Evidence of meeting #45 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nrc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
That's why my point is that the retailer ought to be checking, not just looking at those possibly forged documents but checking the shipment against your database. Am I wrong?
12:50 p.m.
Manager, Anti-Counterfeiting and Intellectual Property Enforcement, Canadian Standards Association
You're correct. I've been spending time with a lot of our retailers, providing training for their buyers to use our database to verify.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
So how confident can I be when I go to buy Christmas lights?
You're not sure.
12:50 p.m.
Manager, Anti-Counterfeiting and Intellectual Property Enforcement, Canadian Standards Association
Not very confident.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Oh, boy. Well, that's scary. That's very worrisome. We're talking about fires in people's homes.
Anyway, let me go to Mr. Edwards. You mentioned that DVD knock-offs cost something like $500 million a year. Let's talk about, for instance, software that may come in that's counterfeit. If there's a digital lock on that software, including perhaps counterfeit software, you can't check it without breaking that digital lock to find out whether in fact it's legitimate.
Bill C-11, the new copyright act, prevents you, makes it illegal to break that, even for a legitimate purpose. Was that an error? What would you do about it?
12:50 p.m.
Chair, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, and Vice-President, Electro-Federation Canada
Well, again, I am not familiar with Microsoft or that type of technology, but I would guess that if there are locks and so on, and it's against the law to tamper with them.... It's also against the law to drive 120 kilometres on the 401, but people do it and get away with it. This kind of stuff happens.
There are people who are smart and can get into that. A lot of kids can break into those programs. This is part of the problem.
Microsoft is a big member of the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network. It spends a lot of time and energy trying to prevent that. Maybe the question would be better put to a company like Microsoft.
Again, all we can say is that if the price is too good to be true, it's too good to be true.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Back to Mr. Hunter, have you had any experience with CBSA officials seizing any counterfeit items that you...?
12:50 p.m.
Manager, Anti-Counterfeiting and Intellectual Property Enforcement, Canadian Standards Association
I've been with the Canadian Standards Association for three years, and I've been contacted by CBSA on one occasion, with no follow-up.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Regan.
On behalf of the committee, I want to thank the witnesses very much. This was a great panel, with very knowledgeable people, and we've had the benefit of sharing their knowledge.
I would like to conclude on one thing, because we've heard it repeatedly at these committee meetings. We talked about nanotechnology and ways to trace products.
It seems to me, Mr. Edwards, that one of the initiatives you're taking right now is just to create, for lack of a better word, a mindset, or a moral framework, that stealing is wrong. If you're stealing IP, it's wrong, just as much as if you're stealing a product off a shelf.
I think the more that we can maybe inform schools and parents that this is the case, the more we'll have a grassroots movement as well that respects the value of people's work and IP.
Thank you very much.
We are adjourned.