International Trade Committee on Feb. 4th, 2014

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Since I have still a few seconds left, I'm going to bring us back to your comments where you said we should watch IP e-commerce and state-owned enterprises. You kind of touched on state-owned enterprises in some of the questions, but when it comes to e-commerce and IP, will China respect IP? That's one question, and what about e-commerce? What should we be looking at?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

Well, I'm not an expert on all of those issues, but there are privacy issues, I think, and issues around the control of domain and location of service, and so on, that don't translate quite so easily into the traditional thinking around opening markets.

There are some very huge competitive advantages for economies that are first movers, either in IP, e-commerce, and so on, and I think there are arguments for the public good nature of information flows and of intellectual property that argue for a regime that allows less developed countries, including Canada, which is not always at the forefront of technological development, to benefit from those developments as well. I think of pharmaceuticals, for example. The length of time before pharmaceuticals lose their copyright and can be turned into generics is a very important issue for Canada and especially for developing countries, and we should be sensitive to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Madame Liu, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, Mr. Woo, Sun nien fai lok.

I know that we celebrated the Chinese new year recently, the 31st of January. I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.

[Yuen Pau Woo]

Thank you.

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

I'd like to begin by talking about what you mentioned, that China is not a part of this TPP. The Asian countries are part of the TPP. Right now I think the major country that is part of the TPP is Japan, and we know that Canada is currently undergoing trade negotiations with Japan as well as Korea—South Korea, obviously.

Do you think that it should be a priority for Canada to concentrate more on negotiating a bilateral agreement with Japan, a strong economy, rather than being involved with a process of negotiating with the TPP?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

I'm told that the negotiations are taking place in parallel and that the bilateral talks are not being held back in any significant way because of TPP. That said, we're still in the very early stages in the negotiations with Japan. I would be very surprised if Japan plays all its cards bilaterally before it has played its cards on TPP. It would surprise me if we are able to conclude bilaterally with Japan before a TPP deal is concluded.

Where the priority should lie in terms of closing the deal with Asia is South Korea. We've been at this now for, as I said, nine years. The Americans concluded well before us. The Australians have now concluded. Our exporters, particularly in the agricultural sector, are at a significant competitive disadvantage.

I think many of the issues have been resolved. I know there's opposition from the auto sector. We need some all-party support and some public expression of support for a deal that's in the national interest, so that we can close this deal with South Korea.

Then we can say that we have one under our belt; we have one deal with Asia under our belt. It would greatly increase our credibility and make it easier for us to close deals with other Asian economies.

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

You moreover raised concerns about IP and e-commerce that my colleague Mr. Hiebert mentioned in his line of questioning. Can you expand more on what we can be doing to make sure that Canada's e-commerce sector is competitive when faced with other international parties in the TPP?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

Again, I don't have enough details about what has been negotiated, what the contested points are, but fundamentally it's this. We mustn't put in place provisions around e-commerce and IP that hinder trade rather than advance trade. The whole point is to advance trade.

If you're putting in place more restrictions on IP that make it more difficult for trade to take place, more difficult for innovation, more difficult for start-ups to take place, then I think you're running against the purpose of a free trade agreement. All you're doing is protecting the vested interests of the established players.

What it boils down to is that Canada needs to focus on a made-in-Canada approach to intellectual property and e-commerce that's in Canadian interests and which values the importance of the free flow of ideas and the free flow of knowledge to the benefit of populations around the world.

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

Critics of the TPP have raised concerns surrounding possible necessary changes to the Canadian Copyright Act. I'm sure you're familiar with those critiques. What kinds of changes do you think will be required to the Canadian Copyright Act by the TPP?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

I'm not in a position—I don't have enough knowledge on that topic to comment.

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

Do you see these changes possibly based on what we know more or less around the TPP as being positive or negative for Canadian copyright law?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

I don't have enough information to comment on that.

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

You mentioned also the fact that there are structural changes happening in China right now. Could you elaborate a little bit on what you meant by that?

[Yuen Pau Woo]

Yes, they are looking to change the structure of demand, so it's less export and less investment-driven, and more consumer-driven. It will mean a redistribution of wealth from companies to individuals. It will mean liberalization of the financial sector and probably a rise in interest rates. It will mean a whole new set of economic opportunities for Canada that we haven't yet even thought about, issues of professional service, architecture, engineering, education, and so on and so forth.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Holder, you have five minutes.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a quick question to you before I start and perhaps to the analyst. Any testimony we have from witnesses that are here today that relates to TPP, will that be extrapolated into the TPP report or do we need to ask those questions again to get them on the TPP record?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We're into the TPP report.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I'm not sure I understand what you meant.

If the question was asked yesterday, do we need to ask it again today to get it on the record or will the analyst extrapolate it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

It's seized by the committee. Yes, that's a good question.

Ask it again if you're nervous about it, but if not we'll certainly try to incorporate it into the report.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

From a research point of view, it would be worthwhile to ask it again, if only for the fact that people looking for information related to TPP won't think to look under yesterday's testimony. That will be listed under CETA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, they might not look in the other one.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

To be fair, that wasn't my question. I don't mean to possess the committee's time with this, but I could ask Mr. Van Keulen, who's a very wise person, several questions to get it back on the record today, but if it relates to TPP, the same kinds of things, why wouldn't we move it over to that as well if that's the purpose?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we would agree with that. It would give the analysts the flexibility to extract the testimony and put it in the appropriate place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, I would assume it is, if seized by the committee.

I think what the clerk was suggesting is that if somebody is looking for testimony under a TPP study, they may not find it if it was actually presented in the CETA study, that's all.