Industry Committee on Sept. 28th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to meeting number 24 of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Today we have some interesting folks visiting us. From the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, we have Jayson Hilchie, president and chief executive officer. We also have, from the National Angel Capital Organization, Yuri Navarro, chief executive officer and executive director.

Thank you very much for attending today.

Mr. Lobb?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

At the last meeting, we were unable to finish our discussion on my motion in regard to the former chief of Stats Canada and his resignation. I was hoping that we could finish that off briefly this afternoon before we get into the witnesses' testimony.

As we see that more of the economic data that comes out isn't great, unfortunately for Canadians who are looking for jobs, the integrity of Statistics Canada is important, as are the numbers they collect and the reports they produce, which so many base decisions on. Banks and their chief economists, and businesses, etc., need that information.

Mr. Smith was very clear on more than one occasion about his concern with regard to Shared Services Canada. Their inability to perform what in many industries we would call the most basic of support functions should be a huge concern.

Also, in light of the fact that in the last election the Liberal Party made Stats Canada a huge issue, including the long-form census and many other components, in addition to the ability of scientists to have independence—which it looks as if they're not going to have under this government—I would think my colleagues across the way would want to have a few meetings, have Mr. Smith and others come in, and be able to discuss my motion.

In addition to that, have the vote in public and have the comments in public, not in camera. I believe we are either the only one or one of the very few that actually conduct their business in camera, which is unfortunate, because that's another pledge they made.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Are you moving your motion?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm providing a preamble right now.

In addition to that, I would think and hope that members across the way, who I do respect, would want to discuss this in public and have a vote in public to have a few meetings and discuss this. If I have the ability, which I believe I do because I have the floor, I'd like to have my motion passed around, provided our staff has it.

I'll read it one more time, if they need it. They've had Monday and Tuesday to brush up on the topic, and hopefully we can have a little discussion and then a brief vote. It should only take about three more minutes. Then we'll be able to get on with our business.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I move that we go in camera.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We have a motion to go in camera.

(Motion agreed to)

We'll suspend while we get everything organized.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much.

To the witnesses, sorry for the delay. That's a 40-minute delay for a one-minute motion and about a 20-second vote. It's unfortunate that it takes 40 minutes to do something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Are you going to move a motion or are you going to—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm just providing a preamble.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

I think you've provided your preamble and we've wasted enough time.

If you're going to move a motion, I'd like you to move your motion, please.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay. I was in the process of moving my motion. Can I move my motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Go for it.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

It's now 4:10, and we could have started this meeting at about 3:33. That's unfortunate.

We're currently doing a study on manufacturing, which is great. Some of the members across may want to be mushroom farmers, which is fine, but it's important that we shine a light on these motions that bring transparency to government, which we're having some troubles with right now.

My motion, which was prepared on September 21, is the following: “That the Committee on Industry, Science and Technology suspends its study of the manufacturing sector and commence a study on the independence of Stats Canada.”

That's the long and the short of it. That's the text of the motion. This current study is an excellent study. It has a lot of value. However, for the space of time that we have, and for the sake of Mr. Smith and what he's done to try to bring transparency to Stats Canada and Shared Services Canada and the integrity of the data they produce, this is one of the highest-priority items that we should be looking at right now to maintain the integrity of Stats Canada, not only in the quality that they produce, but also in the independence that they've known for so many years.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Longfield, you have the floor.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do we have a motion on the floor?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Yes, we do.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

The government operations standing committee will be calling on the former chief statistician, Wayne Smith, after the November break. Another committee is going to be working on this. The issue will be dealt with appropriately at that committee. Therefore, there's no reason for our committee to undertake duplicate efforts to discuss this and to suspend the work on this important manufacturing study that we have witnesses here to help us with and that we've been working on for months. We want to get on with our study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Okay.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be supporting the motion. I appreciate that another parliamentary group is looking at this, but as Industry Canada is responsible for this file, I think it's very pertinent.

I'll go back to when I first got here and Stats Canada was an independent association that really had the respect of all the world. What happened from that point in time is that the then government decided to outsource gathering data in its collection to Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became part of an outsourcing public-private partnership attempt to—so-called—save money. They laid off successive workers, and that was just prior to the complete count, Mr. Chair.

For those who are not familiar with the complete count, it was done in the year 2000 because Stats Canada has a research system that allows for study and it connects to how studies are then related to the public in surveys. Then they determine the allocation of resources related to everything from housing to aboriginal issues related to supports and other matters. These are critical elements.

