Evidence of meeting #67 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 universities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Technology Lead, EION Inc.
That should at least be opened up. I completely agree with you that it should be opened up.
Liberal
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses today. It's been very good. A lot of thought has gone into what we have, and I would add that, if you have further evidence, the committee will still be accepting it over the summer.
I would be so bold as to say that, if you have students who have seen some of this testimony through the academic institutions, it would be interesting to see their perspective in terms of going through the classrooms.
Mr. Anand, I'm going to finish with what you mentioned with regard to other countries and us, where we are at the end of the day. I think everybody here wants the results to be tangible for us as Canadians. Where do you see our country? I'm worried that we seem to be adrift on this.
The evidence seems to be more and more that a lot of countries—we've been in the United States, and I've been researching other countries.... It kind of seemed as if the argument of the old days as we went through it in Windsor was innovation and high tech. We had to get out of the nuts and bolts of the auto industry, and everybody had to go to high tech, but it turned out everybody was doing that without a plan.
What do you think Canada can do differently from other countries that could actually lead to a very successful model of turning innovation into a job manufacturing strategy and an export strategy versus the opposite, where it seems we export the ideas and we import the products?
Technology Lead, EION Inc.
We are progressing but other people are doing it much faster than us. It's not because we are going in reverse gear; we are also going forward.
The thing we could do better is to not hold the intellectual property and ideas too close to our chest for a long period of time. In the 1920s it worked because it took other people a long time to understand ideas but nowadays it's instantaneous. What needs to be done is like what happened in Android and with the Internet; you open it to Canadian citizens. Anybody who takes it up uses intellectual property that came from a Canadian institution and creates jobs; they should be given incentives. There has to be a centre of excellence created for various silos. For example, smart cars are a clear centre of excellence. They should hold portfolio patents from all institutions, and they should be opening it up to a select group of people to go forward and build companies.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Very quickly, would it be more dangerous for us to not share versus share with regard to innovation?
Technology Lead, EION Inc.
There is nothing that other people cannot create. It is just that we did it first. If we wait then we lose, and if we don't wait we still lose if we hold it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
On that note, I want to thank all our witnesses for taking the time and sharing their knowledge and their information with us, our own kind of knowledge transfer, if you will.
We're going to suspend for two or three minutes, and then we'll come back in camera to discuss committee business.
Thank you.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
