Chinese Software Counterfeiting Alone Costs U.S. 2.1 Million Jobs

From an op-ed by fmr. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Jon Huntsman, Jr., '12 Republican presidential contender, in yesterday's WaPo:

The scale is staggering. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, which we co-chaired, estimates that the total revenue loss to U.S. companies is comparable to the total value of U.S. exports to all of Asia. U.S. software manufacturers — a sector in which this country leads the world — lose tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually from counterfeiting just in China, where the problem is most rampant. The U.S. International Trade Commissionestimated in 2011 that if IP protection in China improved substantially, U.S. businesses could add 2.1 million jobs.

We agree with Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, that the ongoing theft of U.S. intellectual property is “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

Canada Losing It's Sci-Tech Advantage?

For a nation that had punched well above its weight in the sci-tech sector, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council's latest report isn't good news.

But Canada can just count on its booming natural resources sector...forever?

Highlights from Wells' column and the STIC Report that suggest Canada may be losing its sci-tech edge:

• If it manages to push Canada up 7 spots in international rankings of research intensity, the country will be back where it was, compared to peer countries, on the day Stephen Harper became prime minister.
• "So Canada has more scientists than ever, and each is able to do less science than she would have been able to do a decade ago."
• "The ability to deploy our talent to best advantage—to maximize the impact of people’s knowledge and skills in our labour force and our society—is equally important...in the services sector, Canada’s performance is mediocre when compared to other OECD countries. In manufacturing, the picture is dismal—the HRST share of the manufacturing labour force is among the lowest in the OECD." (STIC Report, Chapter 7) 
• "At the beginning of this century, Canadian business R&D funding stood at 1.05 percent of GDP, and it has fallen fairly steadily to 0.81 percent in 2011." (STIC Report, Chapter 3)

From Paul Wells' praiseworthy column in Maclean's:

The good news is that on pure science, Canada continues to perform better than most other countries. “With a share of only 0.5 percent of global population, Canada accounted for 4.4 percent of the world’s natural sciences and engineering publications in 2010. This positions Canada eighth after countries with significantly larger populations: the U.S., China, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy.”

The bad news is that Canada is letting its science advantage fritter away, as if that could somehow help its private-sector R&D gap close. In 2007 Canada continued to rank first among G7 countries in HERD, or R&D expenditure in the higher-education sector. But as I have argued elsewhere, it’s increasingly useful to consider the G7 as an international losers’ club. It’s the U.S., Japan and Old Europe. When you throw Canada into the larger pool of 41 countries STIC looks at — countries with a bit of mojo, like Brazil, India, China, Poland, Israel and Sweden — Canada has fallen from third in 2006, to 4th in 2008 — to 9th in 2011. “With their significant investments in research and higher education,” this panel writes, “other countries are catching up and overtaking Canada.”

Between 2006 and 2010, the annual number of science PhD graduates in Canada grew by nearly half — a lagging reflection, I suspect, of the formidable growth in science capacity in Canada between 1997 and 2002. A generation of students came of age at a time when Canada was developing an international reputation as a relative science oasis. They had their university careers and came onto the job market. But it’s a shaky market now. This larger cohort of scientists is searching for stagnant or declining grant budgets. Success rates for research grant applications are falling. So Canada has more scientists than ever, and each is able to do less science than she would have been able to do a decade ago.

It’s a peculiar situation. The government has known, since its first year in office, that the private sector is not doing enough applied research. Its response has been to put the brakes on pure research in universities. The result has been that the weakness has continued to aggravate, while the strength has been put in danger. At Davos more than a year ago, Harper said his government would “continue to make the key investments in science and technology necessary to sustain a modern competitive economy.” It’s not clear what he meant by “continue.” It is true that recent changes at the National Research Council are designed to bolster, or accompany, or synergize with, or somehow prop up private-sector applied research. I can only wish the NRC luck. If it manages to push Canada up 7 spots in international rankings of research intensity, the country will be back where it was, compared to peer countries, on the day Stephen Harper became prime minister.

America's Likely U.S. Trade Representative Brings Deep Canada-U.S. Experience

iPolitics offers this insight into Michael Froman, the White House's nominee for United States Trade Representative:

With a doctorate from Oxford, Froman has been a friend of the president since their days at Harvard law school — of which he’s also a graduate.

Most recently, however, he’s played a sherpa role in the lead up to G-8, G-20, and APEC summits, and Schwab maintains he’s got the president’s full attention.

“They’ve got a USTR who clearly has the president’s ear,” Schwab followed. “I think the key is to get him in place as soon as possible.”

Scotty Greenwood — a senior advisor at the American-Canadian Business Council — told iPolitics that in addition to being extremely intelligent, Froman also has a great grasp of the Canada-U.S. relationship, having done a lot of work behind the scenes to drive forward the Beyond the Border and regulatory cooperation initiatives.

“He was the U.S. sherpa for G-20 and G-8 as well as APEC, and what that means is there are lots of opportunities for him to — from the point of view of the National Security Council and advisor to the president — to coordinate the White House interaction with the prime minister,” she said.

