So most of the information you had was from that particular document?
Evidence of meeting #16 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tpp.
Evidence of meeting #16 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tpp.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
So most of the information you had was from that particular document?
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
There was a previous leak from 2011 that I've also looked at, so you can see the way things have iterated. But most of it's from that leak of the IP chapter.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
So is Canada negotiating from a position of weakness? Is the U.S. running the show? What's your opinion? That's what I got from your presentation: we're going to fold and just follow whatever the U.S. tells us to do.
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
I hope not. That's my concern. Certainly, the negotiators I've talked to have said that the U.S. is being aggressive and not taking no for an answer. My concern is that Canada was holding its own up until that leak that we saw, which I'm happy about. I think a lot of people were happy about that. In the last reports we have seen, they are not very specific, but what they say is that the U.S. put out that their landing zones have been established, and they seemed relatively happy with those, which is concerning to me.
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Conservative
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Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Thank you.
Thank you both for being here.
OpenMedia, Mr. Anderson, how are you funded?
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
We have a really diverse funding model, primarily from individuals, but NGOs and small businesses support us as well.
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Conservative
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
Yes. For most of our donors the average gift to OpenMedia is $10. We have a staff of eight, so you can do the math. It's thousands of people who support us.
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Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Fair enough.
You mentioned landing zones have been established. Can you elaborate on what you mean by a landing zone in these negotiations?
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
The reports are unfortunately fairly vague, but Michael Froman, the chief USTR, has celebrated the fact, in my understanding, that there are areas of policy—so, let's say, on digital locks—that are kind of broad and not very specific. Many of the negotiating partners have said they are going to go into that area and they're going to refine more and more going forward. So I don't know if that area is closer to the Canadian law, which would be good, or if that area of policy is closer to the U.S.'s more extreme copyright provisions. The U.S. negotiators in the report seemed to suggest that they were feeling good about it, so that makes me concerned.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Do we know for other countries that are involved in the negotiation what their preferred policy outcome looks like? Is it that much different from Canada's or that of the United States?
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Founder and Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca
There are a few detailed charts from the leaked draft showing that for most of the copyright provisions, it's the U.S. and Australia that are kind of alone in the kinds of scenarios I was laying out here. Canada, Chile, and all the rest of the countries are against all the liabilities, the restrictive digital locks, and all of that. It's mostly the U.S. on its own, with Australia coming in.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Okay.
Ms. Es Sabar, you made reference to there being stronger IP protection in other trading partners. Can you give us some examples of which trading partners would have stronger IP protection?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Drug Research and Development
If we want to be global leaders, we're always comparing ourselves, really, to the top-tier regulators and regimes. What we consider top tier are the U.S., the EU, Japan, and then Australia, really. With Canada, it would be five. We consult with each other a lot, certainly on health care regulations and so on.
Amongst this group we used to have the shortest IP protection. A few years ago—I forget whether it was two or three years ago—there was a whole discussion with Europe on data protection, and again we supported the extension of data protection as well, which is all tied to the IP. We're very much the poor cousin in terms of the timeframe for IP protection amongst these countries, and we're always comparing ourselves to these top-tier countries.
I'll tell you that a lot of the emerging countries are also now starting to look at the top-tier group to see how they can match IP there. There are still challenges in Asia. We deal with that.
My hope would be that we would be closer to the top than to the bottom of those top-tier countries. It's those five, really.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
What's the gap between us and the most restrictive IP provisions?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Drug Research and Development
I would say that the gap is now closer with the CETA and what we're trying to do with CETA. We're looking at a two-year gap there. Maybe with the U.S. I think it's still a little longer, because there are additional things, such as if it's a pediatric product or an orphan drug. There are some specificities. Compared to Europe, I would say that we're much closer as far as Europe is concerned.
In this particular TPP, I'm not really clear on where we're going to land, but my understanding is that we're moving in the right direction. I want to encourage it so that we do keep getting better and better and that we're closer to the U.S. regime, because at the end of the day, people always ask that question: why does the U.S. still manage to get international investment, not just from within the U.S.? In this development, a lot of the European countries also put money and research into the Boston clusters and the California clusters. IP is a big part of that. It's not the only component, but it's a big part.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Just quickly, you made reference to needing to provide opportunities for the STEM students. Are you suggesting that there's a high unemployment rate among students that have studied science and technology?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Drug Research and Development
I'm suggesting.... I'll give you an example. I spent two and a half weeks at MIT earlier in December, and I was quite shocked to find, having gone to Boston after three years, that almost every third person I met was either a Canadian or Canadian-educated. My questions were always about how there are clusters growing in Vancouver, in Alberta, in Quebec, and in Ontario. Those are the four big areas for biotech.
Everybody spoke about having their jobs there, but they would love to come back home. I shouldn't say “everybody”, but many spoke about how they would love to come back home if the jobs were there. Obviously we don't have the critical mass—we're a smaller population—but we really have to build a critical mass of activity to anchor these people here.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Okay.
Going back to you, Mr. Anderson, you made reference to the fact, as have others, that these negotiations were done in “secret”. I'm trying to imagine—and maybe you can help me understand—how any government or any organization or company would be able to have this kind of deep negotiations in public with hundreds, thousands, and millions of stakeholders—
