and piracy, and the drafting shows very diligent work and great competence overall, the devil is in the details and there are 50 pages of highly technical details in this instance - some of which have profound policy implications.

He closed with a PS, which, in light of the comments from the member for Malpeque, are troubling. He wrote:

PS--Interestingly, the Committee has heard both from Lorne Lipkus and his son David Lipkus, both of the same anti-counterfeiting law firm, in separate presentations that were presumably both very much in favour of this legislation, and presumably both advocating for it to go even further.... But, a Committee that is rushing to judgement and refusing to hear testimony that it might not like, while hearing separate testimony from a father and son in the same law firm with the same focus, is really rather unusual--even by Parliamentary Committee standards.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[An hon. member]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

In my opinion the yeas have it. I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)