Industry Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Simon Kennedy]

Well, obviously, I think we want to move as quickly as we can. There is a substantial amount of money that has been devoted to broadband, and the onus is on us to try to move as quickly as possible.

I will say that in some cases these are what amount to large capital investment projects, so there is a bit of due diligence in having an application period and then adjudicating to make sure that the best projects are selected first, the ones that yield the biggest bang for the buck in reaching citizens in rural areas. Then, sometimes, you have to work with the telco and the communities to move the equipment and actually build out the projects.

Sometimes these can take a fair chunk of time. It's kind of the nature of the project, but I would agree completely with the member's view that we have to do this as quickly as we can, and as the minister said, this crisis is just underlining some of the challenges around lack of connectivity, so I think the ministry would completely agree with the need to try to execute as fast as possible.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes, for sure. I think that for some people it has been frustrating that it's taken four years to go through that process.

The government's goal is to connect all Canadians by 2030, but I believe the CRTC mandate is that, since the funds will start rolling out at the end of 2020, by 2025 all Canadians should have access to 50 Mbps download speed and 10 Mbps upload speed. So if your government's goal is 2030 and the CRTC's is 2025, what can we expect realistically?

[Simon Kennedy]

Madam Chair, I think that's probably more of a political question in terms of the goals the government sets. It's the civil service that obviously tries to execute against those goals. The minister indicated that it's likely that some of this will be revisited and perhaps accelerated, and I'd be happy to speak to that once the government decides, but we certainly want to roll out the existing programming as quickly as we can.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

For sure. Will you prioritize Internet connectivity and cell coverage for rural and remote communities and businesses as a roll-out, and particularly as a way to kick-start the economy coming out of COVID-19?

[Simon Kennedy]

Madam Chair, with the money that we've set aside—it's a billion dollars at the moment that my ministry is responsible for delivering, and that would be under the authority of Minister Monsef—there was a consultation that took place. I believe it was late last year, but we sort of just came off a consultation, and the plan in the next short while will be to go forward with the launch so that we can start taking applications and making those decisions.

The consultations afforded an opportunity to talk to rural communities and others, indigenous groups and so on, to get a sense of their priorities, and the design will try to respond to the kinds of concerns that we've heard. Certainly, the issue of rural connectivity is a key one. I can't get into the details. Obviously we'll have to put the program up on the website and start taking applications, but we want to make sure it closely adheres to the kinds of challenges that people told us about when we did the consultations.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

For sure.

Yesterday, we heard from Minister Joly about these regional relief funds that will go through the regional economic development groups. I think the number was $287 million for regional development funds; but proportionally, it's a much smaller amount for rural areas compared with urban areas.

Will your department commit to ensuring that rural areas are prioritized? That's where the greatest divide is.

[Simon Kennedy]

There are actually two distinct elements to the funds that were announced that the honourable member is talking about. One was for community future development corporations, and the other was for regional development agencies. I don't think a priori there's any sense that one is for bigger communities and one is for smaller communities.

My colleague Paul Thompson, whom I work closely with, has been stickhandling this at the bureaucratic level. He could provide more details if the committee is interested.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for that round.

Our next round of questions starts with MP Erskine-Smith.

You have five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much. I want to start by asking about the DP-3T standard.

Mr. Kennedy, are you familiar with the standard?

[Simon Kennedy]

I have a feeling that you're going to tell me I should be, but at the moment my powers of recall are limited.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's okay. If you're not familiar with it, I have no issue with that, but I would like you to become familiar with it. We saw this conversation go on in the EU about what the standard ought to be for digital proximity tracing, and this is the standard that they are landing on. I would encourage you to direct your staff to give you a briefing on that standard.

To the extent that the work is under way to develop a digital proximity application, are you looking to rely upon the Apple—Google framework? Are you in touch with Apple and Google on this front?

[Simon Kennedy]

Certainly in the course of our work, as you might appreciate, we are well aware of what they've done. They've certainly reached out to us and there have been conversations. I'm certainly not looking for any sympathy, but I want to underline that we've had many firms reach out to us offering solutions. We say that we've had conversations. I want to indicate that it's not as if there's one thing that we've looked at. We've actually had a lot of different organizations approach us with possible options. We wanted to look at those and try to make sense of which ones might be the most promising and which might be more problematic.

Apple and Google are certainly some of the firms we've spoken to.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

It makes sense to me that you're going to look at the applications that companies submit. When you are looking at them, I would just say that the real role of an application, in my view, would be that it's got to operate on the front end with the API firms, Apple and Google, which are going to be on the operating systems. That's going to, I think, be the best way of triggering adoption rates, and the application will then have to speak to provincial databases on the back end. I think we ought to be working with Apple and Google. As long as we're looking at the DP-3T standard, and certainly that work can feed into it, I think it's a good idea. I would encourage you to pursue that.

By the way, on the privacy side, these companies may well be agents pursuant to PIPEDA, at least in Ontario, and so they would be captured by our privacy regime as it relates to health information.

