International Trade Committee on Feb. 4th, 2014

[Steve Anderson]

One of the biggest differences is “notice and take down” versus “notice and notice”. In the U.S. if there's an accusation of infringement the online service provider is required to take down the material, whereas in Canada there's a notice-and-notice system where the provider is required to notify the accused person, which seems like a much more reasonable approach to me. It limits the kind, I would say, of content blocking and what some people feel is censorship. I think many of the experts in the copyright field are saying that the world should move towards more exceptions in that way. I think that's a big one.

The other one is statutory damages. In Canada, we of course have a limit on statutory damages of $5,000. which, again, is a reasonable model and one that I hope, if the TPP goes through, will be found in there rather than the U.S. model.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I think you mentioned that Canadian law doesn't distinguish between commercial infringement and non-commercial infringement. You mentioned the case of the woman who wrote in who said that she had disabilities and might be penalized under the rules proposed in the TPP.

Could you talk about whether or not there are other main negotiators, or major negotiators, to support Canada's position on copyright and ISP liability.

[Steve Anderson]

All this is based on leaked documents and conversations, but I think that's a really big part of the problem. From what I can tell, the U.S. is more or less on its own on most of the more restrictive copyright policies. Australia is with them a lot of the time, in particular with technological protection mechanisms and I think with ISP liabilities as well. But the other countries, in particular Chile, New Zealand, and Malaysia, from what I can tell are onside with Canada, and the U.S. is kind of alone on these issues.

Those leaked documents are from the fall and they don't incorporate the latest round, so I don't know if our government caved to U.S. interests in that last round or not.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You also mentioned start-ups such as HootSuite and Shopify. They have already started popping up in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. Could you talk more precisely about how these businesses would risk being penalized under the TPP?

[Steve Anderson]

Sure. Under the U.S. proposal, service providers, whether they be Internet service providers or online service providers like HootSuite and also Google and Facebook, would face financial liabilities for copyright infringement. So basically it would be up to them to police their users, and if they didn't then they could be liable for copyright infringement lawsuits.

So you can imagine, if you're a start-up in Vancouver or Toronto or Ottawa and you're trying to get investment in your business, if investors know that part of your business is providing a popular online user-generated service and they know that you are going to be liable for what your users do, then you're going to have trouble getting investment. You potentially could not get off the starting block, and if you do, you might get sued out of existence.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Right, so that would obviously be a problem for entrepreneurs with few resources.

Also, you said that the TPP risks increasing the price for telecom services for consumers. Could you talk about your reasoning behind this argument and how exactly that would come about.

[Steve Anderson]

Sure. It's similar. Under the U.S. proposal, ISPs would arguably have to monitor and police their users' activities online, which would be a very costly endeavour. Either it would be costly because they would have to invest in technology and personnel to actually monitor online activity and/or it would be costly because they could face lawsuits for what their users do online.

We know that the telecom companies will pass on regulatory burdens and costs to consumers. There's no doubt about that.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thanks. I just have one last question for Ms. Es Sabar.

Concerning the provisions relating to enforcement of patents and copyrights, could you comment on whether or not these provisions are more restrictive or less restrictive than those contained in the Korea-U.S. trade agreement and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

[Karimah Es Sabar]

Than which agreements, sorry?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The Korea-U.S. trade agreement, and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

[Karimah Es Sabar]

As we stand now, our criteria are softer for the Canadian agreement. For the TPP I think it will be equivalent and it will put us on par.

With CETA, which is what I am more involved and familiar with, it has now brought us on the same level playing field if we move ahead, whereas we were at a disadvantage, and I can tell you that it significantly impacted investment into Canadian research compared to other countries.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Do you have any insight as to how the provisions stack up to these two trade agreements in particular?

[Karimah Es Sabar]

I have details on that, because we've compared them country by country, so I can certainly let you have them. But off the tip of my tongue, I wouldn't be able to tell you how that stands. It brings an even playing field now for us.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Great.

Do I have time for one last question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

You have 10 seconds, so very fast.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Great, 10 seconds.

Mr. Anderson—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Very fast.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

—quickly, there are critics, such as Hugh Stephens, who say that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Very quick. Come on, just a quick question, not Hugh Stephens....

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

—“...there is nothing in U.S. law that would allow site-blocking on the basis of accusations.”

Could you respond to that statement?

[Steve Anderson]

Yes.

There are unanimous opinions from a range of experts on copyright law. Knowledge Ecology International, Michael Geist, and professors across the U.S. and the TPP nations have argued that this is the case based on the WikiLeaks documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Cannan, the floors is yours for seven minutes.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses. I appreciate your coming to provide your insight on the discussions that are ongoing on this very important Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I'd like to congratulate you, Mr. Anderson, for founding your organization OpenMedia. You mentioned HootSuite. I represent Kelowna—Lake Country. Ryan Holmes, the founder of HootSuite, is from the Okanagan as well. I had a chance to meet him. It's a great success story. Somebody in senior high got a computer, didn't have electricity in his rural area, and took battery cables from his parents' car to operate his computer. Today he's hiring hundreds of Canadians and is an international success story.

I think the Internet has such great potential. It's exciting, and obviously a challenge as well to manage innovation, technology, and research. One of the comments I noticed on your website says, “Don't censor the Internet”. Maybe you could expand your thoughts on the Internet.

Is free communication not to have any controls at all? Is that your perspective from OpenMedia? What is government's role?

[Steve Anderson]

There's definitely a role for the government to have public policies that set rules for the use of the Internet. The current government's approach to telecom policy, enabling choice in the marketplace, is a form of regulation that affects the Internet. I support that. I think the current copyright policy in Canada is fairly reasonable. You do need to have some rules to have a balance between creators and consumers and different kinds of creators: the legacy businesses, broadcast media and the new media, remix culture media makers. So I think it's important to have policy, but first and foremost, policies should be made that enable free expression, creativity, and innovation.

What we see in the TPP text, what I think all the experts have pointed out, is that the U.S. proposals that I'm worried will get adopted would limit commerce, free expression, and innovation online. It's not balanced. I think that the U.S. is really out of step. Clearly it's out of step with the rest of the countries in the TPP, as we've seen from leaked documents. I would hope that our government stands strong with the legislation we took 10 years to put in place, which is relatively balanced.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

The key word you've emphasized several times is “balance”. I had the opportunity to meet the mother of young Amanda Todd, who took her life here on the Lower Mainland. It was a horrific story. We've heard other situations of teenage bullying online, things like that, not only nationally but in the world.

As for working with Canada and 11 other countries on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the issue of having public input, how do you envision that when you're dealing with such a large entity around the world such as 12 countries coming together to negotiate and always trying to get public input? What's your vision of a public process that would be able to satisfy you and your colleagues at OpenMedia?