Mr. Speaker, I want to take this chance to tell the hon. member that it is a pleasure to work with him at committee.
What is really important in this case is to make sure that we start collecting meaningful data not only to make sure that we understand the scope of the problem but to track our progress.
According to RCMP Superintendent Ken Hansen, the former co-chair of INTERPOL's intellectual property crime action group, the RCMP can only investigate 25% of the goods the CBSA Toronto office flags as being fake. Only one-quarter of RCMP investigations and seizures of counterfeit products were potentially harmful to consumers in 2011, but that proportion has steadily risen from 11% in 2005. That tells us that we are seeing more counterfeit products. We are indicting them, but we are unable, with the resources we have, to actually fully investigate them. Those products are becoming more and more harmful to the Canadian public.
I agree with my hon. friend that we do not need to hear anymore about the existence of the problem. We know it exists. However, obtaining data so that we can more clearly understand what is happening and put resources in the right places to address that problem is simply smart implementation of policy.