Evidence of meeting #10 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was jobs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to our witnesses this morning.
There's this misconception out there that the only jobs that are being offshored are the McJobs, if you will, or the textile jobs. When I was in China a couple of years ago, we met with the head of Nortel. They had just built this world-class lab, with 200 or 300 IT specialists--engineers--and when I asked the gentleman there what this meant, he said, “Well, it means that the G-7 will no longer be the G-7.” I thought that was a pretty powerful statement.
When you're telling us that there's a potential of 25,000 jobs and only 8,000 people to take them up, should we be concerned that you may be forced to offshore some of your high-tech jobs, and is this a trend that is happening right now, where these high-paying jobs are being offshored to developing countries?
9:55 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
Our concern is more that we might have to offshore some very good jobs simply because we won't have the skilled people we need. This phenomenon of the shifting of knowledge jobs--they're actually quite moveable, and it's been taking place for years. The result has been pretty good for us, because it's simply made our firms more competitive. The firm, as a whole, is growing and we have found our niche. We're very tiny, only one-half of 1% of the global population, and we can find much more than our place in that in these knowledge jobs.
So what's happening here is that we're going to continue to need to use those human resources that are in those countries, but, as Microsoft has demonstrated, the great thing about Canada is that we have a window of opportunity where at the present time we are one of the most desirable places to bring the best and the brightest. As a country, we have to be conscious, with some intensity, of seizing that extraordinary opportunity.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
It's interesting that you say that. Mr. Albrecht and I were on another committee studying the human resources issues in the government's future. One of the things that we were told by some experts is that five or ten years ago you could easily attract people here from India or China, and that's not happening any more. They're staying home. The jobs are better paying, the standard of living has improved. And as a matter of fact, these people are actually recruiting some of our specialists here in Canada.
Are you seeing that as well?
9:55 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
Yes, and one of the very important things that's happening on the horizon is that our government faces a bit of a demographic wall, where they're going to be short of people to run many of their operations. That's going to be happening throughout the economy. That, for us, means that governments must think of different ways of performing the same activities and serving the public. That leads us to more contracting out to places where there can be a core of experts that can be deployed to serve multiple clients. We're going to have to do more with a smaller number of people. It's not like the old days when we feared outsourcing because we'd have to cut jobs in government. We're simply not going to have the people.
It's very interesting when we're talking about a service strategy. If we put two and two together--put that problem together with the opportunity of creating centres of excellence--that will then be a base inside the firms from which we can do work for global clients. That actually could turn out to be a win-win, if we seize that opportunity.
9:55 a.m.
Governmental Programs Executive, IBM Canada
Thank you.
Just to put the numbers on this, in terms of the past five years, Canadian university enrollment has increased from about 850,000 to over a million. During the same time period, enrollment in math and science and computer information sciences has gone down from over 43,500 to under 41,000. So while people are enrolling more in university, these core skills are going down.
If you look at IBM or Microsoft or our industry, for instance, we have, as I mentioned, 3,000 software developers. These are the people who go on to get their PhDs, who can feed our lab. And if we want to grow that capability, we need to have that capability here to grow. That's one stream, the deep technology skills to feed our labs, to feed the research and development we want to do.
On the other side of the coin, something that Bernard mentioned are the multi-faceted skills, people who have this core technology base but also understand business, legal issues, and social sciences. These are the people who are going to be able to engage clients to comprehend their problem, understand how technology and industry expertise can be applied to solve problems, then devise the strategy, lead a team to execute the strategy, and solve the client's problem. So this is the multi-faceted skill set that has a technology root but also the business and legal complements that we need to develop. That's the broad base of the new fundamental skill set that I think we need in this economy. So there's the deep technology skills, and then there's the multi-faceted skills that we need to create.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Mr. Seaman, there are ten seconds left, so I guess I'll let you answer.
10 a.m.
National Director, Corporate and Public Affairs, Microsoft Canada Co.
You know what, I'm going to get to answer my question from earlier.
