International Trade Committee on May 10th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have one last question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

No. I know you're on a roll, both of you. I think you guys could go for a couple more hours, but we have lots to do today here and we have three other panels. We're also going to have an open mike at the end.

That said, we're doing fairly well this morning so far. All the MPs are getting their input, and the witnesses are getting input.

I would remind you, witnesses, that if you'd like to add anything that you didn't get a chance to add today, you can do so. Thanks very much, gentlemen, for coming this morning.

We'll take a break while the next panel comes in.

Thank you. We'll return.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're going to start our second panel in our consultation with Canadians on the TPP agreement.

As many of you know, it's a big agreement. It will affect every Canadian and most people around the world, whether you're a consumer or doing trade and competing with companies around the world.

That said, this is the fifth province we've visited. It's great to be here in Montreal.

On our second panel we have, as an individual, Madam Gendreau. From the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal we have Guy Jobin and Charles-André Major. We also have from the Centre international de solidarité, Denise Gagnon and Amélie Nguyen.

Welcome, everybody.

If panellists can keep it to five minutes, we'd appreciate it. That gives lots of time for MPs to be able to interact with you. The last panel went well.

We're going to start off with you, Madam Gendreau, for five minutes. Go ahead.

[Ysolde Gendreau, Full Professor, Law Faculty, University of Montreal, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the committee very much for having invited me to come to speak here today.

My name is Ysolde Gendreau. I teach law at the Law Faculty of the University of Montreal, where I have taught for 25 years. Prior to that I obtained a PhD in copyright law at Université Paris II. I am currently vice-president of the international copyright organization that developed the Berne Convention, which is the recognized international convention on copyright. I was president of the Canadian branch and president of an association of professors and researchers on intellectual property during two years. I am speaking to you today as an individual.

I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to you about intellectual property. In the time I have been given, I would like to make three comments. Two of them are of a general nature and the third is more specifically about copyright.

Intellectual property is an essential element in free trade agreements. This has been the case since industrialized — for the most part — countries realized in the 60s that international consensus in intellectual property forums like the World Intellectual Property Organization was extremely hard to reach because of the emergence of the developing countries. In a “one country, one vote” sort of system, developing countries have more weight, and the intellectual property policies presented by the developed countries are not accepted as easily.

Consequently, the World Intellectual Property Organization has trouble moving intellectual property dossiers forward. The World Trade Organization picked up the baton to some degree with the 1994 WTO agreements, which contained a very important chapter devoted to intellectual property, the TRIPS. Even now, the WTO has trouble moving intellectual property policy forward, especially when it comes to matters involving patents on medication.

The international development of intellectual property is now done through regional or bilateral trade agreements. Canada played a role with its first agreement with the United States. That was one of the trade agreements. Last year the TPP Agreement was much talked about in the Financial Times. Editorials implied that the the TPP was practically created to regulate intellectual property. I don't want to deny the importance of agriculture and all these other matters, but you should not be surprised that all these agreements trigger major debates on intellectual property. It could almost be said that it is the sinews of war.

Historically, Canada has had an ambiguous position on these matters. On the one hand, it presents itself as a developed, industrialized country, but it was snubbed at the G7. Then it became a member of the G8, and it belongs to the G20. The fact that it is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council does not sit well with Canada. It wants to be seen as an important industrialized country, but it likes to take the position of a developing country when it comes to intellectual property. Canada's position is very ambiguous on these matters.

If we are experiencing a fourth industrial revolution, knowledge is crucially important. At a certain point, you have to walk the talk, that is to say that you have to put your money where your mouth is. If you want to optimize and value knowledge, intellectual property law is the law that protects it in all its forms. It is difficult to have an industrial position based on knowledge without intellectual property legal tools that are needed for its protection.

That was my first comment.

My second comment is of a general nature and you have probably not heard it often. It is more academic, but it is something I like to mention. As compared to the agreement with Europe, the TPP is shows interest in traditional knowledge. To my knowledge, it is the first time that we have an agreement which refers to this matter.

I'll now switch to English, because I like to do half and half.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Sorry, but if you can wrap it up in the next half-minute, that would be great.

[Ysolde Gendreau]

Traditional knowledge is an important IP issue. Countries like Australia and New Zealand have developed attitudes toward it, and we have much to gain from them. It's going to be an interesting mix on that issue.

The last point, and perhaps the most important, is copyright. The most talked-about copyright issue is the one about term extension. I submit to you that it's a non-issue. More than 90 countries have a life-plus-70 term of protection.

