Those are relative—
Evidence of meeting #15 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tpp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #15 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tpp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
Those are relative—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
—they may make an investment here because we'll have access to CETA.
9:30 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
Those are irrelevant factors for an innovation company.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Wow, okay.
Both gentlemen, you've said you're very concerned about the ability of governments to be flexible in trade agreements like TPP, that they are too open and the range is too wide on certain issues. Is your business plan exactly the same today as it was 10 years ago? Is your class outline the same today as it was 10 years ago? Why would you not want flexibility? Do you not adapt to changing specifics that come down the pike at business or at the academic level?
9:30 a.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, of course you adapt, and one of the problems we have in the TPP is that on certain issues it locks us in without the ability to adapt. A perfect example would be on protection for biologics. This, as many of you know, is really the next-generation pharmaceuticals where we are at just the very early stages of these kinds of new technologies—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
9:30 a.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Here's the point I want to make. In the United States they started with even longer protection, and now the Obama administration actually wants to cut back to seven. They recognize the costs are significant and that protection was too long. In Canada—
9:35 a.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I know.
Obama has put forward budgets in the last two years that would try to scale that back to seven, recognizing that twelve is too long.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The point is that it is early in the day, and the TPP locks us into this five plus three, or eight. If we identify over time—and perhaps we will develop a strong biologics sector—we may find, as a country, that in fact the eight is not suiting us well. The TPP locks us in.
Even our major trading partner has recognized it, and many of the other TPP countries. They come at this from many different perspectives. Why reach an agreement and lock us into a particular policy today, the very paradigm of innovation in that sector, when we simply don't know what the optimal length of protection is?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Balsillie, you commented that you very much prefer the CETA outline to the TPP. Having been involved in both of them, I would point to the fact that, on IP, 95% of CETA is exactly the same as the TPP. There are some fine lines, because you are dealing with different countries.
Then, you talk about specific changes. Can you give us those specific changes? Other than just throw it all out and start over, what specific changes would you call for?
9:35 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
As I am trying to say, many things matter in an innovation economy. The most important issue for a company is freedom to operate. It is a multi-faceted thing, where you expand your ability to own something that is created only abstractly by rules, and you restrict the other persons.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
The way I read the administration provisions and the enforcement provisions of the IP, and the way I read the ISDS under the TPP, I can't see a case where we will win.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
The Council of Chief Executives, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and every other business we have interviewed have all said, “This is fantastic. This is what we need to build an economy in the 21st century. This will create jobs and help us grow, having that predictability and stability of trade corridors.” How did they all get it wrong, when you got it right?
9:35 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
Can I ask the question back? Has a single person who has testified before you ever commercialized Canadian ideas globally?
9:35 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
I do—no.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
I want to thank our presenters, Mr. Geist and Mr. Balsillie, for their fine presentations.
I also want to commend you for your presentations in the way you.... The lens you have used is whether this is in the best interest of Canada and Canadians. We, as elected officials and representatives of our constituencies, of Canada, are here to do the same. We have to see if this is the best agreement for Canada and for Canadians.
Mr. Balsillie, running a global corporation in 135 countries, and now looking at many of the different trade agreements that you have had to deal with.... Through the lens of the TPP—if the TPP were to be ratified—when corporations are looking to make their next investment and where they are going to go, how would they make those global decisions? What would they be looking at?
9:35 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
Corporations look at tax strategies, stable banking, and things like that. Definitely, they are factors for investment, for what I would call a “jobs strategy”.
However, when it comes to getting money for Canadian ideas, that is called “innovation outputs”. There is a very big difference between jobs strategy and innovation outputs.
When a multinational corporation invests in Canada, it is creating what you would call “labour productivity”. If you see that chart I showed you at the back—and this is extraordinarily important—Canada's labour productivity over the past 30 years has outperformed the U.S. Our capital productivity has outperformed the U.S. The U.S. has averaged 1% growth a year over the past 35 years in multifactor innovation productivity. We have had zero.
If you look at it through that lens, that explains all of our productivity gaps with the U.S. I have no doubt that we will get investments for jobs and for different things, because Canada is a very good country. Will this lead to innovation outputs of Canadian ideas that bring the wealth from that globally? That is the gap we are looking for in Canada's prosperity.
I am not saying that everything is bad. I am saying that this is shockingly bad for innovation outputs in Canada. That is very different from somebody opening up a plant in Canada, which is a jobs strategy.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Well, we've actually heard from the auto sector. The comments were that we would be hard pressed to ever land another auto assembly plant again here in Canada under the TPP agreement.
9:40 a.m.
Former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion and Co-Founder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, As an Individual
I'm not an expert on the automotive sector. There are people who know far more than I do, so I cannot comment on that with specificity, although that is something I believe is worth looking at because it's a very important part of our economy.
I look at it through the lens of innovation outputs. What I tried to show you in that S and P chart is that every business is now a technology business; everything is an innovation business. Automobiles, forestry, oil, and agriculture are all going that way. Please understand that this march is happening. If we don't build this sophisticated capacity, I think even our traditional industries will be under progressive profitability pressure, including the automotive industry.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Peter Fonseca Liberal Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Given your views of how the TPP favours the U.S., as we've heard, how do you account for the broad opposition to the TPP among the current U.S. presidential candidates?
