Evidence of meeting #5 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 industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much.
Now we'll move on to our second round for five minutes.
Mr. Richardson.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Lee Richardson Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for coming. I must say that I've been very impressed with the department over the years, particularly in latter years. I wish I had a critical question to ask you, but I don't.
I was interested in a lot of the praise for support from Industry, but occasionally I hear from venture capitalists about intervention, about perhaps having to compete when the markets are good and there's a lot of money available with BDC. Maybe you could give me a very brief comment on that. I have one more small question after that.
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
--and we are aware of some people who feel that BDC unfairly competes in venture capital. On the other side, we hear especially major funds say, “Thank goodness BDC is there to invest funds in funds, because if they weren't there to make that additional contribution, we'd be short.”
Going forward, I think there is a need to truly look at how to expand those funds. We have had a decrease overall in this country of the availability of venture capital funds. If you look at where the money comes from right now, you'll see that it fundamentally comes from governments. The provincial government in Quebec is quite involved, as they are in Ontario and B.C.
At a certain point it's not right for the state to be taking all the market risks. There has to be a way to get more private capital. I was quite pleased to note that OMERS has established a venture capital division. They haven't allocated a tremendous amount of money to it, but it's a start, and I'll be interested to see if some of the other major pension funds seek to emulate that. Obviously, at the end of the day there has to be a return. Some of the returns on venture capital have not been great in this country, so one has to look at that.
This is one of the areas in the context of the Jenkins panel report that the government has asked them to look at. Because if you're looking at innovation, well, capital formation at the front end has to be analyzed, and we have to determine if there's a better way of doing it. That's one of the chapters in the Jenkins panel report that I'm looking forward to reading.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Lee Richardson Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I think I'm close to the end of my time, so I won't ask you to give me an answer. I was just going to say that I think you will have a very difficult time finding 5% or 10% in cuts in the department this year to reach the government goal. I wish you well with that. I wish you didn't have to do it.
4:20 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
If you want to respond to that, you have a bit more time, Mr. Dicerni.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
It could be career-limiting if I went too far.
4:20 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I understand. Thank you very much.
Mr. Thibeault for five minutes.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm going to focus my questions more on Industry Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs. To start off, could you provide us with any updates on recent initiatives that the office has been working on?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
The consumer affairs branch works in cooperation with a number of other departments within Industry Canada. For example, when we did our advanced wireless services auction, the goal was to help consumers. By allocating AWS spectrum to new market entrants, the goal was to help lower prices, to have a more competitive market.
For example, the work of the Competition Bureau in regard to the steps they take also has a consumer perspective. In terms of the consumer affairs branch specifically, it does support a number of NGOs that in turn contribute to public policy debate. So while there is a branch called “consumer affairs”, which does provide support, as I've said, to a number of NGOs, helping the consumer is not a monopolistic domain of that branch.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
It seems too that Health Canada is involved in the realm of consumer protection, as is the finance department, when you're looking at credit card interest rates and many of those things. So maybe you can explain the way, then, that the Office of Consumer Affairs coordinates with Health Canada and the Ministry of Finance to tackle some of these issues.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
Again, the Office of Consumer Affairs--and perhaps my colleague Simon can add to this--does not have an overall government-wide coordinating mandate or responsibility. It is indeed, as you pointed out, also within the mandate and the purview of a number of other ministers. We focus on a certain part of it but do not claim to represent and coordinate all consumer-related interventions in the Government of Canada.
September 28th, 2011 / 4:20 p.m.
Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
As Richard said, there are some clear swim lanes that the department stays within, because we know there are other ministries that have responsibilities. A really good example would be something like issues surrounding credit cards. That's clearly under the Bank Act. That's clearly the Ministry of Finance.
In that respect, it's not a lot different from the way we administer framework policy. Industry Canada has broad responsibility for framework policies, but if you get into issues like culture, then the framework policy is managed by the heritage ministry. If you get into things like finance, that's clearly under the Bank Act, and it's clearly the finance ministry.
That analogy works well on the consumer affairs side too. We have broad interests in consumer issues. We subsidize, provide some funding to consumer groups across the country, but specific issues may well fall within the purview of a different ministry.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
To follow up on your point, you mentioned credit cards, and of course the interest side of it for consumers was under the finance department. However, in the last Parliament we had a study on interchange and the interchange rates, and that fell to the industry department. There are many examples we could cite of how we have all of this consumer protection happening out there but there's no way for the consumer to actually go to a website and find information about toxic toys. They'd have to figure out that was under Health Canada.
If you're looking at what other places, such as the United States and Australia, are doing—and we can rhyme off what the other countries are doing—they have specific consumer protection policy all kind of under one roof.
I'd like your opinion. Is this something the Office of Consumer Affairs would be interested in taking on down the road?
4:25 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
You raise a good point in regard to information, given technologies such as the web, and what one can do to provide Canadians with the information they need. The flip side is that there's so much out there that it would require a lot of time and effort just to try to keep up to date with what is happening in this wide space called the Government of Canada.
Let me take under consideration what could be done to look at consumer awareness outreach.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you, Mr. Dicerni.
Mr. Thibeault's alarm went off at almost precisely five minutes, but I--
4:25 p.m.
NDP
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I do allow the witnesses a little bit more leeway than the members in order to be fulsome--
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
It's okay. We have a good handle on the clock right here.
Mr. Lake, go ahead for five minutes.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I hope Mr. Thibeault is timing me as well. I'll try to stop when I hear the beeps.
I want to start by thanking you for taking the time to come here. I think this is an important way for us as a committee getting going to get an overview of the things that are going on. I want to focus, at least in this round, on the things that are upcoming, things that we can maybe expect as a committee to be dealing with over the coming months.
First of all, obviously copyright is coming up fairly quickly. Could you give us a little bit of background? I believe this has been in the making for several years. There have been several incarnations of the copyright bill. Why is it so important to get this bill passed?