Human Resources Committee on Nov. 6th, 2023

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Welcome to meeting number 87 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee resumes its study on the implications of artificial intelligence technologies for the Canadian labour force.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, meaning that some people are participating by Zoom.

I want to advise those in the room as well as on Zoom that you can choose to speak in the official language of your choice. You have interpretation services available, using your headset in the room as well as the world icon at the bottom of your screen. Click on it and choose the official language of your choice.

If there is an interruption in translation services, please get my attention by using the “raise hand” icon or raising your hand in the room. I'll suspend while it is being corrected. I also want to remind those in the room to please keep your earpiece away from the mike because it creates popping, which is detrimental to the hearing of the translators. Also, speak slowly and clearly for the benefit of our translation services.

For today's meeting, the first hour is for witnesses on this particular study. We have with us today, Ryan Smith, divisional director of planning and development, by video conference, from the City of Kelowna. From the Competition Bureau of Canada, in the room, we have Anthony Durocher, deputy commissioner; and Trevor MacKay, deputy commissioner, digital enforcement. We have one witness we have not been able to connect with, so we'll see how it goes.

To begin today's meeting, we'll begin with an opening five-minute statement by Mr. Smith.

You have the floor, Mr. Smith.

[Ryan Smith, Divisional Director of Planning and Development, City of Kelowna]

Good morning.

In Kelowna, our experience with the use of artificial intelligence goes back about two and a half years. We wrote a grant application to the provincial government, with the aim of using some artificial intelligence tools to help us improve our planning and development processes. We were successful in that grant application, and that grant application involved a partnership with Microsoft and the use of their artificial intelligence technologies. The goal was probably twofold: to improve our development processes in Kelowna, as well as provide better customer service to those in our planning and development community, and to learn where else we could use it.

This wasn't our first use of the tool in Kelowna. We have a number of different tools—we call them chatbots—that are artificial intelligence based.

I am not an IT person—I'm a city planner—so my depth of understanding of the technical side of it is low. However, I am an administrator and do look after a workforce of 85 people, who will all soon have access to the tools that we're creating.

What we've created is a sort of front-end concierge service for those looking to use our planning and development services in Kelowna. It will help the average person who does not understand what they would need to make a building permit application. It will help them into our process of making an application, to make it more accessible, with everything they would need to know to make a building permit application.

We're hoping that when we make that process easier and are able to answer more questions with the use of our artificial intelligence chatbot tool, we'll have less burden on our frontline staff who regularly process building and development applications, and who are overwhelmed and under-resourced.

The second aspect is that we also have a high turnover with our frontline staff and their knowledge base is not increasing because of that. A lot of them are within six months or a year on the job, and they don't have the breadth of understanding that a clerk who has been on the job for 20 years would have. The use of the artificial intelligence tools that we're developing will also help them to provide feedback more quickly, with fewer clicks.

We also participate in the ethical side of the use of AI. Our IT director has been involved, at the provincial level, in developing policy related to the rollout of artificial intelligence and our local government processes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Who is speaking for the Competition Bureau?

You have the floor, Mr. Durocher.

[Anthony Durocher, Deputy Commissioner, Competition Promotion Branch, Competition Bureau Canada]

Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today as part of your study on the implications of artificial intelligence technologies for the Canadian labour force.

I am Anthony Durocher, deputy commissioner of the Competition Promotion Branch and I am joined by Trevor Mackay, deputy commissioner of the Digital Enforcement and Intelligence Branch.

I would like to provide a quick overview of the Competition Bureau's role, and our work with respect to artificial intelligence.

The bureau is an independent law enforcement agency that protects and promotes competition for the benefit of Canadian consumers and businesses. We administer and enforce Canada's Competition Act, a law of general application that applies to every sector of the economy.

Our enforcement of the Competition Act involves investigating and addressing abuses of market power, anti-competitive mergers, price fixing, bid rigging and deceptive marketing practices. We also advocate to all levels of government in Canada for pro-competitive government rules and regulations.

Competition is vital to our economy. It drives lower prices and innovation while fuelling economic growth. For Canadian workers, maintaining and encouraging competition among employers results in higher wages and salaries, as well as better benefits and employment opportunities for employees.

With respect to AI, the bureau is working hard to keep pace with its growing application in everyday life. There are important questions that need to be asked about the entrenchment of dominant players that control the critical inputs that fuel AI. There's also the very real risk posed by anti-competitive mergers or deliberately unethical conduct of these advanced tools to deceive consumers.

