Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 21st, 2019

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Just to be very clear, I believe that Waterfront Toronto is a wonderful organization with a terrific history, but given the secrecy and the initial statement by Mr. Doctoroff, “give us a city to run”, there is widespread suspicion. In the last week, social media has been alive with it. I've talked to councillors. I've talked to MPPs in the provincial legislature, who are very worried that Waterfront Toronto, a worthy organization with decades of worthy goals for the Toronto waterfront, is being steamrolled by a Google sibling.

The parliamentary secretary may not have been following this committee's work for the past year since the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-AggregateIQ scandal, but in the testimony that we've taken, we have learned some very serious and, in some cases, very disturbing truths about the data-opolies, including the Google family.

I hope you understand that this is the impression. I understand also.... I don't know if it's true, and I'd like to ask you to speak to this. I'm told that the mood of the staff of Waterfront Toronto and its various internal divisions is not good because of the overwhelming preoccupation of the Sidewalk Labs project. Could you address that? Is that a wrong impression?

[Meg Davis]

First of all, I'm going to let Kristina talk about the sort of accountability framework that will be in place, but I go to work every day excited not just by the Quayside project but also by what we might able to achieve on affordability, sustainability and mobility. Kristina looks after the tech part.

I'm excited to go to work every day. People are very enthusiastic. I know that there are some folks out there who are very concerned about the project. We're concerned about data and privacy, like everybody else, but we're also enthusiastic, and there are a lot of people who come to our public engagement and round tables, etc., and who are enthusiastic and want to see where this might go.

We also have a lot of other projects that we're working on. We have flood protection, which this government has very graciously given us $400 million to do. We're enthusiastic about all those projects as well.

Kristina, did you want to talk about it?

[Kristina Verner]

I'd like to touch on two elements of your comment.

The first is with regard to the data-opolies. In my spare time, if you will, I'm still a sessional instructor in the school of computer science at the University of Windsor. I teach both the social media and technology kinds of courses as well as a cyber-ethics course. I am very well aware of the risk of the data-opolies and what that represents nationally and internationally.

In fact, the accountability framework that we will be moving into if we put forward any of these ideas into an implementation plan will ensure that we actually prevent against the data-opolies having effective control over too much of the data or not sharing the data.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Could I just interrupt there.

[Kristina Verner]

Sure.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Sidewalk Labs has been very secretive or obfuscating with regard to who will own the data they generate within Quayside and whether that data will be shared with Canada or whether, in fact, Sidewalk Labs, by accumulating this data, by commercializing this data, will take it from the country and profit below.

The parliamentary secretary invoked Mr. Balsillie's name, but I think that's behind Mr. Balsillie's statement. He says, “As long as Waterfront” defers to “Sidewalk on all the critical decisions, Canadians will...be treated to glitzy images of pseudo-tech dystopia while foreign companies profit from the IP and data Canadian taxpayers fund and create.” He says:

Sidewalk Toronto is not a smart city. It is a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic and political issues.

Do you disagree?

[Kristina Verner]

I disagree with Mr. Balsillie on that front. Actually, Sidewalk has been pretty clear on the fact that they don't intend to own the data and that they do intend to make all of the data open by default, which is an interesting business model in the fact that it actually doesn't have monetization behind it in the traditional sense. That being said, some of the smaller Canadian firms may actually be disadvantaged by having everything open by default, and that's part of the important next phase of discussion.

I also want to touch upon this notion around the David and Goliath idea of Waterfront Toronto being steamrolled by Sidewalk Labs, which I think is a tremendous mischaracterization of this entire relationship that we have, because it's not just Waterfront Toronto and our staff. We have the backing and the strength of all three levels of government. It's not Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet; it's the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto—

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

But Sidewalk Labs will not speak for any of the companies or partners that it brings into this project with regard to the ownership of data. Mr. Doctoroff has been quite clear in saying that he can't speak for the other technology companies that will be part of this project.

[Kristina Verner]

I would agree with you. He can't. But we can make those requirements incumbent upon any other third party that would be participating in our smart city initiative, similar to how we've done it in our development agreements, where we've put in some core requirements for things like what Meg mentioned earlier around LEED or intelligent community initiatives with regard to connecting to high-speed networks and doing digital inclusion projects.

