Thank you for being here, everyone.
My concern about the TPP is the impact it will have on access to medicines worldwide, in Canada as well as in developing countries. Canada has invested in health care for HIV/AIDS in developing countries. For those receiving treatment, AIDS has become a chronic but treatable disease. The cost of appropriate medicines has declined rapidly, thanks to competition from generic production.
Thanks, however, to the intellectual property rights, the IP provisions in the TPP, the health investments that Canada has made will be much less effective if the TPP is ratified in its present form. It will put limitations on the production of generic medicines through the questionable means of patent protection. This will be true for us Canadians as well. Joseph Stiglitz, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Bernie Sanders describe the TPP as the worst trade agreement ever.
My second point addresses the investor state dispute settlement process, the ISDS. This allows investors to sue a sovereign nation if they perceive future investments could be compromised by existing laws that are in place to protect health and the public interest. Canada has been subjected to about 35 ISDS challenges under NAFTA, with $10 billion in claims, at a cost of $215 million U.S. to date. Win or lose, in each case millions of dollars will be spent defending Canada from investors.
Who will get to pay? Well, we Canadians, of course, through our tax dollars. We will pay higher costs for our actual medicines and also get to pay the private court challenges brought on by the interested parties. This seems to be a double whammy.
Please do not ratify the TPP in its present form.
Thank you.