We recently created a new digital enforcement and intelligence branch to better equip the bureau for the challenges and complexities of the digital age. The branch is driving our deeper understanding of competition issues around emerging technologies, including AI. We're actively connecting with experts and learning a lot quickly.

Soon, the bureau will publish a discussion paper for consultation with the public that is focused on competition considerations related to AI. That work, and the feedback we will receive, will continue to hone our thinking even further.

Partnerships are also vital. Last June, the bureau joined forces with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the CRTC to create the Canadian digital regulators forum. Through the creation of this forum, the three agencies will exchange best practices, conduct research and collaborate on matters of common interest, including with respect to AI, which we are prioritizing in our first year.

Before fielding your questions, I would note that the law requires the bureau to conduct investigations in private and keep confidential the information we have. This obligation may prevent us from discussing some past or current investigations.

We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our work, and we look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Durocher.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We have the third witness, who has appeared, but we have not been able to do an official sound test.

Mr. Carrière, if the sound quality is okay for the interpreters, we'll be able to continue. If not, unfortunately, you'll not be able to participate verbally in the meeting. Would you like to begin your opening statement?

Mr. Carrière, we'll have to proceed. The technical people will get back to you. We may have to reschedule you. Unfortunately, we cannot hear you. The technical staff will reach out to you, and we'll decide how we go. Thank you.

We'll now begin with the first round of questioning with Mrs. Gray for six minutes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today.

My first questions are for Mr. Smith.

Thank you for your opening statement regarding some of the work the City of Kelowna is doing on AI. I know Kelowna often punches above our weight in many ways, and here's another example.

There is one thing I wanted to ask you from your experience in implementing this new AI technology—and I know it's new, the one you explained at the municipality. What sorts of processes do you think governments should be using to identify opportunities within government departments and services for potential opportunities to utilize AI?

[Ryan Smith]

Thank you for the question, MP Gray.

One thing is that we've been tracking, through lots of our frontline services, the number of calls and interactions that we frequently get—the everyday and the repetitive—that we felt could be answered differently. That really drove the development of this tool. Our frontline staff probably answer the question of whether you can put a secondary suite in your house or build a carriage house on your property dozens of times a day—different iterations of the same question.

The development of this tool was really based on this: If we could free up the staff from answering that question in different ways that many times a day, what could they be doing instead? Could they be doing higher-value work that would process permits for housing more quickly?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Great. Thank you.

I think you partially answered my next question. Do you believe that implementing AI within certain applications can make government more efficient, and in particular reduce red tape?

[Ryan Smith]

We definitely do here in Kelowna. I don't think we're going to be eliminating full positions, but through the efficiencies that we believe AI will bring to our processes we could free up 20% or 30% of five positions doing something similar. That would result in a full position we could reallocate to a different task. Yes, we believe there are some efficiencies.

The other side of that is that we struggle to bring on new staff that are qualified. We believe this will also help delay the need for extra staff as we grow.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

There was a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, that lists Canada's productivity as having fallen far behind peer countries and projects that we will have the worst economic performance among advanced countries over the next decade, going all the way to 2060. The OECD predicts labour utilization will drag on Canada's GDP-per-capita growth.

We actually had a representative from the Council of Canadian Innovators before this committee recently on this study. He talked about low productivity not being “normal for advanced economies” when we were referring to Canada. He discussed that, if we're not a productive economy compared to our neighbours, it gives Canada less wealth, fewer options and fewer resources for dealing with important challenges. This is important because productivity is relative to standards of living, meaning Canadians' standard of living will continue to decrease compared to other countries.

Why I bring this up is that some of our biggest employers across Canada are governments. Do you believe AI can potentially be used by governments as a tool to try to increase productivity and steer this decreased standard of living trajectory that Canada is currently on?

[Ryan Smith]

Thank you for the question.

We certainly do believe that. I'll give you an example again related to our housing industry in Kelowna. If our AI tools mean we can permit housing faster, with less red tape—and that's the idea behind the AI tools we're developing—as they continue to grow and we continue to test and implement, perhaps we can permit 20% or 30% more housing a year. That not only benefits locals who are trying to access housing but also the development and construction industry, which can really rely on a stable permitting environment, which will drive more investment through our local economy.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Is there any type of training or upgrading you're seeing that is maybe required by municipal staff, and this could be either on the IT side or maybe on the operations side, to administer different applications? Based on what you've seen so far, is there easy access to those types of training for municipal staff?

