Industry Committee on Nov. 19th, 2018

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

No.

May I make one point very clear?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Very quickly, please.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

When it comes to Statistics Canada, they want to generate good-quality, reliable data. They're not here trying to pry into people's personal lives. They're not trying—as the rhetoric you mentioned—to do surveillance. They're genuinely trying to collect good-quality, reliable data.

You have raised legitimate points—and so have other Canadians—around data, privacy and protection. Those issues need to be addressed, but by no means has anyone's personal information in the past been compromised with information on servers. Going forward, obviously we have confidence in the system, but before we get there, it's a hypothetical. They need to build that trust with Canadians.

[Dan Albas]

Well, the previous chief statistician—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you. We're going to move on to Mr. Longfield.

[Dan Albas]

—resigned over this. I think it's important to note that—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair—

[Dan Albas]

—this is a country where we believe in democratic values.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Albas—

[Dan Albas]

Again, it shouldn't just be up to some bureaucrat to decide how that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Albas, your time is up.

[Dan Albas]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I wanted to talk about the IP strategy fit, but I also want to bridge on some of Mr. Albas's comments. As a previous consumer of the CANSIM tables, I mentioned to the chief statistician when he was here how valuable those CANSIM tables are for businesses in order to understand the markets in Canada. I also worked on the poverty elimination task force in Guelph, and I mentioned how important the CANSIM tables are to understand unemployment, homelessness and food insecurity and to have the right data.

As this is an innovation and skills plan that we've developed using IP, my first question to our businesses is about who owns the IP and how they are going to go to the market with that IP, maybe using CANSIM information. I'm just trying to bridge two topics here, the IP strategy fit with our innovation agenda. It was great to see it showing up in budget 2017.

I know that our committee did a lot of work around the IP strategy. Could you comment, Minister, on the importance of the IP strategy fitting in with our innovation and skills plan?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you for that question. Intellectual property is a foundational piece and an essential piece for the knowledge economy going forward.

If you look at the U.S. and their S&P 500, you see that 84% of the assets attributed to the companies are intangible assets. It's connected to IP. If you look at the TSX top 30, you see that 40% of the asset base is attributed to IP. We're behind the U.S., and compared to other jurisdictions as well, and we really have to step up.

We want to be in the business of generating more IP and making sure that we see the benefits here in Canada. That's why we put forward the first national IP strategy, based on the work you did. It was really well received.

Jim Balsillie, for example, someone who is really knowledgeable about this, said that ISED—not me, but more specifically the department I work with—“has been a tireless champion of innovative Canadian companies". He said, “I'm delighted that [under the leadership of ISED we've] put in place this most significant pillar for an innovation strategy.... Raising sophisticated domestic capacity in IP ensures Canada will improve the commercialization of our ideas globally.” This is pretty high praise from someone who understands the importance of IP.

We received similar support from many different professors, the IP Institute of Canada and the different organizations and companies that use IP. Particularly in our smaller and medium-sized businesses, only 10% actually have an IP strategy, and only 10% actually use that IP strategy as part of their business plan. What we're trying to do, fundamentally, is to say, how do we increase that number?

I think the larger companies, generally speaking, are better when it comes to IP generation and IP development and the benefits of it, but it's really about the small and medium-sized companies. We've put forward measures in the IP strategy to also protect Canadian companies, particularly around trolls, to deal with issues around the demand letters that are issued in order to make sure that those demand letters protect them and protect their IP. We've looked at patent collectives, another area that's really important: to combine different patents to provide more opportunities for businesses and to deal with trolls as well.

These are some of the strategies we're deploying. It's $85.3 million that we're investing for significant investments in IP, so it's not simply legislative changes that you're seeing in the legislature, in the House of Commons, but financial resources as well, to move forward on the strategy.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Last week, I was announcing on your behalf $2.28 million for Bioenterprise. They're working in bioplastics and a lot of bioproducts. The next day, I was visiting a company that was taking all the coffee-grounds from McDonald's Canada and making bioplastic headlamp covers for the Ford Motor Company for their Lincoln line. I was thinking that the farm equipment manufacturers in western Canada could benefit from this technology.

To go back to this, you have this idea from IP, the IP is owned in Canada, and we have market information through Statistics Canada CANSIM tables to see who else has headlights and who else is making equipment that could use that technology. Do you see a continuum between our IP strategy and providing the right market data for companies to expand their businesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Answer very quickly, please.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Yes, absolutely. That's a great illustration of how we connect data to IP and make sure we get the commercial benefit of it. That is definitely part of the vision going forward. Thank you for that insight.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

For the final two minutes, Mr. Masse, we're back to you.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Wayne Smith, the former chief statistician, said that Bill C-36—this is your bill that you had in the House of Commons—does nothing to prevent a repeat of the uproar after the 2011 switch from mandatory to voluntary long-form census.

We're back here now, and I can understand the reservations of people, because the reality is that data will be mined down to your postal code in terms of influencing consumer behaviour. Bill C-36 is different on a couple of things from the bill I had, and I would like your opinion on these things to end this meeting.

One of the biggest things was that the chief statistician would be responsible to Parliament, similar to the Auditor General, and wouldn't be the creature of the office of the Minister of Industry, as it is right now. Would you agree to that change?

Another thing would be, would you actually fulfill the promise that you had in your election platform with regard to making a new appointment process that's different from what we have right now?

Last, will the Statistics Canada department continue to be the one that actually gets the data from Canadians, and not Shared Services Canada?

Those were the divergent points. I agree that data is a very important point, but what is just as important is the quality of the data and also the empowerment and the personal confidence people have in giving it. In this situation, the chief statistician has undermined his own process, because people will change their banking ways with what's taken place.

On those three things, can you give at least some guidance in terms of whether you would change Parliament and the Statistics Act to create a culture of inclusion and accountability for the position of the office?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Under the legislation we presented, accountability is a key feature. The reason why we would not be able to repeat what happened in the past, which was political interference when it came to the long-form census, is that with the new legislation, for any of those policy changes you need to inform Parliament, so there's that transparency. What this says is that ultimately, as government officials, as elected officials, we drive policy. We say—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

He reports to you, though, not Parliament.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

—that we need information on clean technology and we need information on the new digital economy—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I don't disagree with all of that. I'm talking about the position.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

We set the policy directive. Then, in terms of how that data is collected, if we're bringing about changes to that—as the previous government did in terms of the methodology, from mandatory making it voluntary—that's where that aspect of it becomes very open and transparent. That information needs to be shared. If we're trying to change methodology or trying to change a process, we need to explain why. That's why—