I'm not sure that there was a counterpoint on the digital trade chapter in particular. One gets the sense that these provisions were familiar to negotiators because they are similar to what we agreed to in the TPP. Because there was some familiarity with it, there was a sense that, okay, we've already agreed to these once, so what's the big deal?
I think the reality, though, is that there are some provisions in this agreement that go further than we agreed to even in the TPP. With the extent to which we may have agreed to it a couple of years earlier in a different agreement, some of those issues have become even more salient.
A good example is the Internet platform liability issue. It seems to me that it's there less because some of the large platforms were interested in having Canada create safe harbours for these large companies and more because they were interested in ensuring that these were locked down in the U.S. environment, because the U.S. would be subject to those same provisions.
The problem we face is that while we were negotiating that, that issue really took off as a place where there is much policy debate. Literally, the Justice Department in the United States is holding a hearing today on this same issue. Speaker of the House Pelosi tried to remove this provision at the very last minute, but it was too late.
As I say, I think there are good arguments on both sides about changing some of those rules. I fear that we have now locked ourselves into a provision and given ourselves less flexibility on an issue that just about everybody recognizes is really, really important when we start talking about where responsibility lies in the online environment.