Industry Committee on March 24th, 2014

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I too want to welcome Peggy Nash to our committee. It's really good. I look forward to working with her, and each of you.

I want to follow up on some of the comments that were made by Mr. Côté and Mr. Van Kesteren in terms of how the entertainment digital economy also will benefit in other ways. I think back to 1981 when I bought my Commodore VIC-21 and played Pac-Man. If it would have been able to be a cloud system, maybe Mr. Van Kesteren and I could have played Pac-Man against each other, I don't know. But that evolved to Mavis Beacon and learning how to type on the computer, at about the time of the Gremlin, the car.

Anyway, it has evolved. One of the key factors...you talked about the creative director who creates a vision of where we can go, and you get these brilliant minds working together. Most recently, there are the developments in 3-D printing, something that I could not have dreamed of. It seemed to be fantasy, but here we see 3-D printing now.

Where is this taking us? How do you see this evolving?

Mr. Smith, you probably would be the lead person to answer this. What I would like to first find out is, what is the target demographic? Is it a younger group who do the digital entertainment....? Is it focused at a younger age group?

[Dr. Richard Smith]

Actually the reference to young men playing video games presumably in their mothers' basements is a misrepresentation of the video game market in Canada and around the world. The typical gamer in raw numbers is a woman over age 50. Casual and social games dominate the market. So the young, intense gamer on a console is a big part of the market, but so is everybody else.

The video game market, like the Internet, is now occupied by human beings, writ large. And so it's not simply a specialist group or a tiny elite, it's everybody. The people who bought VIC-20s in the 80s keep playing games as they get older. They don't stop. The game industry is everybody.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

So the target audience is quite large. That's encouraging.

In terms of people entering the digital media program at Simon Fraser, are they also in large part mature students, based on their skills and interests?

[Dr. Richard Smith]

I'd say about two-thirds of our students are recent graduates, and the other third are 5, 10, 15, even 20 years out. It's one of those long tails where you have a bunch of people at the beginning, and then it kind of peters out. I think that's a very healthy environment. It's very good when our teams have sort of a grown-up on the team, someone in their 30s or 40s who can present that insight into humanity, or business, or whatever.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I'm thinking of a computer called Watson that IBM has. It was a television game. Watson now is evolving to be used in medical diagnosis and connecting doctors around North America, maybe around the world. The symptoms would be plugged into Watson, and Watson would recommend procedures for diagnosis and treatment. The success rate of that is dramatically better than the norm.

My question is, where does this take us? If we look back to the 1980s, we had Pac-Man followed by Mavis Beacon. Now where do we see this going? And how is education, Simon Fraser and their digital program, going to be evolving over the next 10 to 20 years so we can incorporate games, entertainment, but also benefit our societies, so that this helps us in many ways?

Mr. Van Kesteren asked about robots. They were also things of fantasy when we look back 40 years, but here we are.

Maybe each of you can comment on how we see this evolving over the next 10 to 20 years.

[Dr. Richard Smith]

We need to think carefully because obviously there will be enormous benefits, but there are also risks. Robots and such are things to watch carefully because of their impact on the labour market and all that sort of thing.

You know that story of the wise man who saves the king and is asked what prize he wants. He suggests he would like a grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard, and on the second square two grains of rice, and on the third square four grains, and so on. The king heartily agrees. That sounds like no big deal. By the time you get to the 32nd square, it's more rice than could be grown in two big fields. The interesting thing is on the 33rd and the 34th you get into numbers that are staggering, and by the 64th square, it's more rice than has ever been grown and ever will be grown on the earth.

I think we are now in the 33rd square of digital media. We have had a doubling and a redoubling. It's called Moore's law. It has been going on since the 80s. Now we're in that 34th square, and as things double this year, and the year after that, and the year after that, the changes will be absolutely profound.

I can't predict them. I can only tell you the movie Her and stuff like that is not never going to happen. That's going to happen, and it's going to happen in our lifetimes, and Watson is just an example. Watson's going to be the size of your hand. It's not going to be a room full of computers. You can carry it in your pocket.

We can't predict what the future is, but we sure know it's changing very rapidly.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Colleagues, I have the suspicion you would want to hear the other two. The time has run out, but this question was where it's going. Do I have unanimous consent?

Mr. Schmalz, do you want to answer that question, and then we'll go to Mr. Carrier, and that will be the end.

[Michael Schmalz]

I think one of the great challenges of the 21st century for humanity as a whole is going to be figuring out how to communicate in a globalized and knowledge economy, and what role the Internet is going to play.

Last year I bought my first refrigerator that's connected to the Internet. We're going to be buying watches and eyeglasses that are connected to the Internet. It's going to be in our clothes. In our lifetime it's probably going to be flowing through our veins.

These are absolutely essential questions that we as people are going to have to deal with. In dealing with some of these first steps and first problems of the Internet in terms of Internet commerce, communication, simulation, optimization, I think the video game industry is on the cutting edge of that. To the extent that Canada can embrace the video game industry, we are going to be in a position to have the expertise to respond to some of these opportunities and some of these threats in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Carrier.

[Martin Carrier]

Thank you.

Just to your earlier point, Mr. Warawa, on games, even Frank Underwood in House of Cards is a video game player. He's played since his childhood among other things.

But I think ultimately where games will take us is connectivity between devices. Games are pushing the technology that connects the devices, and in a sense, because of the demands of our players, we push the different companies to come up with new ways to have a connected experience. I think that's one of the ways we'll see how games impact our future, not just through games, but in our everyday life.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. Schmaltz, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Carrier.

We appreciate your testimony. It's been intriguing and educational.

Now, colleagues, we'll suspend for a couple of minutes while we disconnect our distant witnesses and say goodbye to Mr. Carrier, then we'll go into some business.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Colleagues, our first order of business is in public and then we'll go in camera for a brief portion.

Our first order of business is to make sure the vice-chair is replaced. Madam Charlton is no longer with us. I suspect Mr. Lake has a nomination in that regard.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I haven't made up my mind yet whom I'm going to nominate, but I think members of this committee would probably share my joy—is joy the word I'm looking at?—at the nominations and the spirit of camaraderie—

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Yes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Joyce, my colleagues on this side are going to raise a point of privilege here in a minute.

I'd be pleased to nominate Ms. Nash as vice-chair.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Bartholomew Chaplin]

It has been moved by Mr. Lake that Ms. Nash be elected first vice-chair of the committee. Are there any other motions?

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I move that we close nominations.

[The Clerk]

The committee has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I want to thank my nominator. Thank you to the committee for your support. I thought the finance committee was a friendly place. The industry committee seems like a very friendly spot. Thank you so much and I'm looking forward to working with everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You haven't seen anything. There's a lot more love where that came from.

We'll just suspend for another minute and we'll go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]