We're not at the beginning of this trend, where positioning could be interesting. The train has come by, and it doesn't make sense for us not to jump on it. Is it great? Not necessarily, but there's no point fussing about this. There are far more important issues in copyright to deal with.

First, there's the absence of liability of all these service providers and of the GAFAs of this world: Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. Money is being made somewhere, but the money is not being fuelled back into the industry. That's very clear.

Second, we're talking about mass consumption, mass uses of work. This calls for a mass type of enforcement in copyright of collective management. We don't emphasize this enough.

Third, there are lots of copyright exceptions in our act now, and the presence of all these exceptions inhibits the creation of markets for these works in our country. It also raises serious issues of compliance with international law.

With these words, I'd like to close. I welcome your questions afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to move over to the Board of Trade.

Go ahead.

[Guy Jobin, Vice-President, Business Services, Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Montreal.

My name is Guy Jobin and I am the vice-president of Business Services for the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.

The board speaks for the city's business community. It has more than 7,000 members. We organize 250 events yearly, through our service entity the Montreal World Trade Centre; about 60 of these focus on international trade.

Our position on free trade has always been roughly the same, and that is that we have always strongly supported the government's initiatives in negotiating free trade agreements. Canada is a nation of traders. Our exports make up more than 27% of our GDP. Employment, competitiveness and prosperity depend on international trade. That is why it is crucial that we maintain our exporters' access to offshore markets.

We also have to remain a part of global value chains. The board believes that the TPP will contribute, like other free trade agreements Canada has entered into, to our collective enrichment. We support the estimates that were done according to which the TPP could stimulate, on average, growth of 1% in the GDP of its members, and could add US $223 billion to the world economy by 2025. Most of all, the TPP promises our exporters better access to markets where we did not have a free trade agreement. These are emerging markets with sustained economic growth, like Vietnam and Malaysia, and major beacons of the world economy like Japan, Australia and even Singapore.

The board's main concern would be the cost of not entering into the agreement. Regional agreements bring together member countries, but exclude other countries from the preferential measures granted to members. If this treaty is duly implemented, Canada cannot afford to be excluded from it, or its businesses will be at a competitive disadvantage in many very promising markets, some of which are growing by leaps and bounds. One has only to think about the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea: the Canadian pork industry suffered greatly from not being a part of it.

The cost of Canada not being in the TPP would be far higher than the cost of concessions. The TPP is a new generation agreement and it is an unprecedented opportunity to take part in an agreement which will tackle, more than previous agreements, non-tariff barriers that impede our businesses' attempts to move to the international stage. That is important for business. In fact, it will make it easier for business travellers to obtain visas. It is important for the service trade sector. Seventy-six per cent of Montreal's economy is based on the service trade, and the agreement should facilitate the temporary entry of professionals and technicians. One has only to think of Moment Factory or gsmprjct°, businesses whose professionals need mobility.

The harmonization of intellectual property protection regulation is another important aspect. Since Montreal is a knowledge and creativity metropolis, it is very important for video game enterprises and for the fashion industry. Ms. Gendreau spoke about this earlier.

Increased transparency and the harmonization of regulation have an effect on health, the environment and consumer protection, all sectors that can be affected by trade. All of this means that this is very important to us.

In conclusion, on behalf of the Montreal business community, the board encourages the Government of Canada to ratify the TPP by the February 4, 2018, deadline. The board also encourages Quebec enterprise to prepare for the implementation of the TPP. For our part, we will be organizing information and training sessions as well as commercial missions to help our businesses derive as much benefit from this as possible. However, we would like to recommend certain measures to the government to facilitate preparation for our businesses; provide information on the business opportunities in the 11 other member countries in the TPP; explain to them how to proceed and how to prepare—I think we talked about this earlier; clarify the advantages in the TPP in terms of facilitating business development procedures and exports; and especially, provide our businesses with the means to avail themselves of these advantages.

One of the main criticisms the board hears is that there is very little information on the agreement in question. There is more information on the American website than on the Canadian one.

That is all; I believe I have not gone beyond the five minutes I was allocated. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on to our last guest, who is from the Centre international de solidarité ouvrière.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Amélie Nguyen, coordinator, Centre international de solidarité ouvrière]

Good morning. Thank you very much for having invited us to express our viewpoint on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Mr. Jobin was talking earlier about what it would cost to not be a part of this agreement. For our part, we would rather talk about what it will cost to be a part of it. We represent the Centre international de solidarité ouvrière, the CISO, an international solidarity inter-union group that has been in existence for 40 years and now has more than 80 union members in Quebec. Our mandate is basically to create solidarity between workers here and those elsewhere in the world.

