Evidence of meeting #136 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Gerald Kerr-Wilson  Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
Scott Smith  Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
David Fewer  Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
John Lawford  Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Dan Albas  Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
David de Burgh Graham  Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.
Michael Chong  Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Michel Marcotte

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Yes.

4:15 p.m.

Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

David Fewer

With the interrogatories, you're either all in or you're out.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Really...?

4:15 p.m.

Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

David Fewer

They were in long enough to make their point, and then they had to get out, because these organizations are not funded to be battlers before the Copyright Board. Nonetheless, they had valid perspectives, important things to say. They wanted to say things that the board was not going to hear otherwise, so there ought to have a been a mechanism to allow them to participate.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Lawford.

4:15 p.m.

Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre

John Lawford

I'd echo David's concerns that perhaps this committee could even get quite creative and say there should be a cost regime such as we have in the CRTC and the Ontario Energy Board, to allow public interest intervenors to participate in major policy proceedings.

That's all I want to say on that matter.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you.

Mr. Smith, one of the distinguishing things is that there's a balance that you hear in terms of piracy. In Windsor, where I'm from, we had a lot of piracy in the past over DirecTV. It was an American provision of service, but it was so easy to hack it, it became what they called a “football card”.

In an assembly line, you could buy a little box and then you would just reprogram the card. That's what they did at all the different plants. That's why I said assembly line, at whatever plant. It was reprogrammed and they got DirecTV for free. Finally, they had a small innovation and eliminated all that.

Where are we in terms of direct streaming? Is it still almost too easy? Is there any control we can do here, whether it's in terms of innovation or whether we have to go directly to the Internet service providers?

It's not an excuse, but when there's almost no barrier, when it becomes so easy, it becomes easier to get it than it is to sign up for some of the actual services.

4:20 p.m.

Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Scott Smith

It's a fair point and an interesting analogy. It's certainly more difficult to put technological locks on websites that are producing this material.

I want to go back to some of the questions that were asked earlier in this session around whether or not Canada should have some kind of tool to be able to block sites—de-indexing and what have you. What we often lose sight of is that we live in an international community. Online is everywhere. It's global. If we are going to do something about pirated websites, very often they are offshore, but we can have a tool domestically that can deal with those offshore sites. We don't necessarily need to go through the courts in the backwaters of the world. We can deal with it right here through our court system and allow our ISPs, which direct the traffic of the Internet, to manage that problem on our behalf.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you. Good.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Mr. Graham, you have seven minutes, please.

4:20 p.m.

David de Burgh Graham Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

Okay. I'll use them.

Mr. Kerr-Wilson, were you here on the 26th of September for Shaw at the time?

4:20 p.m.

Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

Okay. Just for clarity, because your name tag said Gerald starting with a “J”, last time. I just want to make it clear for the record that you're the same person.

4:20 p.m.

Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright

Gerald Kerr-Wilson

My name is Gerald. I often go by Jay, and I'm known as Jay, so it's sort of a Stephen-Steve issue.

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

No worries...just so you're on the record as the same person. I'm just trying to make sure of that.

4:20 p.m.

Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

Do you have any differences in your position today versus under that client?

November 5th, 2018 / 4:20 p.m.

Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright

Gerald Kerr-Wilson

No. Shaw is a member of the BCBC. Shaw's position was Shaw's position in this. I'm here for BCBC, but there are no differences.

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

Thank you. That's all I need to know from there.

Mr. Smith, you talked a lot about piracy, or privacy, as we've discussed a bit today. You talk about $160 billion in consumer-pirated content around the world. I'm going to assume that is based on everything pirated having full market value. How fluffed are those numbers?

4:20 p.m.

Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Scott Smith

You're asking me to comment on the veracity of a report that has come out, and I don't have the background to be able to pronounce on that. I'm quoting a study.

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

Would you agree that those numbers tend to be based on the full market value or full consumer price for each product that was pirated?

4:20 p.m.

Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Scott Smith

I expect that there was an analysis done that likely looked at what the market value was in various jurisdictions, and came up with a number. I can't tell you off the top of my head. I don't know.

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

Understood. Have we done a lot of studying of why people pirate in the first place?

4:20 p.m.

Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Scott Smith

I think that's somewhat self-explanatory. There's certainly a lot of literature in the marketplace about why people buy counterfeits, or why people pirate goods.

4:20 p.m.

Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.

David de Burgh Graham

But in the case of content, at least in the Canadian example.... We're hearing that Canada has a higher rate of piracy than other countries, but it also has, I heard somebody say, a lower rate of consumer-available content. There's a lot of Canadian-made content that you can't get in Canada. I've heard this point a number of times before. Is that a cause of piracy? Is that something we can address?