Evidence of meeting #19 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was additive.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
I'm going to defer to Farzad very quickly, but from our perspective right now with respect to additive manufacturing, no. Locally, we don't have that talent pool.
Second, I think the universities are certainly not keeping pace with the colleges on the robotics side.
Director, Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies, Sheridan College, Polytechnics Canada
I will add to that. We have robots in Canada that are unique. Two months ago one was announced in Sweden. We got it, and we are working collaboratively on a robot.
Our robotic facilities are state of the art, but the problem is that politicians in Canada are not paying attention from that perspective. We are at the grassroots, working with the companies at that level. Robotics and automation are the key.
In regard to your question about manufacturing, nowadays manufacturing is value-added manufacturing. It is a knowledge economy.
If it is a great product.... In my opinion, it's not a great product if China can produce it. There is no value-added to that. China cannot copy the product that Martin is producing because it's all knowledge-based.
When we talk about advanced manufacturing coming back to Canada, we are talking about the knowledge-based, value-added, bundle product that nobody else can produce and that can only be innovated in North America.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
I have to have someone else finish each question.
Mr. Baylis, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be crisp a bit.
Mr. Toma, your point number seven was to promote intellectual property sharing between businesses and post-secondary research centres.
Can you expand on that?. What do you see now, and what would you like to see?
Past Chair, Alberta Chambers of Commerce
That's a great question. I worked with the college system quite a bit. Maybe I could talk about robotics for one second.
NAIT has the Shell Manufacturing Centre, which teaches students robotics. SAIT, in Calgary, has an automation robotics centre as well.
One of the problems in Alberta is that a lot of robotics and automation have not been adopted because the scale of plants is quite small, so generally speaking, it's not commonplace.
On intellectual property and so on, I took a bunch of college researchers down to Houston, and we looked at a nanotechnology company. We met down there. Alberta got about $120 million for a nanotechnology institute at the University of Alberta. About four years ago we went down there and asked the fellow where he got his IP from. He said he got it from Rice University for free. They were commercializing their information out of that university and building a business, and so on.
One of the challenges in Alberta, and I think in many provinces, is that a lot of the new discoveries get discovered, and then they get patented, and then they have a time period for release into the marketplace. I've heard from venture capital investors that trying to get access to the intellectual property from some of the universities is very long and difficult.
That's it.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Could you send in concrete examples of that difficulty? If there are specific universities or tech transfer offices you've heard from, I'd like to get concrete examples on that issue.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Moving on, Mr. Petrak—I'll get to you last and then you can run down the clock—if I understand correctly, you're running an incubator. Is that correct?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
It's a pre-commercialization centre on the medical side, the Orthopaedic Innovation Centre.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
What does it do, exactly, to support the industry there?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
What we're looking at is medical device testing, clinical research, clinical trials, retrospective studies, implant testing, cadaveric testing. When these devices come into Canada, we are actually the ones who validate them as to whether they are devices we should be using.
It's a state-of-the-art facility, very much a Mayo of the north. We have basically the capability of now going, as I told you before, from raw materials right into implantation and post—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
They are imported devices.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Are you working with local companies that are developing their own devices?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
Yes, we are doing that as well. We're supporting that, both from a medical testing side as well as from a manufacturing side.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
First, I'd be much more interested in helping the local companies. How could we help you to do better to help the local companies that are developing, as distinct from bringing in the external products to test?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
I think a lot of it is a question of the educational gap that needs filling right now for additive manufacturing in Canada. Many other countries have an advanced program curriculum, as I mentioned before.
Liberal
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
—teaching it, yes. They actually have undergraduate programs in it. We're not even teaching it. They have full undergraduate curricula in the U.S. I think that's something to think about.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Would it be fair to say, then, that there's such a rate of change that our universities or colleges are not keeping up and that there are demands for specific skills sets that are not being kept up with?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM
I would say that additive manufacturing with 3-D printing is 30 years old, and when we start looking at where we are, it is clear that we just have not embraced it. Maybe we haven't needed to embrace it. Maybe that's been the push that was missing, and I think that now, focusing on advanced manufacturing, we have to really think about investing now, today.
I think that's the focus. For us to help local industries, they have to be educated.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
So the skills gap is it.
Okay, that will fall right to you, Mr. Rayegani.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I know, but I'm going to go for it, Chair.
Why is it that colleges are not bridging that gap? Let's leave the federal government aside; I don't want to hear about that. It's not always the federal government's problem. They have a need; you have—