Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 7th, 2011

[An hon. member]

Sure. Go ahead.

[An hon. member]

Give him five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

There was a misunderstanding on the part of the chair, for which I apologize.

I understood that these two witnesses were appearing as part of one organization. I accorded Monsieur Vallerand an opening statement of ten minutes on behalf of that organization. I did not realize that Monsieur Drapeau was appearing in a separate capacity regarding the anti-counterfeiting accord.

My apologies for the misunderstanding, but we have afforded, in our orders of the day, only one hour for this panel. We have two motions to consider—one is yours, Mr. Angus—and we have the consideration of this draft report.

At this point, I am going to suspend the meeting for a minute--

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I would like to have it on the record, though, that I think--

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

--let me finish--to allow members of the public to leave the room before we go in camera.

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm sorry; I have lots of respect for you as a chair, but I think what just happened is completely unprofessional. I did not ask this man a single question because I was led to believe by the chair that they came as a group. Then suddenly, in the middle of it, he was allowed to make a statement. Now it's being cancelled.

I have many questions on ACTA. If he had given me a statement on ACTA, I would have asked my questions on ACTA. But it would have been completely unfair of me to ask questions, or to be asked to ask questions, of someone who hasn't had a chance to make a presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Mr. Angus, would you like to have an intervention of five minutes to ask Mr. Drapeau some questions?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That would be perfectly fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Mr. Angus, you have the floor.

Then we will suspend.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Drapeau, I'm not quite sure; is this a law enforcement treaty? Is this a trade treaty? Is this a copyright treaty?

[Daniel Drapeau]

You didn't mention, is this is a trademark treaty?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

And a trademark treaty.

[Daniel Drapeau]

This is a multi-faceted treaty. It deals with civil enforcement, and civil enforcement can be under the Trade-marks Act or under the Copyright Act. One thing is for sure: we're all in agreement that it's primarily trademark- and copyright-based.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

So it's copyright-based.

[Daniel Drapeau]

It's trademark- and copyright-based.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

[Daniel Drapeau]

There's civil enforcement, so that touches trademark/copyright. There's criminal enforcement, so that touches the criminal act. There's also border enforcement, so that touches on customs. And there's the digital environment, which--

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

What aspects of our domestic law in Bill C-32 have to be rewritten to make us meet the standard of ACTA?

[Daniel Drapeau]

As I said in my earlier comments, Bill C-32, to my understanding, meets the ACTA requirements--

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But you don't like it.

[Daniel Drapeau]

--but therein is not the question. Bill C-32 is a portion. There's the whole trademark issue. There's the customs issue. That's not addressed by Bill C-32.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No, but that's not the role of Bill C-32.

I think the issue here.... And we all certainly support strong measures to take on counterfeit. We want the police, we want our border officials to have the power to get those products off the shelves and go after them. What concerns me is that...you said, “Why the secrecy for ACTA? Well, people are just more comfortable talking.” That could be used at municipal town hall meetings. That could be used by politicians of all sorts. People don't like doing their business in public because it raises questions. But we have a process in terms of assuring accountability that there is a public process.

Now you can roll your eyes, but we have WIPO, we have the WTO, and you—

[Daniel Drapeau]

Sir, that's not all I said.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, but you don't like—

[Daniel Drapeau]

I also said it would be less embarrassing for Canada—