On Nov. 13, WikiLeaks released draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) chapter on Intellectual Property Rights. The document provides insight into the ongoing negotiations between the delegations from the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and six other Asian and South American nations.
The leaked chapter, in part, pertains to: trademarks; patents, with specific attention placed on drugs and biological patents; and copyright legislation and enforcement.
The TPP currently represents nearly 40 per cent of the world’s economy (a GDP of $27.5 trillion) and 792 million people.
“Joining the TPP is good news for hard-working Canadian families,” said Ed Fast, Canada’s minister of international trade, on Oct. 9, 2012 – the day after Canada formally joined the TPP negotiations.
“Opening new markets and increasing Canadian exports to fast-growing markets throughout the Asia-Pacific region is a key part of our government’s plan to create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity.”
There have been 19 rounds of negotiations; the first occurred in Melbourne, Australia in March of 2010. Canada has participated in the past five rounds of negotiations.
Canada is participating in ongoing TPP meetings aside from the negotiation rounds. The latest meeting took place in Salt Lake City from Nov. 19-24 in reference to “chief negotiators and key experts.”
The leaked document has allowed experts in the field of international trade, copyright, and intellectual property rights to examine the impact of the trade agreements being proposed within the TPP. The language used in the agreement has raised concerns on the effect the TPP will have on Canadian sovereignty.
Michael Geist is a law professor and a research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. On June 3, 2013, Geist spoke about the TPP in front of the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade. He outlined the potential damage the trade deal would have on Canadian copyright laws and other intellectual property issues.
Five months later, Geist’s suspicions were confirmed.
“We’ve now had a more substantive leak than when I appeared before [the House] that identifies specific country positions, and it’s abundantly clear that all the concerns around intellectual property were perfectly valid,” Geist told the Manitoban. “The only real good news that has come out of the leak is to find that in fact Canada has been, at least up till now, trying to stand up for a Canadian oriented position.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts, but it certainly was good to see in the leaked documents that Canada is really adopting its own approach – sometimes with the support of others, sometimes not.”
Geist warned of the risk Canada faces if negotiators give in to the demands of the United States.
“From [the implementation of a] system that could lead to Canadians losing their Internet access based on allegations of infringement, to extensions on the terms of copyrights so that many works wouldn’t enter public domain for decades, to increased health-care costs through long extensions of terms of patents for pharmecuticals – there would be very serious implications for Canadians.”
Geist also challenges the notion put forth by MP Fast that the TPP would open up new markets to Canadian exporters.
“Frankly, I don’t think it’s all that significant.”
Geist explained that Canada already has well-documented trade agreements in place with the major participants in the TPP, specifically the United States and Mexico.
“The notion that this somehow offers us access to major new markets, most of the markets that we don’t have trade deals with are relatively small. The lone exception to that is Japan.”
Overall, Geist argued that signing on to the TPP would override Canada’s progressive laws regarding intellectual property.
“We tend to adopt a somewhat more flexible approach, a less restrictive approach than the United States. The truth is, we find ourselves economically (when it comes to intellectual property) typically in a similar place as many of the other countries. The U.S. is a major net exporter of intellectual property, so it uses trade deals as a major tool to try to ratchet up protection in other countries.”
“There are few incentives in that regard for Canada, and that’s true actually for most of the TPP.”
