Canada won’t see another company like RIM under TPP: Balsillie

OTTAWA — Former BlackBerry Ltd. co-CEO Jim Balsillie doubled down on his dire warnings against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and what he calls its failure to support Canadian innovators. “There will never be a large Canadian tech company again under TPP. Period,” Balsillie told members of Parliament Thursday morning during an appearance in front of the House of Commons standing committee on international trade. Balsillie’s testimony was part of the committee’s public consultation on the trade agreement, which is still to be ratified. During his appearance, he repeated many of the same arguments he made when he appeared before a Senate committee studying the same topic in March. The agreement’s “rigid rules,” especially as they relate to intellectual property (IP) and the dispute settlement provisions, “massively disadvantage Canadian innovators,” Balsillie told the committee. Innovators need the intellectual property rules to protect them if they’re going to keep reinventing and updating their products and to prevent others from “robbing somebody who’s spent their blood, sweat and tears” developing it, suggested Conservative MP and committee vice-chairman Randy Hoback. But that’s a “false narrative” Balsillie said, adding that the dispute resolution system is different in other agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement or the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). “IP protection is not about innovation, it is about protecting entrenched interests to preclude the ability of new innovators to come in,” he said. “I guarantee there will not be another Canadian tech company like RIM, ever, under the framework of TPP.” The dispute resolution system, that allows complainants to have their concerns heard in their own country, is a “seismic loss of autonomy and authority” for Canadians, Balsillie said, adding that “the best thing that a Canadian innovator to do under TPP is move to the United States.” Issues with the trade agreement stretch beyond intellectual property, said University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, who also appeared in front of the committee on Thursday. It also touches on issues like culture, he said, and could restrict Canadian content policies. “This means that despite the fact of Canadian Heritage Minister Joly’s recent promise to review cultural policies and contributions to support the creation of Canadian content, they may be effectively locked into place with the TPP blocking new policies aimed at new services and technologies,” Geist told the committee. Some elements, such as the extension of copyright terms to 70 years after the creator’s death from 50 years, represent “a major windfall for the United States and a net loss for Canada,” Geist said. He cited Australian and New Zealand studies on copyright term extensions, which estimated their own annual costs at $88 million and $55 million, respectively, in their domestic currency. Those term extensions also don’t create any additional incentives for creativity, Geist added. “There’s no one that woke up this morning and started thinking about writing the Great Canadian Novel and decided ‘well, maybe I won’t do that because my heirs are only going to get 50 years of protection rather than 70 years,’” he said. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Canada won’t see another company like RIM under TPP: Balsillie

Broadcast | May 5, 2016

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Canada won’t see another company like RIM under TPP: Balsillie

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