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Canada is making a costly mistake by signing on to TPP
For Immediate Release
Canada is making a
costly mistake by signing on to TPP without any room for
negotiation
TPP’s intellectual property provisions threaten Internet freedoms and will cost Canadian economy billions, experts warn
January 25, 2016 –
Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland today confirmed that Canada will sign on to
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive deal that
experts warn will threaten basic Internet freedoms and cost the economy billions. Ministers
from the 12 TPP nations will be meeting next week in New Zealand to sign
the deal.
Digital rights group OpenMedia warns
Canada is making a costly mistake, given that Minister
Freeland has said previously that the deal is
impossible to renegotiate. Signing the deal places Canada on
the path to ratification, after which the TPP will come into
force. Full ratification will require a majority vote in the
House of Commons.
“This is a bad deal for the
Internet and a bad deal for our digital economy,” said
Meghan Sali, OpenMedia’s Digital Rights
Specialist. “Given that Minister Freeland has admitted
that it’s impossible to renegotiate the TPP, and that we
know this agreement will restrict our online freedoms and
damage our economy, it's irresponsible for Canada to
continue pushing ahead with such a bad plan.”
The
TPP has come under intense criticism from a diverse range of
business leaders, economists, and copyright experts. Critics
include former Blackberry CEO Jim Balsillie, who has stated
that ratifying the TPP would be the worst public policy decision in Canadian
history, and that its IP chapter would consign Canada to a
“permanent underclass” when it comes to selling ideas.
A recently published Tufts University study also concluded the deal would lead
to 58,000 job losses in Canada over the
next 10 years. And copyright expert Michael Geist has written extensively about the impacts of
the TPP on the digital economy and our digital
rights.
People across the 12 participating TPP
nations are speaking out at DontSignTheTPP.net
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