The Ontario Chamber of Commerce is out today with a new report on intellectual property which recycles many of the demands of the copyright lobby – WIPO ratification, tougher penalties, and a handful of task forces. What makes the report unique, however, is its claims about the size and scope of the counterfeiting issue in Canada. The report includes the RCMP's discredited $30 billion claim and even though the RCMP has backed away from it, the report states that it is a "widely accepted" estimate.
The Chamber's press release trumpets $22.5 billion in counterfeiting losses for Canada of which it says $9 billion comes from Ontario. How did it arrive at this figure?