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64 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | APRIL 2016 TECHNOLOGY | COLUMNS | George Takach is a senior partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP and the author of Computer Law. erefore, it is extremely useful that the TPP requires all member countries to implement an e-commerce law based on the United Nations UNCITRAL Model Law of Electronic Commerce of 1996 (or the more recent one passed by the United Nations in 2005). As it happens, the Cana- dian federal government and all the prov- inces and territories of Canada have already done this, so there's nothing specific for us to do in terms of our e-commerce statutes. But the TPP requires the other member countries that haven't yet done this to do so. is will help facilitate Canadian com- panies doing business electronically with customers in those countries. Equally, the TPP requires member coun- tries to implement rules to accommodate paperless trading, again ensuring that modern, best practices are adopted so com- panies and other organizations can trade more effectively across borders. is is the sort of measure that doesn't receive much attention in the press, but that serves to act as an important driver of the frictionless commerce objective we all look for in order to increase trade between member states. HELPING CONSUMERS, TOO e negotiators of the TPP understood well that e-commerce at the individual level – getting people to buy and sell goods and services online – requires them to have trust in the rules surrounding those trans- actions. Accordingly, the TPP's chapter 14 requires member countries to implement appropriate consumer-protection legisla- tion. In a similar vein, the TPP mandates member countries to enact reasonable pri- vacy-protection laws. Finally, the TPP calls on signatories to combat SPAM by imple- menting anti-SPAM legislation. On all these consumer protection fronts, the TPP calls for action at a relatively high level, leaving it up to member countries to decide the precise parameters of their re- spective laws. us, unfortunately, there will not be perfect harmonization among the different national legal regimes. Nev- ertheless, by and large, the TPP will fos- ter trust in online commerce, especially among individuals using the Internet to shop and conduct commerce, and this is very welcome indeed. Now, in Canada, we actually don't have a lot of work to do to implement the TPP in these e-commerce consumer-protection areas because, for the most part, over the past 10 to 15 years, we have updated our laws to include coverage in these three vital areas. So, for Canada, the main benefit of the TPP is that the countries of South East Asia will be adopting rules commensurate with those already in place in Canada (and the provinces) on these matters. is is a very important net gain for businesses and consumers in Canada. ONLY A TRADE AGREEMENT Some Canadian critics of the TPP say that the agreement doesn't go far enough — for example, by requiring all member coun- tries to adopt the particular form of legis- lation on these consumer-protection issues found in Canada. is criticism is misplaced. We must always remember, when judging the TPP, that is it a trade agreement; it is not an in- ternational privacy law convention; neither is it a model law for anti-SPAM legislation. And on that last point, thank goodness the TPP did not mandate a member country to adopt the Canadian CASL anti-SPAM law, because what we have in Canada is now widely recognized to be a sub-optimal legal regime — there is so much that is wrong with the Canadian anti-spam law. It would actually be a great ancillary benefit of the TPP if Canada repealed CASL in favour of a law more even-handed, such as something modeled on the US Can-Spam Act. Equally, Canada does privacy protection one way, and the Americans do it another way. e TPP does not dictate which way a member country should do it; it simply requires each member country to have a privacy law regime that provides reasonable protection. So the criticism of certain Ca- nadian commentators who are adverse to the TPP misses the point — it's a trade trea- ty, not an attempt to harmonize the world's privacy law. Would it be ideal if the whole world could agree on a regime for privacy and anti-SPAM and other online consumer protection measures? Sure it would. But it's also unrealistic to see that happening in the foreseeable future. erefore, when those of us who support the TPP encourage the new Liberal govern- ment to ratify it, we are saying the follow- ing: "e search for perfection should not block the achievement of the good." In a similar vein, next month, when we turn to the intellectual property provisions of the TPP, we have to keep to mind, the TPP is a treaty that promotes freer trade … it is not an intellectual property treaty in- tended to harmonize IP rights and proce- dures around the world. Read in this con- text, I believe the TPP is a treaty that should be ratified. Canadian tech companies – among others in this country – will benefit meaningfully from it. So let's indeed review it in Parliament, and thoroughly at that. But then, I respectfully recommend to Canada's Members of Parliament that they vote enthusiastically to ratify it. SOME CRITICS OF the TPP say it doesn't go far enough — for example, by requiring countries to adopt specific consumer-protection legislation. This criticism is misplaced. We must remember that this is a trade agreement, not an international convention