I will indeed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the opportunity to address you today.
I am representing, as you mentioned, the Canadian Intellectual Property Council, which I'll refer to as CIPC. The CIPC is a special council of the Canadian Chamber, representing a broad cross-section of companies dedicated to improving the IPR regime in Canada.
With me is Mr. Lorne Lipkus. He is an intellectual property lawyer, an active member of CIPC, and a recognized expert in the fight against the proliferation of counterfeit goods in the Canadian marketplace.
I'd like to take a few minutes to talk to you about an overview of how important Bill C-8 is to the membership of CIPC and the Canadian Chamber. Lorne is here to provide you with some specific examples of how a few modifications to the bill could save significant time, effort, and money for taxpayers, enforcement agencies of the crown, and brand owners who are the victims of IPR crimes.
The Canadian Chamber, through the CIPC, has been strongly advocating for IPR regime change for the past five years. Many of our members have been doing so for much longer than that. A key component of this advocacy effort is marketplace integrity. Securing ex officio powers for the CBSA, the facilitation of information exchange between enforcement agencies and brand owners, and criminal enforcement provisions for the importation of trademark and copyright infringing materials are high on our list of needed measures. And all of these are hallmarks of Bill C-8.
Counterfeit goods, as you know, cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars. I did have a handout for you, but unfortunately I don't think I had enough English copies, so those will be distributed to you at a later time, but it gives you most of the stats that are of interest to you.
What I'd like to focus on is the fact that we are pleased to see the introduction of Bill C-8 in Parliament. In particular, we are pleased to see the addition of criminal offences in the Trade-marks Act, making it a crime in Canada to import, export, manufacture, or distribute counterfeit goods.
Without second-guessing the urgency of the need to move forward with this bill, there are a few suggestions that we have that might serve to aid the operational side of the legislation. First is the knowledge requirement provisions. We see those as being difficult to proceed with. A preferred approach might be “knowingly” or “should have known”. We look at counterfeiting as being all about money. It's willing buyers and willing sellers, and finding ways to curb the revenue flow for the perpetrators of counterfeit is the most effective deterrent.
A second effective deterrent would be education. We look at education as also being important for enforcement agencies to ensure they are familiar with the marks, the product IDs, etc., of all shipments. So clarity in the request for assistance provisions of Bill C-8 that facilitate the recording of information pertaining to the products of goods of a right-holder in a system that is accessible to CBSA would be very helpful.
One final comment before I pass this on to Lorne is about the exclusion of in-transit shipments. There is a potential threat to public safety if these products are allowed to continue to circulate in the marketplace; they may cause public safety problems.
I'd like to pass this on to Lorne now, who will speak about a simplified procedure that might save time and money. But in thinking about these options, I'd also like to suggest that the committee consider the benefits of operational monitoring, and by that I mean maintaining performance-based statistics leading to a statutory review in three years.