Industry Committee on June 2nd, 2015

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

Business incubators make it possible to fail fast, fail often.

I'm sorry for paraphrasing. These incubators allow for that to happen. It involves trying an idea, holding meetings and discussing with other people who are also innovating to come up with promising ideas that will produce a change. These incubators make it possible to try these things out at a very acceptable risk level. You don't have to mortgage your life to test out an idea and start a business.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

That's the most positive aspect, but is there a negative one in your opinion?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

The negative aspect is creating a microcosm of people who may think the same thing. If you don't take care to inject new talent or slightly change the business' direction, the risk is that everyone will see the problem the same way. Somewhere, you have to step back to be able to resolve it differently. The discussion about incubators may focus on a vision that is too similar among the various participants.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

There may be a lack of diversity of opinions.

I would like to ask another question. Knowing that Canada lags a little bit behind when it comes to investment in research and innovation, are we going to be able to surf the wave of new technologies in the coming years? If not, will Canada be able to compete internationally? Canada is the only developed country that has a deficit when it comes to intellectual property. That means that we are spending more to acquire the technology of other countries that what the rest of the world buys from us. How do you think we could fix that situation?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

It's a little like what I said earlier. We need to develop the capacity to make a link between the research that is already being done in our universities and the industry, and make sure we increase this link. Activating it is already a very good thing but we also need to build this bridge. We often have many excellent research ideas, but realizing them is still difficult.

We need to build this bridge. If we look at what is happening in the United States, we can see that there are a lot more direct bridges between business and the the research sector, which makes it possible to quickly test a cutting-edge idea on the market. It's more difficult to do in Canada. We don't lack ideas, but we probably don't have the means to implement them.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

That's right.

Since this is an opportunity to speak to a representative from a Quebec company, I was wondering whether I could give you the last word so that you could talk about certain aspects that we haven't had an opportunity to discuss. What should we do for Quebec companies in particular?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

Quebec companies are still privileged. Specifically, the City of Quebec offers a lot of ways for companies to develop. I couldn't tell you any more than that.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Before the election, is there anything we should focus more on? Yesterday, I commented on our mayor's shopping list. How can we help more in this respect?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

I'm not really the best person to answer that question.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Thank you for your testimony today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Ms. Papillon.

Mr. Lake for eight minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I found that to be an interesting line of questioning. I wrote down a direct quote from Ms. Papillon, who said that Canada is the only developed country in the world that is lagging behind in technology. I never heard that; there's no stat to back that up. I'm not sure what that even means, and Canada is certainly not investing less in R and D. In fact, in the G-7 we have the strongest investments in R and D. It happens that the Canadian business community isn't investing at the same rate, and it's a challenge to get Canadian business to invest in R and D. Certainly the government has a role in creating policy that encourages Canadian business to also invest, but with investments like the Canada first research excellence fund, which is $1.5 billion, we're leading the way, and when you talk to the universities and colleges across this country they recognize that.

Marie, in talking about the Canada first research excellence fund, one of the things we talk about is the idea of an area where Canada is near the top in terms of innovation, in terms of world leadership in a certain area, and taking Canadian researchers to the top, to that world-leading position. It seems to me that as I sit and observe the different areas of opportunity, one of those areas is in nanotech. When I see what's happening at the U of A right now in nanotech, it's pretty remarkable.

I'm going to bridge that to an area of challenge in policy in Canada. That would be pipelines and moving oil and gas, for example. That's a huge opportunity for us as a country if we can figure out ways to do that safely, but of concern to people across Canada is making sure it's safe. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the applications of nanotechnology in that specific environment, because I know there's some great work happening in the Edmonton area in terms of those types of developments.

[Marie D'Iorio]

There is indeed a lot of work that's being done in the oil and gas area at the University of Alberta and at NINT as well.

One of the advantages of nanotechnology is that the materials at that scale offer new properties. That's because you have more and more access to surface area, and it means that if you include nanomaterials in existing materials there, they have a higher performance. If we think, for example, about lubricants, if you use nanomaterials in lubricants, they work at different temperatures, have better properties, and so on. That's important for the oil and gas industry.

We work on other problems that are related to the use of equipment in drilling, for example, and the fact that you have equipment that uses batteries in conditions of very high temperatures. Most batteries that we use now do not sustain the very high temperatures that are used in drilling rigs, so how can we use nanotechnology to increase the performance of batteries? We're working on materials for new types of batteries for the oil and gas companies.

