Industry Committee on Sept. 21st, 2016

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

One of the reasons we've managed to do this is our IP policy. We've had this for the last 60 years, which is the age of the university. When a professor has an idea and works with a company, he or she has the freedom to decide how to share the IP. It could be all professors. It could be all the companies. It could be joint. It could be a licensing arrangement. The institution has no say in how the IP is going to be used, which is very important, because the IP conversation can take months. If you're in manufacturing, timeliness is very important.

You see, you don't always need the technology. When the technology is developed, companies probably need it for five years. The professor can keep the IP and license it to the company for five years. We must have flexibility in IP policies. Keep it in Canada, but work on the licensing side. Having the institutions not holding the IP would be the first step, I would think.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Olson, I have a question for you. Oftentimes, we've been told by some of our members at this committee not to forget the rurals. What are the unique challenges that a rural manufacturer would have that we as the federal government could help overcome?

[Leah Olson]

Infrastructure. It would be the Wi-Fi. We have members all across Canada. One of the things I try to do, because we're a not-for-profit, is do calls via Skype. I cannot do calls with any of my members via Skype because they don't have any bandwidth. The Skype call will go in and out, and that's consistent in all of the provinces.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

If we were to ask your members, they would reflect what you're saying, the same thing.

[Leah Olson]

The only reason I'm saying it is that's what my members are telling me, yes.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Okay. Is it across the country?

[Leah Olson]

It is. It's Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta. I have somebody in Swift Current, and I have tried to do Skype calls with them. They're actually in an industrial park in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and we can't do a Skype call. The southwest corner of Ontario has magnificent agriculture equipment manufacturers, and they too struggle with that.

The main challenge is that when you're in a rural area, you typically have to pay more for your Internet, or you have to pay for the fibre to be brought im. In addition, you're usually on rural roads. If you have major equipment being manufactured, getting that equipment to the major hubs, be it in Toronto, Winnipeg, or Vancouver, the logistics can become a bit of a challenge.

What my members are saying to me, in terms of the challenges they want some help on, is that Wi-Fi and roads would be the main ones, although I know that roads don't fall within the federal government.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Ms. Gallant for five minutes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

First of all, I would like to ask Dr. Sullivan about the Internet of things. With the Internet of things, there is an exponential increase in the possibility of cyber-hacking. In your opinion, is technology in terms of cybersecurity keeping up with the threat that will blossom with this Internet of things?

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

First, perhaps I could take a minute to assure Ms. Olson that we will have a rural antenna: give it two years. I think that's very important.

To address your very important question, when the IoT gets pervasive, and it will, you'll have different layers of security problems. You have the cloud layer. You have the computer side. You also have the sensor side and the actuator side. Every component in the entire network of the IoT will be vulnerable, I would say. You will need reliability and security at every level.

I do think a lot of research is being developed there. One of the places doing it is the Institute for Quantum Computing. They've been working on quantum-based solutions to cybersecurity. I'm not an expert in that area, so I won't say more than that. I do think that cybersecurity itself is an industry and will be an industry.

You know, it's interesting; I spoke with the vice-president of Cisco. He's a Canadian who is working in California. I asked him the same questions. Are we ready? Are we able to secure our systems? He said that the United States was the leader in securing IT systems, but he says that now China and Russia are coming on board and they are becoming quite competitive in that. I think Canada can be, and is moving in the direction of being a leader and becoming one of the strongest players in cybersecurity.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

I'd like to hear more about Wi-Fi availability in rural areas. The government has announced millions of dollars for expanding access to the Internet, but it seems to be all in urban centres. They're getting more, faster, at a greater speed than people who are suffering with less than five bits per second. They're even on dial-up, as you know. With this Wi-Fi that will be available in two years to rural customers, will it be able to overcome the challenges with respect to the geology, the topography of the land, and the trees and other line-of-sight barriers?

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

It's an antenna that has a satellite base. The reason it's so expensive right now is that you need a fibre connection to get the physical antenna up. We want to have a mobile antenna so that it can be mounted onto a vehicle—no wires—and then it can go to rural Canada and you'll be connected. You'll search for the satellite. That's our hope.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Ms. Olson, you mentioned how IRAP is helping some of your clients, but manufacturers of agricultural equipment in my riding have told me that the application process is very odious. In fact, in the proposal, they even have to account for the pencils they are going to use, and by the time they go through this exercise and then perhaps are rejected, and they have been rejected, there's been a lot of effort that they could have been putting into their businesses. Are the people you work with hiring consultants to do the application process? As they try to access this funding, how are they overcoming the wall the bureaucracy puts up?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Leah Olson]

IRAP actually has an easier application process; it's SR and ED that we have the challenges with. On that one, we are indeed paying anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 in professional fees, and that doesn't guarantee that the application will be approved. So simplifying and streamlining the application processes is much appreciated.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Sheehan, you have five minutes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I really enjoyed that presentation. It was great.

My question is for both of you. I've recently been appointed to the committee here, and I was just reading through a lot of the materials. In addition to that, this week the national chamber of commerce passed a resolution calling for a sector-specific strategy for steel, and for the nation to work together on this in particular to develop a sort of strategy. They do that from time to time, not just for steel. They will do that for other specific sectors, such as aerospace, auto, etc. Others are perhaps of the mind that there should be more of a broad-based national strategy for industry and manufacturing, because there are some commonalities throughout all of them.

Could both of you give me your opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of both of those directions for strategies?

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

Go ahead.

[Leah Olson]

In terms of a national strategy for manufacturing, when we look at what Canada is good at, we're excellent at farming. As a result of the harsh conditions, we're leading the world in terms of the manufacturing of agricultural equipment. We need a manufacturing strategy, and I think we need to get together and take a look at where the synergies are so that not everybody is saying three things at three different times, but we can say something once together and that voice will be pretty loud. I'd be happy to do that. Our members in particular are small to medium-sized and some of them are micro; they have fewer than 15 employees. From that perspective, they are very targeted and very nimble in terms of what they will or will not get involved with. If we were to do a national strategy on agricultural equipment manufacturing, I would likely be setting up committees in each of the provinces, working with our membership that way, and asking them to feed up suggestions of what they think is required in order for them to maintain and enhance that competitive advantage.

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

I don't know whether the answer is one or the other. I do think, however, that like everything in the sector, manufacturing is going to be driven a lot by technology evolution. I think the future products are going to need some form of embedded technology, sensors or things that will be deployed through the IT sector. Even the car today is no longer a car; it is a computer on wheels. I do think that rather than just talking about the sectors, it is more important for us to develop platform technologies. Platform technologies will support multiple sectors, and they can evolve over time as they are developed and upgraded. All the sectors can benefit from them.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

My question is for both of you, but I'll start with Pearl.

I didn't go to the University of Waterloo as long...but I did do my EDAC certification in economic development through the university. Through the process of that course, they talked about how the university works very closely with the incubator, with industry. For instance, I noted that Toyota has given $1 million or so to the university.

Talk about your experiences collaborating together and how you did that. It was a successful story. In places like Sault Ste. Marie, we've recently undertaken to get an incubator to try to link Algoma University to all the scientists and whatnot, and to the industries.

Would you like to comment and maybe share some of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You took away most of your time. They have about 30 seconds to answer that question.

[Dr. Pearl Sullivan]

I'll be quick, but a lot of that comes from the fact that we have a co-op program. We have nearly 5,000 employers. In engineering law, it's 1,700 employers. The relationships we have with them have been long lasting, long-standing. We have worked with GM for 25 years.

It takes a lot of time, and they keep coming back to us for multiple parts of the R and D, as well as co-op.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.