The Government of Canada will not accede to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) unless it is “fully satisfied that it reflects the best interests of Canadians,” International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan says. 

In response to a questions about a letter received this week from NDP MP Charlie Angus, which demanded answers from the government about secret trade negotiations affecting Canada’s intellectual property regime, Van Loan released a statement to The Wire Report through his press secretary, Monika Bujalska. 

“The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would comply with Canadian law,” Van Loan said in the brief statement. 

“Before acceding to any agreement, our government would need to be fully satisfied that it reflects the best interests of Canadians. The Government has been transparent in this process and will continue consulting stakeholders.”

MP Charlie Angus, the NDP’s digital affairs critic, sent a public letter to Van Loan, the new Minister of International Trade, regarding his party’s concerns about the ongoing negotiations about the ACTA.

Angus released the letter Tuesday at a news conference on Parliament Hill.

Leaks have shown that, as part of the negotiations, some participating countries are proposing international standards on intellectual property rights.

Angus’ letter to Van Loan outlined nine questions he had for the minister about ACTA, one of them about the secrecy of the negotiations, which have taken place since the first round in June 2008.

A seventh round of ACTA meetings are taking place this week in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Angus also expressed concerned about a “three strikes and you’re out” approach to Internet service provider (ISP) liability.

A “three strikes” rule would legally oblige ISPs to limit or cut off the Internet access of customers who have been accused three times of copyright infringement.

Angus’ letter said the “ACTA would set the stage for corporate interests to force ISPs to bar individual citizens from accessing the Internet, often based on unproven claims of three instances of possible infringement.”

Barry Sookman, a partner with McCarthy-Tétrault in Toronto and a registered lobbyist for the major recording companies and Hollywood studios, described the talk of “three strikes” as fear mongering.

“It’s not on any proposal that anybody has seen,” he told The Wire Report. “It’s an attempt to scare the public against some of the provisions of the treaty.”

Sookman said that leaked documents show the ACTA parties talked about a “graduated response” to copyright infringement.

They do not show a requirement to disconnect Internet users based on unproven allegations, he said, and action would only be taken if the infringement was proven.

Angus’ letter also raised the issue of ACTA’s proposed civil and criminal penalties in regards to anti-circumvention provisions—or the penalties for breaking “digital locks” on software and digital content.

Angus argued that the requirements proposed by parties to the ACTA would remove the flexibility that is written in the Internet treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

“[T]he ACTA leaks suggest that that flexibility could be completely curtailed by the treaty with requirements to impose regulations that go even further than the Americans’ regressive Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” Angus wrote.

Angus ended his letter by saying that ACTA would impede on a “made in Canada” approach to copyright reform because its trade commitments are being discussed outside of Parliament.

“At a legal level, ACTA is not self-executing,” Sookman said. “In order for ACTA to become binding, the Canadian government would have to pass legislation to implement it.”

Industry Minster Tony Clement said earlier this year that one of his top priorities is to introduce a copyright reform bill. 

Clement and Heritage Minister James Moore say they are now taking stock of the more than 8,000 public submissions the government received during its consultations last summer.  

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