Chairman Casey and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss this very important topic.
My name's Bill Riker and I've spent the last 37 years of my career leading global defence, aerospace and security companies in the implementation of their programs, products and services. This has included roles in general management, business development, product development and engineering and operations. I'm currently the CEO of Vancouver-based Liberty Defense Holdings Ltd., a publicly traded company listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol SCAN. We are developing a weapons-detection technology called HEXWAVE that uses active 3-D imaging and artificial intelligence to detect threats in high-volume foot-traffic areas and other urban security environments.
Prior to joining Liberty Defense in August 2018, I served in senior leadership positions with Smiths Detection, a leader in technology for weapons detection, including chemical, radiological, nuclear and explosive threats for the global security market in aviation, military, critical infrastructure and ports and borders. While at Smiths, I became acutely aware of the evolving threat to our communities from violent mass attacks and the need for the means to proactively intervene before they escalate.
I will tell you a little bit about my background. I'm also an Engineering graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and I served in the U.S. Army for over 20 years. While serving in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, I became aware of how rapidly violence can escalate and its impact on people's lives. The work that I do now is focused on preventing civilian casualties in places that should be safe and free from fear.
I understand that this committee is focused on identifying ways to improve the security of the health care sector, but the root of the problem is a much larger one affecting not only health care facilities but also schools, places of worship and many other public places. Much has been done over the past 20 years to harden facilities like airports, but there are still many soft targets, such as hospitals, that remain vulnerable to attack.
Our company's mission is to help protect communities and to preserve peace of mind through superior security detection solutions. Our product, HEXWAVE, will be capable of providing accurate, high throughput screening to identify threats. It can be installed covertly or overtly and uses 3-D imaging and artificial intelligence to detect threats in real time. These include both metallic and non-metallic items, in indoor and outdoor environments, in a variety of weather and extreme temperature conditions. The intent of the system is to provide improved situational awareness on a wider perimeter to enable greater response time for security teams.
The technology behind HEXWAVE was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in Boston, Massachusetts. We are now in the process of commercializing the technology for deployment in urban security environments starting in the second half of 2020. With regard to hospitals, the challenge is complex, and while there is no single silver bullet solution to counter mass public attacks, the path to preventing such tragedies that have occurred begins with acknowledging the crisis and the variables that contribute to threat events and actively working across government and industry interests to deploy an integrated multisystem approach.
This all starts with awareness. If there's one thing I've learned throughout my nearly four decades in this industry, it's that we don't realize just how dear true peace of mind is until it's taken away.
In October 2014, a mentally ill patient stabbed a nurse multiple times in the head and neck at the Brockville Mental Health Centre in Ontario leaving her seriously injured. Between October 2016 and October 2018, there were 175 violent incidents reported at the Grace Hospital and 444 at the Health Sciences Centre according to data from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
According to Statistics Canada, 34% of nurses have reported being physically assaulted by a patient, and more than 800 health care workers in Ontario have had to miss work due to violence on the job over the past year.
In British Columbia, where our corporate headquarters is located, claims related to acts of workplace violence have been steadily increasing over the past six years, and assaults on nurses, including aides and health care assistants, accounted for more than 40% of all violence-related injuries according to WorkSafeBC.
Violence is the fourth-highest cause of injury within health care. Across all industries, nurses, aides, orderlies and patient service associates suffer the most injuries from violence, according to the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board.
Incidents like these are becoming more common across the health care spectrum in Canada, including in acute care, long-term care and community care. When you consider that this activity is happening in the places where we go to heal, and that these facilities are where we and our loved ones are at our most vulnerable in every sense of the word, these are places where we should feel safe and where peace of mind is most necessary.
Now, it is an unfortunate yet undisputed truth that places such as hospitals, schools, houses of worship and malls are becoming targets. These are places where the public congregates, and they are becoming increasingly susceptible to potential violent events.
This is why I believe we need to change the way we protect these places and to take proactive measures, including embracing new technologies to assist in both detecting and deterring threats at the earliest opportunity, and understanding the limitations of current technologies; maximizing the time security teams and victims have to react by ensuring proactive detection, preferably outside of the soft target or facility; and, last, focusing on widening the threat detection range by implementing a layered approach to provide situational awareness to security teams.
The ultimate goal is to have a proactive rather than reactive strategy of prevention, so that an attack can be intercepted before it occurs. I'm not implying that detection is the only area that needs attention. Certainly not, especially in trying to address these issues, but it is, however, an important part of the equation.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before this committee today. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.