Madam Speaker, in my question for the minister in May, I highlighted the concerns raised by Canada's tech sector about the impacts of the TPP. Earlier this year, Tobi Lütke from Shopify stated that the deal would undermine Canada's autonomy to adopt its own software patent rules. OpenMedia is mobilizing its members to stop the TPP because of its infringements on digital rights.
Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Research in Motion, a great Canadian tech success story, perhaps the largest we have experienced, is also very concerned about the TPP. In his presentation to the international trade committee, he warned that TPP would lock Canadian innovators into a perpetual second place in the IT sector and the knowledge economy. He said, “I guarantee you there will never be another Canadian tech company like RIM under the framework of TPP.....The best thing for a Canadian innovator to do under TPP is to move to the United States.”
On the west coast, we have a burgeoning tech industry that is constantly losing young people to the U.S. tech sector. The thought that the TPP will cause us to lose talented Canadians and potential innovation to the U.S. or abroad is not a positive for growth in the sector here in Canada. This is a sector we should be focusing on and growing, not signing trade agreements that threaten its viability and future. Indeed, the committee was told that Canada is lacking a cohesive plan. What is desperately needed, as with other sectors, is an innovation strategy.
Jim Balsillie raised a lot of good points in his presentation to the committee. He highlighted how the TPP is not a traditional free trade agreement and that being opposed to the TPP does not mean that one is opposed to the concept of trade. It is simply a bad deal that runs counter to Canadian interests.
I would like to point out some of the issues around the TPP modelling that has been done. Most models show that the TPP will have a negligible effect on growth. We see a lot of flaws with models that assume full employment or that fail to account for intellectual property and ISDS provisions.
I was shocked to see that the government's own long-awaited economic impact study was full of holes. Most of the headlines around the study suggested that although Canada would not gain much from joining the TPP, it stands to lose if we do not join. However, as I said, the study is full of holes. It makes unreasonable assumptions, such as full employment, and does not look at the billions in promised compensation to the supply-managed sectors. It ignores the cost of ISDS and intellectual property changes, and glosses over the potential loss of tens of thousands of good-paying auto jobs across Canada and how deeply that would be felt in communities across my region.
It has been exactly one year since the TPP was concluded. The Liberal Party talks the same as the Conservatives on trade. They criticize me and my party for stating the obvious, that the TPP is a bad deal for Canada. I challenge the Liberal Party for its lack of leadership on this file. It says it wants to study the deal and consult on it. That work is nearly done.
After unloading the task on the trade committee, it spent over $300,000 studying the TPP and over 260 witnesses appeared. It has been a year. The conversations have happened, the money has been spent, but the Liberals still cannot make up their minds about this deal. Both presidential candidates in the U.S. think it is a bad deal. It is about the only issue that we will hear them agree on.
I challenge my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, to push his government to finally show leadership on this file and be up front with Canadians on where Liberals stand on the trans-Pacific partnership.