The report urged the federal government to act quickly on the Committee's recommendations. The Parliamentary Committee recommended strong measures against counterfeiting and piracy.

"The report boldly and unambiguously reinforces the need for the government to take proactive steps against criminal activities that cause billions of dollars in economic losses, feed money to organized crime, and pose a significant threat to the personal health and safety of Canadians," Chair, CACN, and Director, Audits & Investigations, CSA Group Doug Geralde said.

"It's heartening to see that Parliamentarians can set aside their partisan differences to respond so effectively to protect Canadians and battle counterfeiting and piracy. We thank the Committee's Chair and Vice-Chair for their inclusive, non-partisan leadership in making this happen," he added.

The report makes 19 recommendations, among them:

• New criminal provisions including legislation making it an offence to manufacture, reproduce, import, distribute and sell counterfeit goods.

• Stronger civil remedies for counterfeiting and piracy infringements.

• Administrative monetary penalties for importing and exporting counterfeit and pirated goods.

• Legislation imposing liability on individuals who distribute pirated digital works and who manufacture and/or distribute circumvention devices for commercial gain.

• Canada Border Services Agency and law enforcement authorization to target, detain, seize, and destroy counterfeit and pirated goods on their own initiative.

• The provision of adequate resources to the RCMP and Department of Justice to effectively address counterfeiting and piracy.

• Ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

• The establishment of an Intellectual Property Crime Task Force composed of police officers, customs officers and federal prosecutors to work with Intellectual Property (IP) business leaders.

"Canadians, through their elected representatives in Parliament, are clearly saying that the time for research, study and talk is over," Vice Chair, CACN and Senior Policy Advisor to IE Canada Carol Osmond said.

The Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters echoing the words of Robert Thibault (West Nova, Lib.) when he told the Committee that "the only demand for research that we've heard is from researchers."

The report's comprehensive recommendations are consistent with those of a separate report on counterfeiting and piracy issued earlier this month by Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU).

It is also the fourth time in recent years that a Parliamentary committee has unanimously called upon the Government to ratify the WIPO treaties, including previous calls by the Heritage Committee.

With clear direction in hand from industry and Parliament, the CACN is urging the Government to use the time provided by Parliament's summer recess to develop legislation based on both committees' reports.

"We call upon the federal Government to move quickly and decisively on these comprehensive recommendations," Osmond noted.

The report comes about a week after the Conference Board of Canada, in which Canada was, graded 'D' for innovation and placed it 14th out of 17 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations measured.