The teachers teaching the students are the ones who also need the training, and I think that's where we're seeing a big gap. We have 50-year-old teachers, with all due respect, teaching kids who are much more savvy on computers and technology. I think that's where, as you pointed out, Ms. Nash, there has to be a greater emphasis, on the development of teaching the teachers of the students.
And just on the last point, which was related to the other question on India as to whether they would want it, since we announced the opening of our lab in B.C--there are 11,000 East Indians and over 7,000 Canadians who work for Microsoft in Redmond--the number of requests from a lot of these East Indians and Canadians to move back to Canada, for the reasons that Bernard pointed out, such as the quality of life, the infrastructure in the lower mainland, B.C., as there is in Markham, for East Indian culture.... A number of the other aspects are really strong attributes and advantages that Canada has, and I think as Bernard points out, these really need to be leveraged and positioned as far as a science and technology strategy.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Simard.
We'll go to Mr. Carrie, please.
December 6th, 2007 / 10 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses today. I found your presentations to be very interesting. I was a little discouraged, though, Mr. Courtois, when you said it's difficult to retrain older workers into the technology. I was hoping there was a future for lifelong geeks who've become involved in politics.
I want to ask you this. As a committee, we did a counterfeit and piracy study. I was wondering if I could get your comment on that. As well, on copyright issues, what do you think of the fair use in U.S. policy? What do you think of things like an iPod levy and TiVo? Could you comment on those things?
10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
Yes. In a former life I was involved in another piracy issue that had to deal with satellite signals, and I think it is a significant problem. We're talking about a knowledge economy, so obviously you've got to protect your knowledge the way you protect ownership of real estate and property on that basis.
At the same time, intellectual property is always a question of balance, balance between the interests of the user and the creator and also the ability to innovate. So, yes, the issue of fair use we think should be addressed maybe in a second stage. One of the problems with copyright legislation in some other types of framework legislation is sometimes we try to tackle too many things at the same time and then we can't get anywhere, so we need to move on.
Obviously, our future has to be based on evolving in a marketplace on a basis that is satisfactory to the consumer. If the consumer doesn't like the restrictions being placed or can't use the product in a useful way, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And that can be addressed in two ways. It can be addressed in the law, but it can be addressed obviously in how the companies behave in the marketplace, and hopefully trial and error will have them find the things that work.
That's why I said earlier that if you don't protect the property going in, then you don't allow any of those models that are based on a consenting transaction between a seller and a buyer, which is the best way to build an economy and to give customers what they want.
As for the idea of a levy, we do not like the idea of a levy on iPods or on computer hard drives or on ISP access because they run contrary to everything that will make this economy grow. Everybody in the marketplace is groping with what will work in the marketplace, what will work with consumers. We know what technology can do. Sometimes it's much harder to know what exactly will work for consumers.
If you take the example of music, some will say I'll sell it for you for 99¢ a tune, I'll sell it for you for $10 a month all you can eat, or I'll try to sell you some stuff based on advertising.
In our industry, trying to predict what the successful business model will be is extremely hard for the best brains and experts in the world to do. For the government to, by default, choose the business model by saying we won't protect certain things.... And the worst thing would be to make it a levy.
Suppose you wanted the levy to cover all the music that's going to be bought on the Internet, all the videos that will be bought on the Internet, and, if you're not protecting rights, why not all the software that will be bought on the Internet? You might say we'll charge you, we'll tax you; we'll start at $5 a month and next thing we know we'll be at $50 a month, and $100 a month. And some people might consume nothing and others might consume a lot, and then somebody is going to determine the size the market is going to be every year, who's going to get what share and redistribute it.
It's a total nightmare. What you want is the market to find--and some will work with one solution, others will work with another--what do customers want to pay for? And then that's the best way to generate money, when it's willingly paid by the consumer, not a tax that then gets redistributed through some cloud.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
National Director, Corporate and Public Affairs, Microsoft Canada Co.
