Public Safety Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I've been interested in copyright and counterfeit goods and piracy for a long time. In the last Parliament I sat on the heritage committee and learned a lot about the WIPO treaty. Canada signed that treaty quite a few years ago, but it hasn't been ratified. The former government didn't, and at this point nothing has come forward from our government, but there seems to be significant interest again in moving this forward.

There's a lot of frustration in Canada about this. I never really thought a lot about it in terms of the public safety side until you folks were planning on coming forward to the committee. I'm really happy to see that.

The industry ministry would also have a lot to be involved with on this issue. I know that late in the last Parliament there was a proposal to have a joint special legislative committee to deal with copyright, so there seems to be a lot of interest. I'm glad you folks are here today, and that we're hearing more about this. Some of us have been pushing to see something come forward.

I'm very interested especially, Ms. Segal, in this committee that you're working on, the interdepartmental group that you've got. Maybe you can tell us about that. I really want to get more into it. I know you've talked a bit about it, but I want to hear a bit more about that group, because it's important for that group to be a party to this. Tell me more about the progress the committee has been making.

[Nancy Segal]

The group has been together for a while, as was pointed out. Part of the issue at the beginning was that there wasn't a group; rather, everyone had a piece of the pie, so to speak, in terms of addressing intellectual property rights protection, whether it was through the legal regime, the enforcement aspect, or the international cooperation aspect. No one was really coordinating it or assuring that the lines of communication with all of the involved parties were there.

The interdepartmental group started out, basically, with trying to figure out what the problems or challenges were with Canada's regime. The regime has been working; we do protect intellectual property rights, and we allow the rights holders to enforce those through our legal regime. There are certain gaps, but things have moved forward.

It was to identify both what was happening domestically--so we needed everyone involved domestically--and also to bring in the international dimension of what was happening outside Canada in other countries and other partner countries. We wanted to know how they were addressing the challenges and how we could amend our regime suitably so that we could address it in a consistent way with our international obligations, but also with the cooperation that's already in existence. That is becoming more and more developed as these things progress, because now it is recognized internationally that this is not a problem that can be addressed within one country.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Obviously there's the legislative side and there's the enforcement side, but what do you see as the mandate of your group?

[Nancy Segal]

It's to look at the holistic kind of approach of what we need to do in Canada to address these issues. It's to put the framework in place, to put the resources, and to see what kinds of resources we need to address this.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

So you want to bring forward some recommendations in terms of specific legislation that will help--

[Nancy Segal]

Oh yes.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Okay. So tell me a little more about when you think there's going to be a report from this group, and who are you going to report to?

[Nancy Segal]

Who are we going to report to? Because everyone has a piece of the pie, everyone really has to be aware of that and be in agreement with the recommendations that we're going to put forward. So basically, by and large, most of the agencies and departments need to have ownership of this.

Now, in terms of legislative changes, the departments that actually kind of own the legislation need to be on board with those, but also for the resources aspect. Everyone has to be on the same page.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

So when might we expect to see something from your group?

[Nancy Segal]

We're working as hard as we can to bring something soon.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Two months, three months, six months? I'm trying to get a feel for when you might expect to be finalizing your report.

[Nancy Segal]

We're trying to work out the details and go forward as soon as possible, but I'm not in control of the agenda. I don't know when--

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Who does control it, then?

[Nancy Segal]

Probably central agencies, by and large, but--

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Central agencies as in industries?

[Nancy Segal]

But we're not in position. We're still working out the details, but we're trying to get it forward as quickly as possible.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Okay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I would just like to note that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade back in October 2005 had an indication that there were strategies being developed to improve the enforcement in the issues we're talking about. So we're still doing that and we're not getting anywhere? Is that the impression I'm getting from you? Is there not a lead minister or department taking charge of this?

[Nancy Segal]

I wouldn't say we aren't getting anywhere. Certainly we have a lot more activity and awareness of the problem, and we've been working within the existing framework to address it. So there is a framework in place that we can use and we are using.

We are using increased cooperation with our partners internationally, specifically also with the U.S. and Mexico, because we do have integrated borders and things like that. So it's not that we're standing still on this. The improvements to our own domestic regime are one part of the puzzle, but we haven't been standing still.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Is there a lead minister or department?

[Nancy Segal]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

There isn't? Okay.

[Nancy Segal]

I mean, there's Industry Canada and Heritage Canada that are responsible for the Copyright and the Trade-marks Act. There's CBSA, which is involved with their legislation. There's the Department of Justice, which has their part.

The thing is, this doesn't fit neatly in one department, so we do not have one minister who is responsible for everything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

But usually doesn't the justice department develop legislation, coordinating all these other things? That was my impression.

[Nancy Segal]

It's usually the policy department--my understanding anyway--that develops the recommendations, and then the justice department assists to develop the legal framework to implement those policies.