Evidence of meeting #40 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I have to admit that I don't have a lot of familiarity with the Internet. I'm as central Canada focused as anyone. Part of the issue about not having patent officers outside of central Canada is that it's a very specialized practice.
Are there enough in New Brunswick? I know we have one patent agent here. Is there enough to have more activity? Would it really help innovation in this region? I'm not sure about that. I wouldn't say no, but I'm not sure.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
That's it, Mr. Regan. That concludes round one.
Now on to Mr. Wallace.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I want to thank our guests for joining us today.
I'm going to start with you, Ms. Garland. Your final statement was that you wanted a patent system that's predictable, stable, and flexible. Isn't that a bit of a contradictory statement? If you want flexibility, the difficulty is having predictability and stability. Can you explain exactly what you mean?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization
My view would be that a flexible intellectual property system in Canada is important to protect inventions and encourage inventors. Predictability is important because investors, multinationals, people looking to commercialize technologies here, need to know they will have market exclusivity for a period of time, and not waste important commercial time defending a patent and having their patent vulnerable and their market opportunity reduced. Consistency is important in the spirit of harmonization and our ability to be globally competitive.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
In another statement you made—and I'm not picking on you; it's so I understand—you talked about Canada being a go-to nation potentially, but you also talked about a globalized patent system.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. When somebody tells me they want a globalized whatever, it means that everybody around the world is playing by the same rules and regulations. Can a nation use the patent system as a means of attraction—let me just put it that way—or to drive innovation if everyone is following the same rules?
Is there a contradiction there, or am I missing the point? Are you saying that Canada should have a bare minimum that is a globalized piece and then do more? I'm not sure exactly what you're saying.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization
There's a point in time element to the argument that's to be made. The IP regimes around the world are moving towards more harmonization. All patents are global from the perspective of a company looking to global markets to commercialize their technology.
Our opportunities to be a go-to nation are in some ways windows of opportunity to seek areas where we might have a competitive advantage. Frankly, as we move more and more to harmonization, some of those windows of opportunity close.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
They close. Okay.
I'm going to ask Professor Dixon a question.
I could be wrong, but here's my thinking. We've had discussions before about commercialization in other committees, in this committee, and so on and so forth. I find that at universities in Canada, including the one my daughter attends—she's in the bachelor of commerce program at the University of Ottawa—we're not developing risk-takers. We're developing managers—
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
—which is fine and good, but is that an issue the University of Waterloo is looking at?
Let's be honest. The University of Waterloo has a great reputation for its capacity to develop new products. On the science side and in engineering, it has a great reputation, but are we developing people who will just license it? Somebody else will actually bring it to market, commercialize it, and take the risk of using it in 80 other countries, but in terms of business management, no one here wants to take risks. They wait to see if somebody else does it.
Is that part of the responsibility of the educational system, including at the university level, in terms of developing better entrepreneurs and risk-takers?
Vice-President, Research, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes. That's what I speak to when I talk about a culture of innovation. You develop people with a solid undergraduate and graduate education in an area, but there is an opportunity for them to understand there are entrepreneurial opportunities out there.
When a company when is formed, it's very rare that an engineer will form that company in their own right. The engineer will be partnered up with someone from the commerce stream, and someone from sociology who knows a lot about market psychology. You put those together and do it. That is there. We actually have a graduate program that does that.
Vice-President, Research, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
It's the master of business, entrepreneurship and technology program.
Vice-President, Research, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
My apologies, I was ignoring you, sir.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I hope that doesn't trouble your conscience tonight.
Mr. Harris, for five minutes.
Dan Harris NDP Scarborough Southwest, ON
I imagine that Mr. Dixon has a fair bit of experience in ignoring unruly students. That's not to say the chair is one, but that's a skill that would be useful in the House of Commons.
I'm going to start with Ms. Garland.
Earlier you were speaking about the Canada-Europe trade agreement and how it would be a benefit, that Canada would become the first country with preferred status both in the United States and in Europe.
There is certainly debate as to whether that favoured status with the United States has really helped Canada. As a total share of imports to the United States, Canada's percentage share of U.S. imports has actually dropped in that period of time. In terms of the actual contribution to our GDP, it has remained about stable.
Why do you think it would be helpful in that respect?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization
The perspective I bring to this argument is that Canada must match global standards for intellectual property protection if technology is to be invented here, patented here, and commercialized here. My consideration is for the net benefit to our economy of having companies, whether they're indigenous or multinationals, commercialize their technologies here and give us, as Canadians, access to the latest technologies that are available around the world.
NDP
Dan Harris NDP Scarborough Southwest, ON
In their prepared statement the generic industry mentioned that many of the investments by brand name drug companies are today directed to countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which are not known for having strong intellectual property regimes. Why do you think we need that when currently development is going to countries that don't have it?
That was for Ms. Garland again.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization
I'm sorry, I thought it was for him.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization
In that case, could I ask you to rephrase the question for me?