Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Under vote 1b, there is over $5 million in funding proposed for the office of the chief information officer to support the governance and oversight of digital initiatives.
Last week, we heard from the chief information officer during our study of the ArriveCAN app. She spoke about Canada's digital ambition, which is intended to provide “modernized and accessible tools to support service delivery” in the digital age. This document contains an appendix of related policies and directives, but notably absent is the policy on title to intellectual property arising under Crown procurement contracts. Under that policy, IP developed through work on a Crown contract by default must be owned by the contractor, unless an exemption applies or Treasury Board approval is granted. The rationale provided for this policy is to enable the commercialization of IP by the private sector.
In a brief that the committee received from Professor Amanda Clarke, it reads, “This policy represents a clear recipe for ongoing lock-in to the vendors producing custom software for the government, reducing the departments' ability to share and reuse resulting software.” She recommended making Crown IP ownership the default.
If the government is going to be embarking on a mission to develop new digital tools, ownership of the IP needs to be an important consideration. An analogy of the current policy would be the government paying someone to build a house and then giving the builder the deed so that they can rent the house back to the government, and rent the basement too.
Will any of the funding proposed by the office of the chief information officer or in budget 2022 for the “comprehensive strategic policy review” be looking at this policy and the potential benefits of increasing Crown ownership of IP?