These are only two examples, but again it's a type of technology where you have access now to different properties and that's what we try to go and fetch. Nanotechnology is not an industrial sector. It's actually an enabling technology that has applications in all industrial sectors. You just have to choose which sector that you want to have an impact in.

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

It's amazing because when you think nanotechnology, you think computers and really small computers, but of course if you visit the Edmonton Research Park, you'll see pipelines, big pipes that they're testing. They can bend them like a cardboard paper towel roll bends without breaking, because the material inside is designed so incredibly that it doesn't break the bond kind of thing, and it doesn't compromise.... It's something that we've never seen before. There are sensors that they can put in these pipes to detect even the smallest vibration. It's just phenomenal.

[Marie D'Iorio]

That's correct. You have access to coatings, for example, in pipelines or anything else, and also to environmental sensors that can be distributed and can report back information as to whether there is a leak, for example, in a particular remote area.

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

Nanotechnology can have impacts on some pretty big things.

Pierre-Luc, your testimony was really interesting. I don't really know what your organization does. Perhaps you could take a few minutes and give us a really practical example, as if you were trying to explain to Canadians who might read the transcript, of what types of disruptive technologies your company is involved in, and where you're going as a company. The notes sound like you've been tremendously successful. I want to hear a little more about what you do.

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

Mirego is essentially a service company. We work both at defining products and at making those products. We're sort of an engineering-heavy company. Out of 65 on our team, we have about 40 engineers. The rest of the team is on design and the creation of digital products.

We work with a number of industries. We have a number of clients in the insurance industry. We work with them at redefining different processes whereby we can bring them either faster processing or better interactions with their clients.

One of our success stories was working with La Presse+ in a process that was a redefining of the newspaper in a digital form. Recently, we worked with Bell Canada on Bell Fibe, actually, their new platform for delivering content for over-the-top and over mobile devices for Bell Fibe customers.

We come in and work with our clients at defining what is the user experience they're trying to bring in and what is the problem they're trying to solve, and then at defining a product that's based around that.

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

I had the opportunity in Montreal recently and in Toronto to meet with the universities and see their incubators and the different things that are going on. I think it's D3 at Concordia, for example. To what extent do you work with those universities to synergize, in a sense, to grow what you already have, and to grow the capacity within the universities?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

We rarely get the chance to work directly with universities. In our case, usually what will happen is.... I'll use the example of an insurance company going to a research lab within the university. They're already working with a partnership and finding algorithms to define how you could, for example, define the driving skills of one of their clients. Then, in bringing it to us, it's about how we can make this a rich user experience, how we can take that research and make it an actual product. That would be an example of where we work with universities, but not directly with incubators.

We work with start-ups, not necessarily out of universities, but either privately funded start-ups or self-funded start-ups, where we essentially are their engineering force to bring their product to market in the first version. We work with them both at creating inside their company a force that will be able to maintain that product and also at being there for extra capacity and for moving to faster delivery of new features, for example.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you.

Now we'll go on to Madam Sgro for eight minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Welcome. It continues to be an amazingly interesting study, and it's fascinating to hear from all three of you.

I will start with Mr. Simard, and continue on.

How long have you been in business? How did you get to the point where you are one of the top 500 companies or in that range? Would you give us some background on how you arrived at where you are today? Then I would like to know what kind of roadblocks were in your way to achieving the success you have today.

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

We were founded at the end of 2007. The bulk of our growth has been organic, simply through references. To this day, we actually don't have a sales department. Most of our growth has been through word of mouth and through creating very good products for our customers, who then refer other customers to us. To this stage, that's how we've been growing.

We are starting to find ways to expand throughout Canada and getting known to a wider audience. We've been very present in Quebec, but less so in English Canada, in Ontario and so on. Really, that's where we're looking as far as expansion and growth go.

I just want to make sure: does that answer your question?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

You said you started in 2007, so prior to 2007 what were you doing?

[Pierre-Luc Simard]

Prior to 2007 I myself had been in a different number of positions. I worked at multiple start-ups, a couple of them in the medical field and one of them in digital signage. I also spent about five years in the energy industry, working for what was known then as Cooper Power Systems. It's an American company that acquired a Quebec company called Cybectec originally. I spent five years there somewhat as a product end client liaison agent.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

What are some recommendations that you could provide to help us facilitate this ever-changing landscape to make your business and businesses like yours continue to be competitive and successful? Do you have any advice for us as MPs sitting at a table who are very interested in knowing what we can do to help you and others like you succeed?