I don't feel comfortable at this point. I'll respond, if you want, in writing afterwards. No, I have nothing to add, thank you.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
The time shifting is something that needs to be addressed, and there's some cloud that's been put on that from a U.S. decision and debates in Canada about what we should do. Time shifting is value added for the customer. It's a good thing. It's even a good thing socially. I have to admit that the fact that I can watch things at a different time or I can record something, a show, the news in Winnipeg and in Vancouver, as opposed to the news in Ottawa, gets me to understand what is going on in those cities the way that I wouldn't.
But it's really that consumers expect to be able to make use of that capability. They don't expect to have to pay extra for it. The technology allows for it, so you wouldn't want the law to interfere here and block it.
The other thing with the PVR, the TiVos, whatever, is everybody accepts that I can record a Formula One race and watch it at a time that suits me better than seven in the morning, whatever. We all accept that you can do that in your home. The technology exists to do the exact same thing in a network. That can prove to be more convenient to the user, and it doesn't affect the basic rights or the flow of funds that would have come from the original show anyway. Yet our laws at the moment are saying that it might not be allowable.
So those are the kinds of things that perhaps in the future we need to address.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Carrie.
We'll go now to Monsieur Vincent.
10:05 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Good morning everyone. Thank you for being here today.
As I understand it, your main problem is the shortage of workers. You then talked about elementary and secondary schools and colleges and universities.
In your opinion, what should the government be doing to develop or help to train people to fill the positions available in your field?
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada
As we said earlier, there is no automatic solution. To begin with, that is what we tell young people about their career choices. It is the effect of structural factors in the school system. Our companies and all sorts of people are doing a lot of work every day in the schools. This has to be supplemented by a public message, and the country's leaders have a role to play in getting the message out. That could go so far as providing assistance for training.
If we had support for apprenticeships, which is offered for jobs in the old economy, those incentives would attract young people into these careers. They know that someone is trying to develop jobs in those fields and that an apprenticeship program is going to make it much more certain that they will be able to find a job.
Measures of that kind, which have an impact on the knowledge economy, are needed, in order to have the same effect. This is the kind of thing the government can do.
10:10 a.m.
National Director, Corporate and Public Affairs, Microsoft Canada Co.
I agree with Bernard on this point. It is not necessarily a solution, but the philosophy of the Government of Canada is that we should become a major player in the knowledge economy. The conditions that will enable Canada to play that role have to be created. The government is well aware of the economic aspect of the potential economic fallout for the country, if we develop human capital for a future that focuses more on the knowledge economy.
10:10 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
What efforts are your companies making to assist these young people? What is your company doing? What can it do? Do you follow up? You are talking about secondary schools. Have you found young people who are good at math or other subjects, and have you followed up with them to offer them summer jobs and continuing education so that you could get them to work in your company later? Are you involved in this sort of thing? Would it be possible to do?
10:10 a.m.
National Director, Corporate and Public Affairs, Microsoft Canada Co.
I am going to let Matthew speak, but we are always happy to talk about what we are doing for society.
10:10 a.m.
National Director, Corporate and Public Affairs, Microsoft Canada Co.
If you will give me 30 seconds to do a commercial, I will definitely jump at the opportunity.
With respect to teaching and students, Microsoft has a program called Partners in Learning, everywhere in Canada. In Quebec, it is pretty stagnant, but in New Brunswick and Manitoba it has made considerable strides. It involves developing training programs for teachers in grades 6 to 12. It is a very complete program. We have a major program with the University of Waterloo, as you know, to train students.
Microsoft's co-op program is one of the biggest. You mentioned summer jobs. It is the biggest program in the world. We have set up business in Canada to ensure that students receive not only an education, but vocational training for the jobs of the future.
There is a program called skills retraining. In Toronto, there are communities where young people have quit school. We have established a partnership with Humber College and the City of Toronto. Training is paid for by Microsoft and the City of Toronto so that these young people, who do not necessarily have jobs but who are knowledgeable about technology and computers, can use their knowledge, thanks to the investment by an organization like ours and institutions like Humber College. They receive training so that eventually they can get jobs.
I could go on. These programs are really very advanced in doing this.