We did the complete count. In my riding we had one of the few door-to-door counts, which I was a part of as a city councillor in the year 2000. It was assigned specifically to increase the turnout, because the turnout in my riding was at such a low point, despite being one of the poorest ridings in an urban setting, and it required that type of challenge for door-to-door counts because of languages, skill sets, and populations that were moving—all those things. That all relates to strategic decisions related to industry, investment, and so forth.

At any rate, we fought that battle with Lockheed Martin, which is interesting because of the U.S. Patriot Act. Lockheed Martin at that time wanted to have its data assembled in Minnesota. That was happening when the Patriot Act was passed. The way it works with the Patriot Act is that they can get the data from a company—any information they want—but the company cannot report that back to the contracting party, to where they're getting the data from. Basically, Canadians' data and information was exposed to the U.S. government. We were successful in stopping the Patriot Act in regard to having Canadians' information from being outsourced. It was actually redone, and the cost to the government of the day was another $6 million.

Now we fast forward to the reason why this is extremely relevant to this motion and why the committee should look at it. That then led to the next problem, which was that we had the long-form census killed by the Conservative government. There's more. I don't want to take up too much time here, but I think it's important that we have some of this in the context of what we're going to decide next. The long-form census was killed despite being one of the most important data summaries that a nation has. It was still done quite well despite the previous problems that I've referred to. Once again, the long-form census is very important. It backstops data for surveys, for agricultural surveys and so forth.

Then it became this whole thing.... Remember that thing about people going to jail for not filling out their census forms? It was Tony Clement who at that time was arguing that people could go to jail, that they were being harassed and all those different things, so we were going to go to a short-form census. That turned out to be a complete debacle as well, because there was no substance to that thing about people being rounded up and put in jail for not doing the census.

At that time, the Liberals—I believe it was member Ted Hsu—had a bill on the census in the House of Commons, and I had a bill on the census too. The crux of where the difference between the Liberal position and our position was—I don't know where the Conservatives stand on this—is that my bill, which I still have, qualifies that the previous chief statistician, Mr. Wayne Smith, has independence. That, at the end of day, is what made him decide to walk away from his position: his independence was not provided and was undermined by the structure of the legislation.

Not only did we not fix anything, we enshrined this, not only with government but also with other government bureaucrats, as indicated through commentary in the media. The independence was undermined by data gathering that is supposed to be raw and crunched in a way such that it's used and applied for all sciences and also for other types of research. Also, which is really, really important, it's how funding is allocated by the federal government in terms of a variety of reasons.

For those reasons alone—I know there are many others, but I will do my colleagues a favour by not bringing up the others—I think there is a role for us to actually look at this. It's more appropriate, because we deal with a lot of grants, government programs, and services that use Stats Canada and the industry department as well for their research and development in projecting investment on a regular basis. How we got to our current situation and where we go in the future needs to be looked at with this committee being involved, because this committee, at the end of the day, is responsible.

I don't like somebody coming over—another committee—without us having some type of a connection.... I think it can be helpful, and in fact I've often felt that a number of committees can co-work. It has been done in the past. But in this case, we can't stand down just because somebody else is doing some work. We need to enhance that work and play our role. We should not stand down for somebody else who is using our file or doing work on our file. We're thankful for it because, for this serious problem, the more light shed, the better, but we do not want to abdicate our responsibility, which I think we do by not dealing with the matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

I feel the need to point out that the actual motion called for us to suspend the manufacturing. We're not standing down. The motion calls for us to suspend the manufacturing motion. I need to point that out.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, and for a couple of reasons, I understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

It's your turn, Mr. Nuttall.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

I don't need to go over what was just said. Look, at the end of the day, we're the ones who, when we've been appointed to this committee, I believe are accountable to the public for ensuring that the institutions that fall under Industry Canada are also accountable to those same people that we are. That means, therefore, that it's our responsibility to find out if there are issues. We may have a meeting and decide that there are no issues. I doubt that, but that is a potential result.

We may find the issues were pre-existing from last November or exist since last November. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. What does matter is good governance and the independence of those employees whose information is relied on to make good decisions. There's a very simple and very easy task here, which is to have the individual in, conduct a study, and make a recommendation. Last time I checked, that's why we're here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Again, had your motion been stated differently.... But your motion is calling for this committee to suspend the manufacturing study.