Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 21st, 2019

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I have two more questions.

One is with respect to the hypothetical case studies that Sidewalk Labs put in their October 2018 report. One example is pedestrian counters, where Sidewalk Labs consider themselves as submitting an application, the data trust publishes the RDIA and the information presumably is publicly available, but the second case study is actually that of “Startup A”, a small Canadian start-up.

Because the small Canadian start-up requires the ability to monetize given that they're putting money into the project initially, the idea is that they would be able to monetize the data. It would be proprietary for a period of time. Then, says the report, “After a time, the data is made freely and publicly available.”

That makes a certain degree of intuitive sense to me, but then the question I have is: Who decides when that data becomes publicly available? Do you have a view of that as far as it goes or that's all time—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

The time is well past, so just a brief answer, please, if you can.

[Kristina Verner]

We don't have a fully developed answer on that. That's one of the pieces that we want to speak about with the small business community in Canada in terms of what they would be looking towards in that. In particular, for instance, there's Kurtis McBride from Miovision, who is on the digital strategy advisory panel. His insights would be very valuable on that piece as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Angus for three minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've been sitting at this table for 15 years. I used to be young and good-looking and have dark hair.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

The one thing—

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You're still good-looking.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Frank. It's just because you're the same age.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Are you making fun of me?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

He's taking my time, Mr. Chair. Call him out.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

When I see questions from an Auditor General, I have to ask those questions. When an Auditor General raises a red flag, it's a red flag, so my question is in terms of the negotiations at the federal level.

When did John Brodhead get involved in the conversation? Was that prior to the framework agreement?

[Meg Davis]

I'm not aware of any conversations with John Brodhead. There was the email you mentioned, and that's the thing I didn't get to say. That email was about scheduling the Prime Minister, the premier, the mayor and the head of one of the largest corporations in the world, which is a very tough thing to schedule. That wasn't about selecting Sidewalk. It wasn't about—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No, I understand that. I just wanted to know when he was getting involved. The Ontario Auditor General said that matters that should have been handled by formal consultations with other levels of government—obviously, to me, the city should have been really involved—were instead, quote, “discussed at a senior political level”. Was that “senior political level” the federal level?

[Meg Davis]

I don't know anything about that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That was in the Auditor General's report.

[Meg Davis]

I don't know anything about discussions at the senior—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, but she was concerned. She raised that flag. For my colleague Mr. Vaughan, certainly, many of these issues are city issues, and she was concerned at how that consultation process hadn't gone down.

I'm a little confused here, because you said it was a 156-day RFP...?

[Meg Davis]

I said 159.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay, 159. The Auditor General said that it was only six weeks, and she said that it was 10 weeks for an art installation project on the Waterfront. She agreed that Sidewalk Labs was given the go-ahead because it was the most comprehensive, but this was because, she says, they were given preferential treatment even well in advance of the RFP, so that's why it went ahead. If the Auditor General believes it's six weeks, why didn't you explain to her that she was wrong?

[Kristina Verner]

Mr. Chair, if I can address that, the Auditor General's six-week time period actually relates to what would be the equivalent of a pre-qualification period. The full 159 days is the full duration of the RFP process, including what is the best and final offer process of the submission—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Doesn't the Auditor General know that? She's a pretty smart lady. She raised this as one of the issues.

[Kristina Verner]

Definitely. This was a very complicated issue to explain to her, because it followed a very different model in terms of the terminology that was being used—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I guess she's not.... She didn't get it? Like, this is her job. She said that Sidewalk Labs was given preferential treatment, that this conversation began in 2016, long before the RFP went out, so they were prepared for this, and she said that compared to an art installation, this was a very short RFP.