Thanks. Good morning.
My name is Karen Mazurkewich, and I'm here on behalf of the Canadian International Council, which is an independent member-based council established to strengthen Canada's role in international affairs.
Almost two years ago, the CIC approached me to write a report on how Canada ranks internationally with respect to its intellectual property regime. As a former journalist with the Wall Street Journal in Asia and the Financial Post, I asked the obvious first question: who speaks for intellectual property in Canada? I was struck by the response: everyone and no one.
To be precise, the job of the intellectual property office is to administer IP regulations, but it doesn't have the mandate to create policy. In fact, four ministries have input on IP policy. However, the most senior person in charge is only a mid-level bureaucrat at science, industry, and technology. While the U.S. has an IP czar who reports to the President himself, and the U.K. has a chief economist on IP and three other economists reporting to him, Canada has no one at a senior executive level who speaks for IP.