My only other question on digital contact tracing is with respect to adoption rates. We see that Singapore has an adoption rate of under 20%. That's not going to be a really important contribution, I would say, in some ways to contact tracing.

Can you speak to some of the limitations of digital contact tracing?

[Simon Kennedy]

I think the honourable member has hinted at some of the concerns that are out there. For anything to work, there has to be a certain critical mass of users. I'm not personally an expert in these matters. Obviously, if something is not adopted, then it has less utility. So it's not just a matter of the technical functionality of the solution; it's a matter of whether citizens trust it and feel they can use it. Then it has to be respectful of their privacy and needs.

Because I know that this type of issue tends to get media coverage and so on, I want to re-emphasize what the minister said, that foremost for the government—and the Prime Minister has talked about this—is the knowledge that Canadians want their privacy to be protected. We want to be looking at these kinds of possible solutions because they could be really useful in the fight against COVID-19, but not at the expense of some of these fundamental rights.

I would also note that, as all members know, we live in a federation. Health data is provincial, so obviously we've been talking with our partners at the provincial and territorial levels too. It's not necessarily simply a case of the deputy minister dreaming something up and then we roll it out. We live in a big country and we want to make sure that these kinds of considerations are factored into the discussion.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's completely appreciated and I think you're right to highlight the importance of privacy. Also, as someone who was very vocal on privacy issues in the last Parliament, and continues to be, I think the DP-3T standard is a privacy gold standard.

At the same time I think it is fair to have a credible conversation before we commit to anything. If an opt-in system is going to have very low adoption rates and we already have serious civil liberty concerns.... We have a lockdown here in Ontario. If it meant getting out of a lockdown a month early because I have an app on my phone, and it's done in opt-out system, I think it's a conversation we should have, and it shouldn't be precluded right from the get-go because of privacy concerns.

Thanks so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

We'll continue with Mr. Simard.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Kennedy, I don't know whether you're aware that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has stopped reviewing calls for proposals from researchers. This situation is crippling all health care research laboratories. It's creating insecurity for researchers. If one sector requires support in a pandemic, it's the research sector. My question is twofold.

First, do you know when the review of calls for proposals will begin again?

Second, has an infectious diseases working group been established at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to recommend research priorities and, above all, potential funding methods?

[Simon Kennedy]

Thank you for your question.

First, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research doesn't fall under the Minister of Industry's jurisdiction, but under the Minister of Health's jurisdiction. Any specific questions regarding the Institutes of Health Research should be referred to my colleague, the deputy minister of health, or to the minister.

I apologize for not having an answer. However, regarding the impact of COVID-19 on researchers, universities and research centres in general, we're well aware that the impact is serious. We're discussing this issue with the Department of Finance and the other central agencies.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Okay.

I want to address the research issue from a perspective that concerns you. We know that many research laboratories, and not only the laboratories associated with the Institutes of Health Research, are facing a decrease in funding as a result of the current crisis. Unfortunately, these research laboratories don't have access to the wage subsidy.

Have there been any discussions about maintaining expertise in the laboratories by giving them access to the wage subsidy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

We are actually at one o'clock, but I would like to give MP Masse the last two and a half minutes if he'd like to go ahead.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have one quick question for the deputy minister. Could he distinguish the exact difference, that change, in the Investment Canada Act policy that was recently announced? Can he give a quick synopsis of that?

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes, Madam Chair, I'd be happy to do that.

This was just additional guidance. It's not actually changes to the legislation, but guidance on how we will apply the legislation. That came out a number of weeks ago.

The specific concern is just to make sure that market participants, the investment bar, the people who advise firms, are put on notice that we'll be watching for concerns about what I would maybe call “predatory behaviour”. We're aware, for example, that there are firms that have depressed valuations because of the crisis and we wouldn't want to have very important Canadian companies necessarily be taken out because they happen to be in a weak position or there happens to be a vulnerability related to the crisis.

Just to note, we also have particular concerns on all of the issues around the supply chain for medical goods, services and products. We have particularly pointed concerns with regard to certain strategic assets, if you like, in the health sector. We want to make sure there as well that the market takes note that it's an area we'll be looking at a little more closely. I would say there's a particular focus on state enterprises and non-commercial actors who might be engaged in those kinds of purchases. If it's a private transaction and it's driven by the market and it's the sort of thing we would have seen before the crisis, we may be less concerned, but if it's a strategic acquisition perhaps for non-economic reasons, that's something that would be more worrying.

I would simply note that other jurisdictions have done something similar. The honourable member may be aware that Australia put out guidance that is very similar to what we have done. So a number of our peer countries have taken similar steps.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

That's all. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

With that, we will end our time today. Just a reminder that our next meeting is on Monday, May 4 from six to eight p.m.

I want to thank everyone again. Today we were able to get in four great rounds, so thank you so much for your collaboration. With that, I wish you a great afternoon and I will see you all on Monday.

This meeting is adjourned.