International Trade Committee on April 18th, 2016

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

There is a certain sector, though, that says “a high tide floats all boats”. Everybody's looking at gaining something, and there may be some trade-offs and so on.

I know, and you made the point, that Canada fought hard to retain our notice-and-notice, as did Chile. Are you concerned that, should we rip the band-aid off and go back in to try to renegotiate some of these chapters, we could be at risk of losing that?

[Meghan Sali]

I think that Canada shouldn't accept an agreement where we give that up. Certainly, I believe that we should—

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I don't disagree. I know it was a hard-fought battle.

A number of the chapters were written by the time we actually got involved, and we were able to go back in. One thing that we saved, from the agricultural perspective, was the cheese compositional standards, which makes a difference of $700 million to $800 million to our dairy industry every year. That was in one of the chapters that was locked and loaded, but we were able to go back in and actually make that deal. So there were some wins at the last minute.

Finally, Mr. Green, on your presentation, you talked about aboriginal rights on resource development being trampled on with no prior consent. Do you have an example of that?

I know in my country.... Now, we do have treaties, and you don't have the luxury of that in British Columbia. There are a tremendous number of first nations groups, some in my own riding, that have developed their own oil rights, their own gas rights. They're major players in the energy sector, and they're doing extremely well with it.

I'm just wondering if you have some examples where some, with no prior consent, have actually had those rights pushed aside.

[Tom L. Green]

Yes. I've worked with first nations over the years. I used to be an environmental adviser to the Innu Nation in Labrador, but I've had experience in different ends of the country. I worked with the Xaxkli'p First Nation a number of years ago. I was part of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement, which had a lot of first nations in it, and I'd say that is actually a model of where consultation was happening; the first nations were driving the process. I'm very optimistic that we can actually do more of that, and that's what I would like to see.

You can go through the list of a lot of mines and projects that are going ahead where a first nation is blockading a road. I was at a benefit earlier this month where they were trying to raise money for their legal defence about a pipeline going through their property. If you look at the pipelines, you can pretty well look at a lot of first nations that are saying, “We want consent over this because of how we see it affecting our traditional territories”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to go over to the Liberal side and Mr. Fonseca.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and let me thank all of you for broadening the awareness of the TPP and for helping educate a lot of the public. Being outside that Ottawa bubble here in beautiful B.C. and Vancouver and seeing all the public, we're delighted to have everybody here and that you're so vocal. That's what we want to hear. That's why we're on the road. That's why this is a public consultation; we want to hear from as many Canadians as possible.

I want to thank Ms. Sali. I hadn't received an email on TPP in my riding till OpenMedia fired it up in my email box, and I don't know how many came in, 20 or 30. I'd like to get back to all my constituents and have an opportunity to speak with them. That helps us in doing our jobs.

Mr. Brand, where do you see the biggest gains and losses in a fully implemented TPP agreement, if it were to be ratified?

[Chris Brand]

I don't know that I can speak to the whole agreement because as noted there are an awful lot of words there.

There are gains on the trade side for sure. Gains are projected to Canada's GDP as a result. Depending on which economist you listen to, they could be reasonable gains or small gains. They don't sound as if they're overwhelmingly big even on the best projections. I think the best projection I saw was just under 1% in 10 years or something.

The losses.... I'm here representing as an ordinary Canadian. The drug and health care costs are one of the big concerns I see, because of the reduction in the ability of companies to market generics because of the patent side of things.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Ms. Sali, if we added the 20 years for the protection years in terms of our IP, what would be the gains and losses to Canada if that change were adopted?

[Meghan Sali]

As many other witnesses have mentioned today, we do not have a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership here in Canada so I really can't claim how much we will lose. New Zealand's government has done a full cost-benefit analysis, and on just the copyright terms alone, they estimate that it will cost $55 million a year for consumers, and that's in a country that's a ninth of the size of Canada. We've seen the potential cost to Canadians estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's also worth nothing that—if I can use a brief example—this is killing Canadian business models. A couple of years ago a Beatles record came into the public domain, a recording of it, and a small company called Stargrove Entertainment started selling these public domain copies very cheaply. Unfortunately due to lobbying by Sony, which previously held the copyright monopoly, we saw the federal government extend copyright terms for sound recordings, just that select piece, for 20 years. Unfortunately it killed that Canadian business model. Not only are we going to see consumers suffer, but we're also going to see Canadian business models suffer, and we're potentially going to see artists and creators receive less revenue because in those alternative methods, the creators, the artists, the people who wrote the songs or whatever the art is, are actually still being compensated.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Green, in the environment chapter of the TPP, the provisions that are included in the agreement, would these be sufficient to ensure enforcement of environmental laws in the TPP countries, including ours?

