Industry Committee on April 30th, 2020

[Simon Kennedy, Deputy Minister, Department of Industry]

Obviously, as the minister said, we're looking at a variety of different companies and organizations that have come to us on this issue. Absolutely any of the discussions we're having would involve the Department of Justice and would involve a privacy impact assessment, so that will be part of the consideration.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Have any of those activities begun yet?

[Simon Kennedy]

We've begun to look at some of the privacy implications of some of the possible alternatives that are out there, but as the minister said, the government has not made any decisions to proceed on any specific proposal, so we're not really at this space of having a formal decision to proceed. However, as part as our regular support to the government, we're certainly discussing those kinds of issues with Justice and also with the Privacy Commissioner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Have the Department of Justice, the Privacy Commissioner or you provided any advice to the minister regarding any potential gap in PIPEDA regarding whether it would apply to an application that would fall under the non-commercial activity exemption?

[Simon Kennedy]

It's important to just point out that the government has been very clear with us about the primordial importance of privacy in any of the work we're doing. What I would say is that not withstanding whether—and I'm speaking here hypothetically—information were to be collected for public purposes or by a non-profit, some of the things the hon. member was sort of conjecturing about—for example, whether there's any onward use of that information later, say, for commercial purposes—are all subject to PIPEDA and are also subject to provincial privacy legislation.

I can say pretty categorically at this point, when we look at the various proposals that have been brought forward, we would not be entertaining anything that would create privacy risks, and we would have significant frameworks and rules that would apply in the event there was concern about onward use of data. As well, anything that we did would certainly be with full transparency of the Privacy Commissioner and also in consultation with the Justice Department, so just to assure committee members, there's—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Sure, but can you point to any jurisprudence from a similar situation in which the government has...? Again, in the media, most of the conjecture is that these apps would be provided “pro bono”. Do you have any jurisprudence you can point to regarding a similar situation that has come into place, there's been a free app and companies have then had onward use of data, following which there has been a successful conviction or a fine on behalf of the government?

[Simon Kennedy]

At this point I can only rearticulate the principles and explanation I've just given. If at some point the government indicates it's supporting one approach or another, I'd be more than happy to come back and go into chapter and verse on why that option met the kind of principles I just enunciated.

It's a little hard to talk in theoretical terms. There is no proposal that the government is currently backing. As we're looking at the various players that are coming in and as we're looking at various options, all the considerations and numbers are noted, and we are certainly taking those into account. We would not allow a situation in which—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll send it over to Ms. Gray because I'm over my time. Thank you.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Great. My questioning is also for Mr. Kennedy.

When we're looking at opportunities for industries as we move to reopen our economy, under the regulatory reconciliation and co-operation table work plan set out by the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, federal-provincial standardization for corporate registration was due at the end of 2019 to reduce regulatory burdens. The table itself says that businesses face substantial amounts of red tape when registering their companies as they seek to expand operations in other provinces. Can you confirm whether this specific issue has been resolved?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Be very quick, deputy minister.

[Simon Kennedy]

I can come back to it, but there's been a lot of work to advance that file.

I'd be happy to give details later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Longfield.

You have five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'd like to start off with the coordination we have with the provinces on opening plants. Toyota in Cambridge has announced an opening, and the provincial ministry of labour has gone through the plant to look at the isolation measures being planned. It is delaying some parts of the operation opening until some provincial standards are met, and we're working through Health Canada also in terms of testing and PPE.

We as MPs have been pressed to give some timelines on when plants will be opening. Could one of the representatives from the department talk about the coordination efforts we have with provincial jurisdictions in order to achieve the safe opening of our plants?

[Simon Kennedy]

Certainly we work and the minister works very closely with the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council, which, as the member will know, brings together the major assemblers, the parts companies, the labour unions and so on. We are certainly talking to the council about these issues regularly.

Federally, we're also working very closely with our colleagues in the health ministry, the public safety ministry and the labour ministry, all the ministries you might expect to be involved in determining who the essential workers are and in the production of personal protective equipment.

On the specific issues of when plants would reopen and what some of the safety issues are, mostly it's about jurisdiction. I would have to defer to my colleagues in the health ministry and the Public Health Agency because those are really health-related decisions. Just to assure the member, there's a lot of close work with them, and we bring that industry knowledge to the table when they make those decisions.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

As we go through this crisis, we see the importance of cross-jurisdictional co-operation not only from the political side but also from the departmental side, and it's a glimpse that most Canadians don't see on a day-to-day basis or appreciate.

[Simon Kennedy]

You mentioned the automotive sector in particular. Just to assure the members of the committee, we work very closely with our colleagues at the provincial level and very closely with our colleagues at the federal level, so we have good conversations with the Ontario officials who work with you.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Cargill, another large manufacturing plant, if you want to call it that, is also a food-processing plant. It has a plant in Guelph and is facing a lot of the same issues. Since February, Cargill has been doing all temperature testing at the gate as people come into its plants. Then the company does rotational testing through the day, random testing, so that by the end of the day 90% of the people in the plant are tested for temperature. We know that people can be asymptomatic, so further testing needs to be looked at.

I mentioned Precision Biosystems. It's one of the companies providing opportunity for additional testing. How are we coordinating these new technologies and the additional testing to further improve the health and safety of the workers who may have to go into a back-to-work situation?

[Simon Kennedy]

I could talk briefly about the work we're doing on testing specifically.

ISED's primary role is to work to try to build the Canadian industrial capacity for personal protective equipment and testing. Members will have seen that global supply chains have proven themselves to be very challenging in this environment.

With regard to testing in particular, in our main role we work with the Public Health Agency, the health ministry, the procurement ministry and some of the sectoral ministries to identify all of the components needed to do the testing at volume. That's with regard to both the lab-based test and the point-of-care test.

For example, as the minister mentioned, we ran a competitive process to identify Canadian companies that could make point-of-care tests, and we had a jury that looked at whether a company was able to scale up quickly, whether the technology would be approved by Health Canada and whether it had good tech that would deliver a good test result. We're going to be moving forward shortly to try to scale up some of those firms. That's just one example.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm thinking ahead that we will have some technology to then export to other countries that are also facing start-up issues.

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes, that's certainly our hope. That's part of the mandate. Obviously we want the health response to be first, but if there are real opportunities for export and IP and those sorts of things, that's certainly a consideration.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Our next set of questions goes to MP Patzer.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kennedy, I want to confirm something with you. At our last meeting, I asked for a report on your department's engagement with Canadian industry with regard to procurement. Today, Minister Bains said he would get me a report on the list of businesses that have been engaged throughout the process. Will I be getting two separate reports, or will this all come in one report?

[Simon Kennedy]

I'll be happy to pull that together on behalf of the department. Obviously we work closely with the minister's office on that, so we can send one report.

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

Thank you very much. Hopefully we can get that as quickly as possible.

The next thing I want to run by you goes back to the rural broadband issue.

The CRTC has created its broadband fund to bridge the digital divide in Canada. The program was rolled out in 2016, and I've talked to people involved in telecoms, like VPs and CEOs. They're saying that it's not going to be until the end of this year that the first dollars from that program will be rolled out.

If it takes four years to get money out, how are we going to resolve the issues that these programs and companies have?