Government Operations Committee on Dec. 7th, 2017

[Dr. Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima]

Certainly it is from my experience. Don't forget that Entrust was a publicly traded corporation, and I went in there as a vice president, so I got to see us selling to major institutions such as Citibank, Capital One, the U.S. government, the Canadian government, etc.

I would say that what I think is exciting about BCIP for any innovators in Canada, and I would recommend.... Personally, I think there should be more marketing of this program, because I'm always giving speeches and talking about it to the audience. I think the reason it is so successful is that people are working in their garages, in their basements, in the labs, in their medical offices, and coming up with incredible ideas, and procurement is like a stone wall in the federal government. I have to tell you that 17 years of trying is a pretty bad record. BCIP has been the only way we've been able to bring this innovative technology to multiple departments.

I'm not sure whether that was what you're looking for. That would be like a “yes”.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes.

[David Long]

I would say that it's true. It's a very valuable program.

I was invited to speak at a BCIP conference in Toronto. It was amazing. They had all the successful companies that year, and many of the departments were there, at a one-day conference. The energy in the room was amazing. On one side you had civil servants who had always needed something and just wanted to talk to somebody who could get it for them, and you had all these companies there that had something that they'd built, and all they wanted to do was get customers. The type of energy in the room, without the heavy weight of procurement and RFPs—just customers and providers talking—was amazing to see. I've never seen anything like that, working with government. I think you can definitely do more with this.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

That's good to know.

[Scott MacGregor, President, SageTea Software]

In fact, perhaps I could simply add to that and touch back on what David said about a government accelerator. Once you do have a successful BCIP test, you've proven to government that you bring value, but then what happens generally is “Thank you very much.” You now can sell three more contracts, if you can get through the door. When you're trying to get through the door, you're getting through the door of an IT shop that's already run off its feet and doesn't completely understand the rules now with Shared Services and everything else, and they're trying to figure it out. Generally the door is closed because they don't have the time or the focus for innovation. If we could actually change that focus so it is innovative and is actually looking for ways to bring value to government and to Canadians, it would be really helpful to the companies that did come up with an innovation and jumped through the hoops and proved that it worked. Let's prove it works a whole bunch more times and save even more money.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Okay. That's good to know. Thank you for that.

Paul, I'm looking forward to the results of your Brookfield test. I spent most of my life in a Brookfield building—

[Paul Lem]

You and every one of us.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

—and prior to this, I was working in Toronto, so hopefully the results are not too scary.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Wear a mask.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It's great to hear all your success stories, but it's always good to see them first-hand and learn how they evolved over the process.

I just want to follow up with you, Paul. Is this your only product? Is this it for your company, or do you—

[Paul Lem]

This is our first non-medical product. Because I'm a medical doctor, we already have FDA-approved, Health Canada-approved medical products.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Are they medical devices?

[Paul Lem]

Yes, so it's like this platform, except it's for drug testing or genetic testing.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I just wondered how you initially got involved. What sorts of obstacles were there at the beginning for all your other products? How did you come to this?

[Paul Lem]

It was 12 years ago. On the medical side, it's highly regulated. It requires FDA approval, Health Canada approval, so we had to gain our expertise on how you actually get regulatory approvals on that side. That took many years to figure out. The BCIP procurement seems like a cakewalk compared to all that we've already done.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Good. You're obviously a big proponent of BCIP too. I agree. Maybe it should be.... I think you said $250 million of funding would be—

[Dr. Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima]

Honestly, take some of the money you give to BDC and give it to BCIP. BDC is not an equal, gender-diverse bank. Those would be my two cents. Michael...the president of BDC will probably be mad at me for saying that, but....

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

That's good.

I hear you a lot on the lack of venture capital. It's not really related to procurement, but it could be, in a way, because procurement's sometimes a cash-intensive operation of the business, and if you don't have the venture capital, you're not going to even bother procuring or bidding on some of these.

[Dr. Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima]

Even if you take me as an example company, BCIP in 2011 gave us our first substantial sale. Then the U.S. government looked at what I did in Canada, so now I have U.S. government customers because of the BCIP program. Then when I closed, the second BCIP was with CBSA. I now have border security in the U.S. and in other countries looking at us because Canadian border security services are using this. Now I run a profitable business, several years later. I have to say that they gave us the first substantial opportunity in terms of a sale. I think that's pretty major.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima]

Even if we had raised venture capital, maybe we would have gone under without a sale. I don't know.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I think I'm out of time. I could spend another hour, but thank you so much for this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you're up for seven minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for joining us. It's been fascinating.

Mr. Lem, maybe your next product should do radon gas metering.

[Paul Lem]

It could be asbestos, radon, all that stuff.