There are ways that Waterfront Toronto and its government stakeholders can be protected and can protect the Canadian economy by putting those measures in place as Waterfront Toronto.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Kent.

Next up for five minutes is Madam Fortier.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'll give my speaking time to Mr. Erskine-Smith.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Mr. Erskine-Smith.

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

Thanks very much. I have one last follow-up to my original questions.

You have Professor Scassa, who has been involved on the board. You have Ann Cavoukian, who was involved on the board and stepped away. Those two—and including Mr. Geist—have been very serious privacy advocates. I would even say that I think our committee has maybe not gone as far in our recommendations as we could have.

Are you comfortable now with the commitment to de-identification and subsequent conversations with Ms. Cavoukian that they 're supportive of the path forward?

[Kristina Verner]

Absolutely.

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

With respect to civic data trusts, are you familiar with the Toronto Region Board of Trade's proposal for the Toronto Public Library to be responsible for a civic data trust?

[Kristina Verner]

Yes, I am.

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

Do you think that is a model worth considering? Is it a model that you're looking at seriously?

[Kristina Verner]

We're doing some work right now, actually, with the MaRS Solutions Lab about civic data trusts, since this had been tabled early on in the Quayside project.

One of the first phases we've looked at is doing a civic data trust primer, so that we can build civic literacy around this concept and people can engage in that conversation, since it is relatively new in the Canadian environment. The board of trade report tabling the notion and the library playing that very critical role is actually quite compelling. Libraries have always played a very vital role as the keeper of the universe of knowledge in cities.

That being said, there are other options. There could be a notion around a sort of post-secondary model, whereby a university or college becomes the Switzerland of data brokerage, if you will, in the community, the municipalities themselves.... I think civic data trusts offer one potential governance model. There are others that we need to look at as well, once we understand more fulsomely what is actually being contemplated for this area.

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

With that in mind, then, in answer to a previous question, you committed—however this moves forward—that the identification at source to protect privacy would be mandatory. Is there a similar commitment to ensuring that in terms of the collection of data, the use, the data itself is open, publicly accessible and under public control?

[Kristina Verner]

Yes, and actually going even further than that: the entire architecture being created in such a way that it's open, so that we don't end up with the dominance of one market player.

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

In the Toronto Region Board of Trade's report, they note that organizational capacity remains a challenge for Waterfront Toronto with respect to daily governance and that you're not really in the business of managing the daily governance piece of a project like this, or at least historically not so.

Whatever ultimate deal is reached, whether it's the Sidewalk Labs proposal or something else, if a smart city is in mind, there is going to be a data governance piece to the smart city. Presumably you're not waiting for Sidewalk Labs to propose a civic data trust. You say there are other options you're considering. What is the path forward with respect to managing data and building a data trust?

[Kristina Verner]

I think there are a few very important elements that we're putting in place. Initially DSAP was a bit of a stopgap to make sure that we had perspectives informing us as the project moved forward. We have just recently undertaken to recruit a new position within the corporation. In the next few weeks, we'll be able to mention who we've hired. They'll be filling the role of a manager of digital governance, to help be the linchpin on this very important topic.

Ultimately, Waterfront Toronto has never seen itself as playing the role of the data keeper, the digital overseer of this project. We very much look to the City of Toronto and the other government authorities to be part of that equation. It could very much be that the City of Toronto is in fact the one that takes the entire leadership piece on the digital piece moving forward. Much like what we've done with our intelligent community component, we are setting a sort of strategic position and some underlying conditions and creating enabling infrastructure for digital, but in this particular piece, I don't think Waterfront Toronto has ever asserted in any public forum, in any way, that we would be the ones who would be the keepers of the data.

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

That makes sense, given capacity issues, resources and expertise.

With respect to the master plan that is to be made public and additional consultations with respect to that plan, will there be a path forward laid out there with respect to data governance?

[Meg Davis]

Do you want to answer that, Kristina?

[Kristina Verner]

That's correct. I think what's important to keep in mind is that the conversation that's been happening thus far actually precedes what would normally be Waterfront Toronto's consultation process. Usually, our consultation process starts after a proposal is received.

In that path, moving forward, in addition to our civic labs, we're looking at having a very specific consultation piece around digital governance. The City of Toronto is also looking at their own consultation piece writ large on the master innovation and development plan, which will have a digital component to it as well, so there will be ample opportunity to hear concerns from citizens on the digital components.