Good afternoon. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members.
My name is Jim Roche, and I'm the president and CEO of CANARIE Incorporated. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak with you today about CANARIE and its importance in fostering e-commerce in Canada. My presentation will focus mainly on the digital infrastructure required for developing and commercializing new e-commerce products and services to ensure that Canada is at the leading edge of a global digital economy.
As we all know, government support has played a foundational role for e-commerce. The U.S. defence research lab, DARPA--Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--paved the way for the Internet as we know it. Scientists at the CERN lab in Switzerland developed the browser to share information on the Internet, and of course the list goes on.
In Canada, CANARIE, with its partners, played an important role in the introduction and adoption of broadband Internet in the early 1990s. In fact CANARIE was created and funded by the Government of Canada to run and operate an ultra-high-speed network for research and education across the country.
With the Government of Canada's support over the past 18 years, CANARIE has built a 19,000-kilometre-long fibre optic network that is separate from the commercial Internet. This national backbone links provincial and territorial research networks and stretches from coast to coast to coast. Provinces share in the cost of this infrastructure: for every federal dollar invested in the CANARIE network, we leverage $1.50 in matching investments from the provinces.
The network itself connects all Canadian universities, over a hundred federal and provincial labs and departments, and thousands of community colleges and K-12 schools. More than one million Canadian users have access to this national ultra-high-speed network. It enables them to collaborate across Canada, and with colleagues in 100 countries worldwide, including the United States, Brazil, China, and India.
Post-secondary institutions in the United States have proven themselves to be the most fertile ground for the development of innovative technologies, including e-commerce technologies. For example, roots of the most innovative companies of the day, such as Google and Facebook, can be traced back to U.S. universities.
However, in Canada the commercialization effort of new services leaves much to be desired. We have not witnessed the same level of commercialization activity from the higher education sector as the Americans have. One of the reasons, according to recent analysis by national advisory bodies such as the Council of Canadian Academies, the CCA, and the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, STIC, is that there are not enough strong linkages among the private sector and the academic sector, be it at the policy level or the infrastructure level. We believe that CANARIE's state-of-the-art infrastructure can be further leveraged to not only create new knowledge but also to increase collaboration and knowledge transfer from university labs to the marketplace.
CANARIE has been doing its part to support the Canadian innovation ecosystem. Along with operating its advanced national infrastructure, CANARIE has also funded technology innovation programs aimed at developing leading-edge platforms. To put it into context, CANARIE has invested close to $200 million over the last 18 years and leveraged $240 million from other sources in the development of online platforms and services in over 300 projects. Towards the end of the last decade CANARIE specifically funded projects to help develop and accelerate adoption of advanced e-business applications and services.
An example of a project that CANARIE has funded is GS1 Canada, previously called ECCnet. I think they made a presentation before this committee a few days ago. In 2002 this CANARIE investment helped to ensure the Canadian industry was positioned to play a leading role in the development and participation in global e-commerce trading standards.
In April of this year CANARIE also launched the digital accelerator for innovation and research program, also called DAIR, in short. The aim of this project is to make our infrastructure available to small and mid-sized Canadian companies in the information and communications technology sector. DAIR allows them to use the CANARIE network together with cloud-based compute and storage facilities to design, develop, test, and validate their solutions on the large scale prior to commercial deployment.
Even in the early stages of this DAIR program, which is currently in its pilot phase, we have observed its benefits to our users. It has reduced their upfront capital investments in R and D infrastructure, allowing them to focus on the most important task, developing the product. This helps reduce their time to market and gives them the opportunity to seize first-movers' advantage in the global marketplace.
A second equally important advantage that our users have is access to expertise in leading-edge technologies. For example, through DAIR, CANARIE has helped small and medium-sized Canadian businesses to use cloud computing resources and technologies, and to integrate them with their business models. The results have been very positive.
Our plan is to expand this program, and offer more resources to accommodate significantly more companies, around 3,500, once it's fully operational. We see no reason why the next Google or Facebook cannot be developed right here in Canada over the CANARIE network.
In short, by supporting research and education, CANARIE is helping to deliver on the government's priorities, including innovation and productivity to create more wealth and improve the health and wellness of Canadians.
CANARIE is a major internationally recognized Canadian success story. The need for CANARIE remains compelling, and it is growing. As I mentioned earlier, there is a legitimate role for the federal government to invest in CANARIE. It represents a strategic investment in the future of Canada.
CANARIE is funded in five-year tranches, and our current five-year mandate ends in March of next year. On behalf of its users and the beneficiaries of its services and programs, CANARIE seeks your support for another five-year renewal of its mandate and associated funding so it can continue to accelerate e-commerce development and adoption.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions from members, and to provide whatever additional information the committee may need.
Thank you for your time.