International Trade committee  I can totally understand why that happens, and I can equally understand why, in the context of many of the prior trade agreements, the approach would be to say that this is happening behind closed doors. A distinction between some of those prior agreements and what we see today is that where you're negotiating tariffs on certain things, that's just basic commercial negotiation, and I can understand there that you would want to keep your cards close to the vest as part of the negotiations.

International Trade committee  I'll answer the second question first in terms of the impact. If we extend the term of copyright, works that would otherwise be made available to the public, which could be used without permission in classrooms and in a range of different environments, would simply fall out of the public domain, in effect, if we extended that term of copyright, creating all sorts of restrictions.

International Trade committee  In some ways that question is better posed to the minister. I look at these documents and to me it's readily apparent what this is. There are opportunities to discuss either Canada's position or perhaps other positions with respect to the TPP, and that's granted only to a select few who have signed these declarations of confidentiality and undertaking of non-disclosure.

International Trade committee  Sure.

International Trade committee  I think the issue of transparency is hugely important. For example, if you take a look at the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement—the trade agreement that Canada signed along with the United States, Europe, and some other countries—which was defeated in Europe as the result of the protests of hundreds of thousands of people, much of that centred around the lack of transparency.

International Trade committee  Well, that's been the issue. It's not that there were never intellectual property issues in prior trade agreements—although this one here goes right down to the domain name system and other issues which, in the past, we haven't addressed. It's that it delving into a different area that conventionally has been held in a much more open forum.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I'm also a syndicated weekly columnist on law and technology issues for the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen.

Industry committee  We just talked about it in the wireless context, but we could talk about it from a regulatory uncertainty perspective on privacy and electronic marketing, as I mentioned with respect to spam. We could talk about it with respect to the innovation policy. Indeed, we had a report that came out just last week that found that there, Canada continues to fall further and further behind.

Industry committee  You have heard some great things. When you look at companies like Shopify, which is a largely unknown success story here in Canada—and frankly here in Ottawa as well—you will see that they are doing some really great things. I think you have heard some very interesting and encouraging things here today as well, but if there's one take-away—once again from my perspective—it's the extent to which the committee can again raise the alarm bells to say that you've looked at this now in a number of different ways, whether on broadband access or SMEs or e-commerce adoption, and that you've been hearing some of the same kinds of things.

Industry committee  I think we have to be honest at this point in time. The efforts from several years ago have been a failure. It's quite clear that the new entrants upon whom a lot of hope for a greater competitive environment in the wireless sector rested are, by and large, indeed throwing up their hands.

Industry committee  Absolutely. All I mentioned were the committee-based reports. I didn't mention the fact that the government itself launched a full digital economy consultation with the public and got large numbers of responses from the business community, the public, NGOs, and others back in 2010.

Industry committee  Well, it has been going up, although, as you know, there has been a great deal of concern about the state of the wireless marketplace in Canada—which we could get into—whether the level of competition, consumer pricing, and the like.

Industry committee  The reference I made came from a CEFRIO study that looked at SME use of mobile devices. I agree with you that certainly we're seeing growing uptake on the consumer side, but their 2011 study found that SME usage was low.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. As you heard, my name is Michael Geist. I'm a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, but I appear before this committee today in a personal capacity, representing only my own views.

Industry committee  I think it's relatively clear that the digital lock provision, which.... And I'll emphasize again that almost everything in Bill C-11 does a pretty good job of trying to strike a balance. The one exception to that is the digital lock provision, and if you take a look at any number of things, whether it's documents that have come out through things like the WikiLeaks cables and the like...the reality is that this is the result of significant pressure from the United States.