Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Sherbrooke this evening.
We have heard about a number of issues that have surfaced. Once again, I will just say that Bill C-56, the combating counterfeit products act, amends both the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act. Its purpose is to strengthen the enforcement of copyright and trademark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copyright or counterfeit trademarked goods. It sounds pretty comprehensive.
A couple of things have surfaced through our party, and I would like to reinforce them. We believe that dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important for both Canadian businesses and consumers, especially where counterfeit goods may put the health or safety of Canadians at risk. That is a good thing. We need stronger enforcement to make sure that this does not happen.
However, it is difficult to see how a bill like this would be implemented, since the Conservatives slashed $143 million in funding from CBSA last year, which further reduced front-line officers and harmed our ability to monitor our borders. I do not quite understand. We are increasing the task, and it is a good one, for border services officers, but at the same time, there are fewer people to do the job.
I have visited border services officers at our border crossings, and I know that these people work flat out. They have a tough job as it is. If we decrease their staffing, it is inconceivable how this particular legislation could be enforced. That is a question that needs to be discussed early at the committee stage or in further discussions.
Therefore, it is difficult to quantify the problem of counterfeiting and pirating in Canada and its economic impact. On this side of the House, we support the fight against counterfeit goods, especially when they pose a risk to health and safety, as I just mentioned. We need to determine if the Canada Border Services Agency will be able to implement these enforcement measures in light of the 2012 budget cuts.
The United States and industrial groups have been calling for measures to stop counterfeit goods at the border for a long time. It remains important to continue being vigilant in order to ensure that intellectual property laws strike a balance between the interests of rights holders and those of consumers or users. We are trying to strike a fair balance between the two.
The government has long been aware of how difficult it is to measure the magnitude of counterfeit and copied goods in Canada. This challenge was identified in the 1998 OECD report entitled The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting and Piracy and is due to the clandestine nature of counterfeiting. Much of the data consists of estimates based on real seizures, isolated testimony and data from the industries themselves.
In its 2007 report on counterfeiting, the industry committee recommended that the government establish a reporting system for investigations, charges, and seizures of counterfeit goods and pirated copies as a way to collect data. According to the more recent 2013 report, it is difficult to obtain a accurate estimate of the value of counterfeit and pirated goods on the market in Canada.
The NDP believes that it is important to fight counterfeiting for the sake of Canadian businesses and consumers. It is especially important when counterfeit goods put the health and safety of Canadians at risk. All the same, we do not know how the enforcement regime proposed in Bill C-56 will be paid for. This bill gives border services officers new responsibilities at a time of budget cuts.
In their 2012 budget, the Conservatives slashed the CBSA's funding by $143 million, effectively reducing the number of front-line officers and our ability to monitor our borders. According to the CBSA's report on plans and priorities for this year, 549 full-time jobs will be lost by 2015. That is significant. If the agency is losing 549 jobs at the same time it is being given new responsibilities, how is it supposed to implement this bill?
This bill will require customs officers to carry out very complicated assessments to determine whether goods entering or leaving the country infringe copyright or trademark. That is not easy. It is not like looking for something and finding it. It is more complicated than that and takes more time. When assessing whether copies are pirated, officers have to determine whether any of the exceptions in the Copyright Act apply. Even the courts have trouble figuring that out sometimes. The NDP wants to make sure that the CBSA has adequate financial resources to implement this bill.
This is a point we have been trying to make. If one has new responsibilities that are even more complicated, with new technology, then instead of cutting back resources, there should be additional resources of trained personnel added to the border services to deal specifically with this rising problem.
The industry committee recently conducted a study on intellectual property that, in part, examined these issues. Witnesses testified in favour of increasing border measures to tackle counterfeit and infringing goods. In its 2013 report, “Intellectual Property Regime in Canada”, the committee recommended border measures, including providing appropriate ex officio powers to customs officials, introducing civil and criminal remedies for trademark counterfeiting and allowing customs officials to share information with rights holders regarding suspect goods.
