Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his work on the trade committee. He has been very liberal in his praise for all the members working so hard. It is nice to see, because people back home expect us to do these things, although this member is one of our most conservative members.
What I would like to ask is specifically about intellectual property. Free trade agreements are changing. They are no longer just tariff access agreements by which we are getting rid of tariffs. In this one, we would actually be changing copyright. We would be extending it from 50 years after the death of an author to 70, matching the American rules.
There has been a lot of research showing that pushing these things back benefits only large corporations. At the same time, we would see less innovation and fewer things going into the public domain. We know that the Disney corporation has been very hawkish in this area to extend the life of their copyright for Micky Mouse, etc.
These changes would harm Canada's interests. Does the member think we need to compensate through changes and modernization of the Copyright Act to allow for more innovation in that space?