[Tom L. Green]

No, I don't see much in the chapter 20 that's very useful.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

So our domestic laws would be our domestic environmental laws?

[Tom L. Green]

The thing we have to keep in mind is, we've got 12 nations with very different levels of environmental regulation. One thing that's been shown empirically is, you can shift production to pollution havens when you have high regulations in one country and lower in another and you have a free trade agreement that encourages people to go to the lowest cost producer. That would be one of the concerns I would have with this.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

If the TPP were to be ratified, what ecological threats to Canada would you see?

[Tom L. Green]

Well, at a global level, there are so many threats to the environment. We've lost 50% of our wildlife in the last 40 years. That's a pretty serious indicator.

It means that more of this kind of economic activity is happening without sufficient environmental provisions in all the participating members of the bloc. It's just not the direction we need to be going in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Your time is up.

We have five minutes left and, Mr. Van Kesteren, you have them. You're up.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you for being here. It's been very informative.

I think it's been stated before, and it should be stated again, that it's good to get perspectives from all sides of our Canadian society.

Ms. Sali, I don't know if you testified before committee in the past when we were struggling with IP. It's tough stuff. It really is tough. There are so many different factions that are looking to gain an advantage. We try to balance that with the rights of individuals and companies and citizens in general. I appreciate what you're doing.

I know that we've heard Professor Geist a number of times at committee, and he always gave, I would say at least a very interesting perspective—thought provoking.

Mr. Brand, I appreciate your input too. It's cause for concern.

I think Mr. Ritz probably laid out some good points that we need to consider as well.

Mr. Green, I must confess that I had not ever heard of an environmentalist economist or environment economist.... Forgive me.

[Tom L. Green]

Ecological economist.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Ecological economist. Yes, thank you.

Great. I think that's wonderful.

You mentioned something. I just want to give you some clarification there because I didn't want to leave the impression that you are opposed to.... Well, I guess I would say this.

If you look at the history of mankind, it has been one of clearing forests, of mining, of extraction. I think if we look at our history and see how we've made discoveries, it's been a direct result of those things. You're not suggesting, of course, that this agreement should put an end to that.

I'm in the car business, for instance. I remember when there was an outcry on the pollution back in the eighties. Somebody said one time that a car that was produced in 1987 as opposed to one that was produced in 1980—I think those were the words—was 13 times cleaner.

Humanity has an amazing capability to correct wrongs that we make, but meanwhile we move forward.

I just wanted to give that opportunity.... Although we need to consider these things, the fact that we reach out to other nations and begin trade, there's much good that results. Would you agree with that?

[Tom L. Green]

The finer point is that we are now at seven billion people, and geologists are now considering whether we are in the age of the Anthropocene because humans are the dominant force on the planet. There is a lot of trade going on already, and if the TPP doesn't get ratified, there will continue to be a lot of trade. There will be mining. There will be forestry. I enjoy chopping down a tree myself every now and then for various purposes. However, it's about how we do it. It is the broader context. Do we have marine-protected areas? Do we have pirate fisheries going on? It's all those kinds of things. The scale of the economy is just massive now in terms of the materials that we mobilize and the by-products that we are putting into the biosphere. The biosphere is giving us feedback that it is not going to take that much longer...and leave the earth a happy place for humans. That is where I am coming from.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You would agree that if it was your livelihood to cut down trees, you would rather have a chainsaw than an axe. When I think about my neck of the woods.... I remember growing up in the 1960s, and the Great Lakes were polluted. When I look today, I see the advancements that we have made. Now, we have a new challenge. We have green algae. It is the history of humanity that when we come to these crossroads, we all come together and solve these issues. Wouldn't you agree?

I'll let you have some closing remarks as to those thoughts.

[Tom L. Green]

I don't know how to answer that. We're in a serious predicament. We need to deal with these things in a much more aggressive manner than we have been, and we need to preserve the ability of states to actually move forward with an agenda much more quickly.

People are very concerned. I teach at the university level, and among the undergraduates that I'm seeing today, some have almost clinical depression about the state of the planet. That's not very good, and that's based on the data that's coming in about environmental indicators. I'm all for good economic activity, but it's how you do it and everything.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

I'd like to thank the other witnesses and all the witnesses we've had here today. It was a very informative day.

It's very good to be in British Columbia and here in Vancouver. It's a new format for us. We're opening it up to an audience, and it made for a very exciting day.

Thanks, everybody, for coming today. You know how to follow us.

Have a good one.

This meeting is adjourned.