One of the issues we certainly wish to discuss is decent work, here and elsewhere in the world, as well as the democratic issues surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As Mr. Jobin was saying, we have had access to very little information on the negotiations and the last documents about it. Among other things, we ask that parliamentarians be included in these discussions and that citizens have access to the information that would allow for enlightened democratic choices with regard to that agreement.

May I introduce Denise Gagnon, the president of CISO.

[Denise Gagnon, President, Centre international de solidarité ouvrière]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting us. I think this is very relevant. We thank you for your openness and willingness to listen. We know the agreement has been signed but not ratified yet, and that it has to be looked at from a global perspective for the moment.

As Amélie said, CISO's objective is to protect working men and women, unionized or not, in the official economy or the parallel one. I am myself a member of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, as well as the Canada Labour Congress, which has already presented its positions. I am going to emphasize, rather, cooperation and impacts. The CSN and the Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale will also be making representations.

From the point of view of workers, we think that the TPP will be very detrimental to Canada. That statement is derived from some studies done on the basis of snippets of information about the agreement which were passed around on social networks. We think that this partnership will also have repercussions on adjacent countries. Mr. Jobin talked about the cost of not joining the agreement. However, neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh that are not members of the accord may see jobs displaced in very volatile sectors such as textile. Thousands of workers could be affected.

We recently heard Ms. Kalpona Akter, a speaker who represents workers' groups in Bangladesh. She came to Canada to talk about the situation of those people. An asymmetrical regional agreement will affect the balance of forces between multinational or transnational enterprises and the countries concerned, which may certainly see repercussions on decent work. Canada has committed to respecting the principles of the Decent Work Country Programmes of the International Labour Organization, the ILO. Several official ILO conventions have already been invoked because of violations by businesses, especially as concerns subcontracts.

As for decent work, we feel it is important to target supply chains. There is a debate at the ILO this year. They are discussing measures to protect and to monitor international labour standards, and having an adequate network of social protection measures and social dialogue mechanisms. My colleague Mr. Jobin will agree that that is an essential element, since we are soon going to be hosting the National Dialogue Quartet, who received the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for having maintained prosperity and security in a country like Tunisia.

This agreement may also weaken the sovereignty of the United States.

I will now give the floor back to Ms. Nguyen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You have one minute left.

[Amélie Nguyen]

The national sovereignty of states is one of the points I absolutely want to discuss. This was mentioned earlier, but the investment protection mechanism that allows businesses that lose potential profits to sue countries really threatens the sovereignty of provincial and federal governments. There was, for instance, the suit launched by Lone Pine Resources, that is seeking $250 million because of a measure aimed at protecting the common good in connection with the extraction of resources. This is also happening in Ecuador. The Chevron company is suing the government to have a judgment reversed that would force it to participate in cleaning up the part of the Amazon it has polluted badly.

Ms. Gendreau spoke about the protection of intellectual property. CISO is quite concerned about the patenting of medications. This threatens to greatly affect the poorest populations' access to generic drugs. I am thinking particularly of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, diseases that are very widespread. The increase in the duration of patents and the potential difficulty of challenging them in the context of the agreement could block that access.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I know you have some more thoughts there, but during the dialogue of the witnesses with the MPs, you will be able to get more of your thoughts, and your answers, and questions. We still have some time.

After the session if you have any more input, we'll accept it.

The MPs are going to be asking you guys some questions now. We're going to start off with the Conservatives for five minutes.

Mr. Lebel, you have the floor.

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your presentations.

This has been a dialogue day for us. It is a pleasure to listen to the various points of view and to what our political opponents and the people around the table have to say.

There is a lot of crowing about infrastructure, and I'd like to say a few words about that before I ask my questions.

When I was mayor, from 2000 to 2007, there was no federal program. The program was an idea put forward by Mr. Martin, which was implemented by our government. We brought in the excise tax on gasoline and made it permanent through legislation. We doubled that tax, and indexed it.

We always respected provincial jurisdiction in the areas of public transit, social housing, health and post-secondary education. These are all areas of provincial jurisdiction.

From 2007 to 2014 and from 2014 to today, we implemented the biggest infrastructure projects in history. We had to sign an agreement on the gas excise tax with the provinces and territories. And so an agreement was signed with all of the provinces and territories on that. The agreement with Quebec was signed in Roberval, on June 25, 2014, in the city where I had the honour to serve as mayor. After that, Quebec did not submit any projects to the federal government. Since I am no longer familiar with the files, I will not speak on behalf of the Quebec government as to why this was not done. Some projects must have been submitted in the past few months.

