Government Operations Committee on May 7th, 2015

[Desmond Gray]

If we weren't there, you would probably have a much more skewed process. If you didn't have these principles, I honestly doubt whether many people would participate in the process, because they wouldn't believe that they were effectively represented and were being listened to.

Part of the value of the process is its very integrity and the confidence it gives to people who participate in it that the outcome is just, fair, balanced, and reasonable.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

I would fundamentally agree with you on that.

You seem to be doing it as well in a very cost-effective fashion as well, something you should be congratulated on. I think if you were to talk to most taxpayers about what you cost vis-à-vis what you ensure in this country, I think most Canadians would probably feel that your existence, your role in all of this, was justified.

I want to move to maybe a broader subject, and that's ISO standards. From travelling and so forth, I get a lot of comments that ISO standards are not really useful anymore, that they're not being used as much as they should be. A lot of people are questioning whether or not it's still a good system. With regard to ISO and your role with ISO, do you have the capacity to feed into and to improve that system? If you do, how would that happen?

[Desmond Gray]

I'm going to give a very short answer, I promise. Then I'll turn it over—

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

It's a big question, I know.

[Desmond Gray]

It's a great question.

CGSB has a very small participation. There are maybe 25 or 30 committees we actually participate in. We participate in Canada, and very rarely do we actually interface with ISO at the international level. But we feed into that, so that's a part of it.

I would say this. I can't tell you the Canadian perspective on the level of use and the value of ISO standards. That's an incredibly interesting question. I can tell you that the European Union adapts ISO standards for their community standards. That's one awfully big jurisdiction and marketplace. So if you're going to measure the standards in terms of the impact they have on communities and economic areas, I would think that impact would be very significant.

Having said all that, I want to go to the other part of the question. At one point, the Standards Council of Canada, which is really the strategic centre of Canada's international participation in ISO—it manages it and leverages the resources—used to have a committee called CNC/ISO. It was like a policy committee that brought together all the national standards organizations for strategic discussions about how we would participate, what we would work on, and how we would leverage our participation in ISO. Unfortunately that committee ceased to exist about six or seven years ago. One of the comments I would make is that ISO is not going to go away. International business is not going away. The need to have international standards and to leverage those standards is not going away. What is needed is perhaps a greater, more specific focus on improving our strategy to identify those areas where we can participate better in ISO and IEC.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

So one could say, in the context of increasing free trade with Europe in particular, because you did mention Europe, that in fact ISO standards become even more important in Canada than they were before.

[Desmond Gray]

I can't answer the question, but I did try to find out what the impact of CETA is going to be. Of course, as you start to open up your markets, clearly there's going to have to be some process for mutual recognition and reciprocity, or else you may establish a deal, but without mutual acceptability of product, it becomes a problem. You're absolutely right.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Is it your opinion that logically this means going through the ISO system?

[Desmond Gray]

I guess what you're asking me is whether ISO will be the dominant standards in terms of that relationship. I honestly don't know, but I would suggest that the European Union uses them. It's almost automatic that when an ISO standard comes out...

I'll let Begonia answer it from the technical side.

[Begonia Lojk]

I'll just add a little something regarding ISO. From a sheer volume point of view, I don't know how many thousand documents a year ISO publishes, but they have published something like 25,000 standards and other documents. So it terms of sheer volume and in terms of participation, they have something like 166 member bodies. These are countries. So, yes, it's an important forum to participate in.

You're right. You hear in some sectors that ISO standards are not very well viewed. Particularly when you go into the more high-tech areas, people complain about the process being slow, whereas for the older technologies, ISO is the place to be. It just depends on the sector, and they work in many sectors.

The other important thing is that it's one member per vote. The European Union has over 30 member countries and over 30 votes, so they participate actively in ISO. They also participate in their own regional standards bodies, two of which are called CEN-CENELEC. They take their regional standards and bring them to ISO. So it is very important for Canada as a country to ensure that we influence the European Union member bodies so that the standards incorporate the requirements that are necessary for us to be able to adopt them.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mr. Kerr, you have five minutes, please.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning.

I'm just going to ask one question and then let Chris follow through.

We understand the complexities and the challenges. I think we've pretty well got that. But I must say that when we had witnesses coming forward, there wasn't unbounded enthusiasm for the general standards board—

[Technical Difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Isn't that interesting? I see the microphones are still working, so we do have some power.

We have stopped the time, but I don't see any reason why we can't continue by candlelight if necessary.

Mr. Kerr, go ahead.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

What we were hearing expressed was a lot of frustration. Not to get into all the layers of complexity that have to happen, but it seems to me that, when you are talking about systems and relationships, something has to be done to bring the parties together and communicate better, more clearly. This is for the benefit of the public. It's for the benefit of the industry. We all know it is getting more complicated internationally, but there seems to be some disconnect going on. Is there an opportunity, or should there be an obligation, to bring the parties together quarterly or twice a year, or whatever, to say, “Okay, what are your frustrations with the process, not with all the standards, but with the process?”

[Desmond Gray]

Can I just ask for a point of clarification?

Do you mean the people who participate in the system, such as the businesses and all the participants?

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Yes. As I said, the ones who were here representing the various standards processes were saying that they are not very happy with what goes on. Rather than getting into the details—

[Desmond Gray]

No, it's fine.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

It's the relationship that I was talking about.

[Desmond Gray]

I'll let Begonia answer in a second, but the answer is absolutely yes. I think it is important to maintain effective relations, and it's very important to continually re-engineer your process and your services. To do that, you really need to understand the market—I mean the broad market of Canadians and international business—and to do that you need to have constant communication. You need a process to do that, or else it becomes very anecdotal.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Whose responsibility is that?

[Desmond Gray]

For example, at CGSB we do surveys internally as part of our process, but we are only a very small player. I am not sure anybody is actually doing it—and I am going to turn to Begonia—but I would say certainly it could, as a very positive thing, be coordinated with the standards development organizations across Canada and with the Standards Council of Canada.

[Begonia Lojk]

I just want to ask for a point of clarification, if you don't mind.

Are you asking about the collaboration among the standards development organizations or among the broader stakeholders in the system?

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

We are hearing from those who are involved directly in the standards. We understand the layers and so on, but there seemed to be a level of frustration about the relationships and the process. The standards themselves were a totally separate issue. It seemed to me that there should be some sort of process to have the grown-up conversation about how we can make this better, how we can work better together on behalf of Canada. That's where I was coming from.

[Begonia Lojk]

That really is the mandate of the Standards Council of Canada. Their act very clearly stipulates that they are there to be the coordinator of the national standards system and to develop national standardization strategies. That really is their role. They do have a committee that is part of their board of directors—it's in the act—which brings together the standards development organizations two to four times a year, at which point discussions are held about governance, cooperation, and that sort of thing. Of course, the effectiveness goes up and down, depending on where the pendulum is, but that exists.

In terms of bringing the broader stakeholders together, I think Desmond mentioned earlier the Canadian standards strategy. The last one, published in 2008, reached out to all Canadians, over a period of many months, and pulled together the needs of all the stakeholders, with a view to coordinating better, eliminating barriers to participation, and being more effective nationally and internationally.

[Desmond Gray]

Just to add one more point, that process required the Standards Council—and they did it—to go out and have direct engagement with all the different sectors of Canada, to pull in their thoughts, opinions, and ideas. I want to say that this was not just a bunch of bureaucrats sitting around having some ideas; they went out to do that. Unfortunately, that hasn't been done in a while, but I think that answers your question.