“Because of all the multilateral get-togethers that Canada and the U.S. are both part of, the president and the prime minister had quite a large number of opportunities to interact with each other right after the president was elected. So Michael Froman was in the middle of all that.”

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Makes 'The Daily Show'

Canada's newest cross-border celebrity?

Comedy Central's Canada High clip summary: "Mayor Rob Ford is either the victim of malicious video editing, or has decided to clean up Toronto by smoking all its crack himself."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Stephen Harper Highlights BTB in Interview with Robert Rubin

From the Council on Foreign Relations A Conversation with Stephen Harper's Q&A session:

GORDON GIFFIN: So my -- really, my question is, is there a chance of a much bigger initiative between our two countries at some point, to break down the anachronistic rules that impede economic efficiencies in North America, some of which have been done in Europe? I'm not talking about creating an EU with a large governance or anything, but the economic efficiencies.

Last thing I'll say, when I was in Canada working on things like this, I found the impediment to that to be an insecurity in Canada about dealing with the United States, that we were somehow going to assimilate Canada. I don't see that anymore. I think Canada's much more self-confident in dealing with the United States and the world. So if that's the case, is there a chance at doing a bigger deal going forward?

HARPER: Well, Gordon, let me just begin by just repeating -- I know you're familiar with it -- some of the things we are doing, because I think we do have some significant initiative going forward.
We have the -- what we call the Beyond the Border Initiative where we are attempting through a series of individual initiatives and investments and closer cooperation between border authorities, to make things more seamless at the border and to push a lot of -- you know, inspections out around the perimeter of North America to try and arrange our affairs so that, as we say things, are -- things are -- you know, may enter twice, but are inspected only once. And we're doing some of those things.

We also have a parallel initiative called the Regulatory Cooperation Council, where we've identified 29 areas to create greater consistency and harmonization of regulations and more importantly, in my judgment, especially for our side, is to find ways in those areas where we will prevent regulatory -- unnecessary regulatory difference and duplication going forward, where we try and identify some of those things in advance, try and change some of the processes.

And I should mention one very specific project of international cooperation, which is the president just issued a permit for the Detroit River International Crossing, which this is financed largely by Canada, but this will be -- this is a huge piece of infrastructure in what is -- and we often forget the size of this relationship -- what is the largest single trade corridor in the entire world, the Detroit-Windsor trade corridor.
So we have some important initiatives going forward. Could they lead to something systemically more integrated? Look, I think on our side, they could. I think on our side, they could. I agree with your assessment. I think the view -- we had a watershed election in 1988 over the free trade agreement with the United States, and the opponents argued that whether economic integration with the United States -- greater economic integration and trade would lead to wealth or not, it would cause Canada to lose its political independence and identity.

What we've seen is it has led to vast increases in cross-border trade without any such loss of political independence or identity. In fact, this past year, as you know, we've been celebrating the War of -- the War of 1812, which --
RUBIN: I know. (Chuckles.)

HARPER: -- permanently established this -- (laughter) -- this independence and separate identity. So I think that -- there will always be opponents in Canada, but I think that is a real minority view now.

I think the resistance to this kind of thing's far more in the United States than in Canada, for reasons that -- and maybe, Bob and others, for reasons you would better fathom than me. 

Some of it's post-9/11 security concerns, but I've never seen -- the United States in the past decade is -- the sensitivity here about sovereignty and the negative assessments I often read of NAFTA -- completely counterfactual assessments of NAFTA -- I think, are the real barriers. I think the real barrier to making some of these arrangements broader and more systemic in terms of the integration are actually on this side of the border.

Canada-EU Stalled Trade Deal: Can the Tories Deliver on Free Trade?

Well, it was supposed to be done in 2012.

From today's The Globe and Mail:

The Harper government is pushing hard to secure a trade deal with the European Union before the Commons adjourns in June, an achievement the Conservatives sorely need to demonstrate they can ink ambitious accords that reduce Canada’s reliance on the United States.

Ottawa is in a race against the clock now that the European Union is turning its attention to a separate accord with the United States – a development that threatens to overshadow EU negotiations with Canada.

...

But time could be working against Canada. Ottawa’s long-delayed trade deal with South Korea stands as a reminder of what can go wrong when Canada fails to beat the United States to the punch. “The Canada-Korea free-trade deal was absolutely in the last stages and was completely set aside when Korea started to negotiate with the U.S.And the U.S. completed and Canada still languishes,” said Ted Haney, president of the Canadian Beef Exporting Federation.

The Tories are under pressure to deliver. Almost since taking office, they have talked of signing major trade agreements that diversify commerce away from the slow-growing United States but have so far failed to land one significant accord that would underpin what has become a major pillar of the Harper economic strategy. Negotiations with India and other big economies have also made little progress.

Another issue that may be a sticking point:  European bans on fracking could be challenged under a Canada-EU free trade pact.