Industry Committee on May 28th, 2019

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

“We're not the original content providers and therefore we can't be held accountable.” That kind of hands-off approach has allowed for online hate to proliferate in a manner that's really been disturbing to many people. I have an 11-year-old and an eight-year-old and I know and you know as well that you have to be very careful when they're navigating online that they're not exposed to these types of elements on these platforms.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Minister, we can talk about what we're here for—

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

I think we all recognize it's really important to take action.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

—I have children as well—but the specific question I asked you was: Outside the large Facebooks and Googles of the world, there are billions of other pages offering content. How do your guidelines apply to that? Give me a practical answer. You said you've been working on some of these guidelines for years. I would hope you'd have a better answer than just saying Facebook will take care of it because we told them to. What about those small websites around the world that Canadians could have access to? You've said here, “free from hate and violent extremism”. How does that work? How do you practically implement that?

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

Again, leadership matters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have no time, but be very brief, please.

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

I think government stepping up matters, and I think the private sector stepping up and providing solutions also helps.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Mr. Morrissey.

Welcome to our committee.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, I want to focus on the strategic innovation fund, which you referenced in your opening remarks. Last summer, you had the opportunity to tour a number of businesses in my riding that benefited from this particular fund, both in the aerospace sector and in food processing, companies like MDS Coating Technologies, StandardAero Summerside, Summerside Seafood Supreme and Royal Star Foods. These investments have been critical to allowing P.E.I.—the smallest province—to have the strongest economic growth in the country.

You referenced 100 million new dollars in budget 2019. Could you elaborate? Do you see the program continuing as it has been, or do you see an opportunity to take the program in different directions or to simply reinforce what has been successful?

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

We want to redouble our efforts on what has been successful. The strategic innovation fund has been a tool that's helped generate tens of thousands of jobs—more than 65,000 jobs. We've approved more than 46 projects. Through the program, we've made direct investments totalling $1.2 billion, which have helped leverage the $15.3 billion that I mentioned in my opening remarks as well. This has benefited all aspects of the Canadian economy. Obviously, the automotive sector and the aerospace sector have done well, but so have other parts of the economy that are really important.

In particular, in P.E.I., which you're very familiar with, there was a BioVectra announcement. This announcement will help create and maintain 450 jobs, so this is a significant footprint. This investment will really help, and we invested $37.5 million, which will help leverage an additional $110 million.

These are the types of investments we want to see. Our goal going forward is to work with industry to find additional opportunities.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Minister, over previous Conservative governments, a number of the economic bodies responsible for development in Atlantic Canada saw significant cutbacks in their budgets. Since you've been minister, we've been able to continue to invest and to add investment opportunities with a suite of programs for which you are responsible as minister. Could you speak briefly to the growth in the budget for ACOA primarily? This is a major part of federal economic development in Atlantic Canada. It's important that all regions of the country, not just particular areas, have an opportunity to grow.

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

That's a really good point. I'm responsible for other regional development agencies and it is an enormous point of pride because there has been enormous growth in all these regions. There are still some challenges, but ultimately we are turning the corner and we're headed in the right direction.

Since we formed government, from 2015, we've seen investments in all the regional development agencies of $1.2 billion. All the regional development agencies have seen their funding go up and it has been substantial in terms of the investments we've seen.

For example, in ACOA, as you mentioned, we've seen $170 million worth of additional funding since we formed government. That's in sharp contrast to the previous government, the Conservatives, that cut $51.7 million. They had a minister from Atlantic Canada, but it didn't really work out well for them because they lost $51 million. Now they have a government that believes in that region and has outstanding representation and we've seen significant investments.

That is applicable right across the board. I would also highlight the WD, which also saw substantial investment, because we know the unique challenges that are faced out west. These regional development agencies are growing. They're making additional investments, creating conditions for success and building those partnership models that allow more jobs to be created.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have 30 seconds.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Small businesses that operate in rural parts of the country, primarily in Atlantic Canada, are frustrated with their inability to access reliable Internet. Our government has made significant investments in expanding this, but still there are significant gaps.

Could you speak briefly on how we're going to address this issue that, if we do not, will slow the growth in rural parts of the country?

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

The focus is on high-speed Internet connectivity. It's not about connectivity, but high-speed Internet connectivity. We introduced the connect to innovate program, which provided fibre to the backbone support for many of these communities. Now, to complement that, in the last budget we'll be going to the infrastructure bank, the CRTC proposal on funding, and also a universal broadband fund that we propose that will invest billions of dollars across the country and really provide opportunities for those communities to get access not only to Internet, but to high-speed Internet connectivity.

In some cases where fibre is not an option, we have low-earth orbit satellites that will provide that high-speed connectivity option. The technology is pretty phenomenal, because the latency issue is dealt with and it's at an affordable cost point as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Masse for the final two minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

How much was collected by your government from the steel tariffs on the U.S., the dollar-for-dollar tariffs?

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

I'll have to double-check with Finance. I don't know the exact amount.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's over $1 billion.

With regard to the spectrum auction, there has been actually over $10 billion collected over a decade for that. Do you know how much has been invested from that money, or has it gone to the general treasury?

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

My understanding is that it goes to the general revenue.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

My point is that there's capital available there.

In closing, though, I want to give you an opportunity to revisit your digital bill of rights. I tabled one in motion M-175. I know you've said you're interested in trying to table some of your initiatives in the House or getting some things moved. You mentioned that today.

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

Yes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

There's an open door for that.

I'll give a quick example and let you finish, because it is important. It's related to the issue of hate and other online issues.

A lot of this goes to algorithms that the larger companies, such as YouTube and others, have that can identify hate speech, and so forth. There has been pressure to increase them and their use. They've done it with regard to terrorist materials that have been posted on their platforms. It has been less assertive when it comes to racism and hatred and other types of things.

What will your plan do to improve, or will it? Are there other government initiatives to step up expectations on these global platforms and their algorithms, which actually can reduce some of the content that is clearly not only just offensive, but criminal in some cases?

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

First of all, there's a clear recognition that our digital charter reflects consultation not only with Canadians, but with parliamentarians as well. You and I talked about the proposal that you put forward. There were some great ideas that we adopted, so thank you for your efforts in that area as well.

In terms of transparency, that's one of the issues we are trying to deal with, with regard to PIPEDA and algorithms. When certain material does pop up, there needs to be a clear understanding of how that happens. I think that level of transparency will deal with some of the issues you talked about with regard to racism and hatred, and terrorism and extremism that we see online.

One of the areas that didn't get talked about is data monopolies. I sent a letter to the Competition Bureau to look at that.

Brian, I know that's something that's important to you as well.