[Ryan Smith]

This is so new that I think the training tools are just being developed. I would say that municipal staff are starting to get on board. We're offering our own internal training. We just introduced a Microsoft tool that gives us the ability to use a bit of AI help when we're generating emails, doing analysis in Microsoft Excel or building PowerPoint presentations.

The other side to that, though, is the public-facing side and their use of AI. The language you need to use to give commands is a bit different from the language you would use to search on Google. I think we're developing our tools so that you don't have to use that language right now. It will give the public in Kelowna time to learn that language. We'll adapt our tools over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mrs. Gray and Mr. Smith.

Mr. Coteau, go ahead for six minutes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses here today. I'll start off with Mr. Smith as well.

Mr. Smith, was there an actual city you looked at and built examples from for your own intelligent city? I know you're striving to make improvements, but is there a go-to city that could be used as an example when we're discussing the integration of AI into everyday use?

[Ryan Smith]

Thank you for the question.

There isn't one right now. We're it.

Doing what we're doing is getting quite a bit of recognition. I was in Ottawa last week to talk to the home builders of Canada about what we're doing and the tool we're trying to develop. Again, we haven't completely finished the development of the tool, because it's so complex to implement with planning and development journeys. However, we finished portions of those journeys related to parts of our permitting process. We believe we'll be the one other people will copy, if we can successfully launch the whole project.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Do you have plans to expand or monetize that service, or to allow it to be used in other municipalities? Is there a long-term vision for it?

[Ryan Smith]

Our commitment to the Province of British Columbia, when we received the grant for the tool, was to document our development process and share it for free with any municipality in British Columbia that is interested, because it is a government-funded project. It's not a taxpayer-funded project in Kelowna. It's funded by the provincial government.

The next step for us is.... We're in the documentation phase right now. We sat down with other cities—the City of Vancouver, for example—and shared our journey. We hope this will help other cities improve their front-end processes related to the delivery of homes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Can you put an actual dollar value on what those savings are? For example, what have the chatbots brought into the city? Is there an actual dollar value that can be articulated at this point?

[Ryan Smith]

There isn't a dollar value that can be articulated at this point, I would say.

We launched the chatbot on October 3 of this year, so we're about a month in on implementation. We're tracking the data behind that. Every week, the journeys you can take through the chatbot for different parts of our permitting process grow. To give you an example, we also just used our AI to digitize the building code in British Columbia, so staff doing building-code-related checks can access that. Rather than flipping through a binder of 600 pages, they can query the AI tool that has learned the B.C. building code, fire code and plumbing code to get instantaneous interpretations.

The monetary value is going to be hard to estimate up front. Our contribution in staff time to the project, so far, is a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Our investment from the Government of British Columbia is about $350,000. The in-kind support from Microsoft is about $350,000 up to this point. Kelowna has just received its housing accelerator fund grant, and we thank the government for that. We will be allocating a portion of that towards advancing this tool as well.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I think that's great. The fact that your municipality has dedicated itself to adopting this type of technology to better provide services for the citizens you represent is great. I think it's an example other municipalities should be looking at. I want to say thank you.

The last question I will ask is this: There are ethical and value statements that I would say organizations like yours have to agree to, before engaging in this type of journey. In your strategic plan, were there any overarching guiding principles, visions, value statements or ethical considerations that you hold dear for this process?

[Ryan Smith]

Our driving vision at the City of Kelowna is to be a city of the future. We try to make sure that runs through any project we take on.

We also believe the transparency of the tools we're using is very important. If, for example, in the last few years, you've been engaging in our development process, our development process is completely transparent. If our staff are given a set of plans for an architect to evaluate, the public can see those plans online as well, at the same time. There's nothing hidden.

That flows through our new AI chatbot too. As AI answers questions in that chatbot, we have a disclaimer below any answer the AI gives to advise the public that the response has been generated by AI. They're aware that the response they've received isn't a personal response but an AI response.

We also, every day, track the logs of our AI responses from the day before to make sure that its performance is up to the standards we believe are appropriate in terms of quality, so that we're not giving out bad information. If we have given out bad information, we correct the spots where the AI is looking for responses to the questions that are coming in.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau. You had a few seconds left.

Monsieur Carrière will be invited back for Wednesday with the proper headset. He will not be appearing in this panel, representing Unifor.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.