A lot of boasting goes on about infrastructure, but the government that actually delivered on that count in this country, to date, was the previous government.

All that said, Ms. Gendreau, I found what you had to say about intellectual property very interesting. I am going to ask you to do a brief analysis. We hear what the American electoral candidates have to say, and we can see that protectionism is making a comeback. We signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA. With the TPP, the Americans tried to impose certain things on us and wanted to fine-tune that agreement somewhat. In your opinion, what was conceded in terms of intellectual property between NAFTA and the TPP? Where are we headed? What is your advice on what needs to be done?

[Ysolde Gendreau]

NAFTA was negotiated at the same time as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the TRIPS agreement of the WTO. There was not much difference between these two agreements. I would prefer to limit my comments to copyright if I may, as there are a lot of issues.

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes.

[Ysolde Gendreau]

The fact that the WTO took the initiative of harmonizing intellectual property in its member countries displeased the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, whose field this is. This pushed WIPO into being a bit more active regarding copyright. Two years later, in 1996, there were two WIPO agreements, one on copyright and the other on artists, performers and record producers. They included what was in the WTO agreements and added provisions, such as clauses concerning dissemination on the Internet. They added the right to communicate on the Internet as well as some rather controversial measures on technical means of protection and information management to obtain rights management. There was a consensus on this at the time.

What we find today in the TPP regarding copyright basically involves the same issues, in addition to “the life of the author plus 70 years”. The TPP also maintained — and many consider this a victory for Canada — the notice and notice provision that is in the 2012 Copyright Act. I'll explain the “notice and notice” system, quickly. When an author sees that someone is using his works on the Internet without his authorization, identifying that person raises privacy issues. The intermediary acts as a mailbox. The rights holder sends a notice to the service provider and informs them that someone somewhere, whom the provider knows but whom the author does not, is violating his copyright.

According to the American position, upon receiving this notice, the provider should take down the offending passages. In the United States they call this “notice and take down”. This can then be followed by litigation, and so on. Canada's position was that the provider did not have to take down the work, but simply had to send the notice to the person concerned, as the provider knows their IP address and can act as the go-between between the person and the computer. That is why the process is called “notice and notice”. It is a process that mostly leads nowhere, because it puts the emphasis on individual action. Do you really think that an author, or a “major”, one or the other, will be able to sue someone on that basis? That is completely unrealistic and makes no sense.

So, what are the consequences? This encourages certain uses, some of which are legal, of course. However, in the case of illegal uses, do you think that those who are doing these things are afraid of being sued? No; of course, there will always be people who...

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm sorry, but we have to move on.

I will remind members to shorten up on their introductions, because that would give more time for the witnesses to have dialogue.

I know, Mr. Lebel, that this is not your first committee—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

—and to all members, shorten up on your introductions so the witnesses can have time to answer.

We have to move on to Madam Lapointe for five minutes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good morning and welcome to the beautiful Montreal region, my home.

I have some questions for Ms. Gendreau and for all the witnesses, in turn. It would be great if you could keep your answers brief.

Last week, some of the witnesses said that the TPP could give an advantage to the United States in terms of intellectual property. What do you think about that, Ms. Gendreau?

[Ysolde Gendreau]

Let's not fool ourselves; intellectual property rules are established by the strongest industrialized countries.

Copyright was not addressed in our agreement with Europe. I believe that Europe and the United States have an agreement. Europe told the U.S. to deal with the issue of copyright expiring 70 years after someone's death in the TPP, and Europe would in turn deal with appellations of origin. That is how the appellations of origin were obtained in the European agreement. I think this is a very interesting system.

However, it is clear that this is how the rules are applied. Do we lose in this system? I will tell you a little story.

We always say that Canada is an importing country, so that it exports royalties. Which countries are truly importers/exporters? Three countries are net exporters in terms of copyright: the United States, with its music, films and software; England, with its music and films; and Japan, with its computer programs and video games.

Three other countries are breaking even: France, Germany and, unfortunately, I can't recall the third one. All other countries are “losers”. That means we are not alone. If we manage to have a good industry, it's not our fault we don't have any Beyoncés or Michael Jacksons.

However, we do have other artists, such as Céline Dion, Cirque du Soleil and Arcade Fire. A number of our films are doing very well. Many of our activities are worthy of merit and successful.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I really appreciate your comments.

I will now address Mr. Jobin. Thank you for joining us today. The discussion has been quite enlightening.

A bit earlier, you said that joining the TPP would result in an increase of your members and a 1% increase in the GDP. In addition, over several years, $223 billion would lead to prosperity.

Is there any research to support the figures you are putting forward?