International Trade committee  Those are irrelevant factors for an innovation company.

International Trade committee  One of my comments is that Canada does not have sophisticated collaboration frameworks for the innovation economy. Therefore, there is no collaboration and communication between innovators on what they need to be successful. You have to understand that the innovation economy is a set of rules, and these rules are changed and modified dozens of times every day.

International Trade committee  If I may just support that one very—

International Trade committee  No, I haven't done an analysis and it's not my job to do the analysis. It's our government's job to do the analysis.

International Trade committee  As a practitioner selling Canadian ideas globally, and what I was about to comment on the pharma stuff and transparency, I look at this agreement through the eyes of somebody who is engaged in these kinds of situations globally and I can see how we'll get out-lawyered and outplayed in these agreements.

International Trade committee  Do agreements that are like CETA, not TPP.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I'm not an expert on CETA. I've not read it, but it doesn't seem to be as invasive in our marketplace rules and rigidities precisely because the European countries would be uncomfortable with that kind of loss of sovereignty. So it's the degree to which they run our country on IP and administration and then take the ISDS outside of the country.

International Trade committee  I have a very sophisticated set of networks, globally and domestically, and very smart people in my office who support me in what I do. I have six Nobel Prize winners whom I work with in the Institute for New Economic Thinking that I founded with George Soros. Canada has the most superficial innovation discourse that I've seen in the world.

International Trade committee  No, the ISDS in NAFTA stays in Canada. Under TPP, it goes to the plaintiff country, which is invariably the U.S.

International Trade committee  I guarantee you there will never be another Canadian tech company like RIM under the framework of TPP.

International Trade committee  Number one, innovating a company is about managing the principle called freedom to operate. That's the core management construct. It's managing the rules, the regulations, the IP, the standards, and all the agreements and treaties that make you stronger or weaker. These things create the environment that you participate in.

International Trade committee  Yes, through some strategic amendments to the deal, and not take it as an up-or-down deal. There will never be a large Canadian tech company again under TPP.

International Trade committee  Take on the CETA ISDS provisions, make substantial modifications to the IP and transparency provisions and e-commerce.

International Trade committee  Canada had a catastrophic confusion between science and technology strategy and innovation strategy. The fact that the concept of freedom to operate is being introduced for the first time in May 2016 means that the policy community in this country has a tremendous amount to answer for.