International Trade committee  I'm sorry, I did not have time to bring myself up to speed on that before I came.

International Trade committee  The mechanism by which corporations will then be able to sue the Canadian government is in itself becoming a growing and profitable industry for successful claimants and international trade law firms. We know that active claims in 2009 and 2010 alone reached in the hundreds of billions in U.S. dollars.

International Trade committee  This is, of course, always a problem, and it has been a problem with NAFTA as well, in terms of the growth of a lot of the industries in Mexico, and a lot of movement of Canadian and American companies to Mexico. We have certainly seen that. Peru, Chile, Mexico, and of course some of the other developing countries have very low wages.

International Trade committee  I would be surprised if it did contribute to new innovation. There are problems with having these patents and with having a monopoly. Some of the issues that have been brought up by other experts in terms of looking at these government protective monopolies are excessive marketing expenses.

International Trade committee  I don't know.

International Trade committee  Yes, I would. I think that is the only way you can really enforce the Canada Health Act and the five pillars of the Canada Health Act. It just gets too fractured when it is imposed provincially.

International Trade committee  Good morning. As you go across the country, you will likely hear from some who worry that the TPP is no more than a contract to prevent governments from interfering with corporations' ability to seek profit and even at times extract economic rents. Under the TPP, the right of the corporation to seek profit is made paramount to a government's obligation to set policy that best serves the public.