Industry Committee on April 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, March 1, 2022, the committee is meeting on quantum computing.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. As a reminder, all those attending the meeting in person must follow the public health rules in place, which everyone should be familiar with.

I would like to welcome the witnesses and thank them for being with us today. My apologies for the delay. Before we get started, I would ask the witnesses to make sure that their microphones are properly positioned.

Joining us are Anne Broadbent, professor and holder of the university research chair in quantum information and cryptography, department of mathematics and statistics, University of Ottawa, as an individual; Dr. Edward McCauley, president and vice-chancellor, University of Calgary; Andrew Fursman, co‑founder and chief executive officer of 1QB Information Technologies Inc.; and Dr. Stephanie Simmons, founder and chief quantum officer of Photonic.

Luc Sirois of the Conseil de l'innovation du Québec will probably be joining us.

Also, Allison Schwartz, vice-president of global government relations and public affairs at D‑Wave Systems, will join us later if she's able to connect to the meeting.

Ms. Broadbent will start us off. Go ahead, Ms. Broadbent. You have about six minutes.

[Dr. Anne Broadbent, Professor and Holder of the University Research Chair in Quantum Information and Cryptography, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to take part in today's meeting.

I am very glad to contribute to this important study on the domestic quantum computing industry, as well as Canada's talent retention and competitive advantages.

My name is Anne Broadbent, and I am the university research chair in quantum information and cryptography in the University of Ottawa's department of mathematics and statistics. I am proud to say that my academic career has been 100% Canadian.

The focus of my research is the design of new security protocols that use quantum computing for new functionalities. I am recognized internationally for my role in inventing blind quantum computing, a secure method to perform online quantum calculations.

When I started grad school 20 years ago, Canada was the place to be for all things quantum. We're still leading the world, but many countries are hot on our heels.

Gilles Brassard at the Université de Montréal is the most prominent Canadian pioneer in quantum information science, and I am fortunate to be one of his former Ph.D. students. His research in quantum cryptography and teleportation back in the eighties is the foundation of virtually all breakthroughs in the current evolution of quantum. He was recently awarded the Wolf Prize, which is generally a precursor to a Nobel prize.

In the past 10 years, the quantum landscape has drastically accelerated. This is a huge opportunity for Canada. With the advent of big data, the Internet of things, 5G, machine learning and e-commerce, digital transformation is affecting just about every sector, and quantum presents several global socio-economic challenges.

The research firm Gartner projects that by 2023, 20% of organizations will have earmarked quantum computing in their budgets, compared with less than 1% in 2018. In 2045, quantum is expected to be a $140-billion dollar industry, with almost 210,000 jobs and $42.3 billion in returns.

Canada is already contributing to this growth. Our nation has a dynamic quantum ecosystem featuring fast-growing quantum companies, and universities and research institutes dedicated to pushing the boundaries of quantum research. With over 50 professors working in the area, the University of Ottawa is internationally renowned for its research on quantum communications, sensing and cryptography.

At the uOttawa cybersecurity hub, we are facilitating a transition to e-commerce that is designed to be safe in the era of quantum computers. In my view, this is where the breadth of the impact of quantum is possibly the largest. It affects every Canadian industry with a cyber presence. uOttawa is also partnering with several very exciting quantum companies like Xanadu, headquartered in Toronto, which was previously mentioned in this committee.

However, as with other technology industries in Canada, companies and talent in quantum are facing difficult choices about staying in Canada or leaving for competing jurisdictions. The U.S., U.K., EU and Netherlands, as well as France, Germany and China all have aggressive quantum strategies. The Netherlands, for example, has established a national organization, which is a connection point for all things quantum. It even includes a quantum child care pilot program.

There is a global competition worldwide, and we are losing talent to foreign, high-paying companies. We are losing highly skilled talent in universities to more attractive opportunities outside of Canada.

What does that mean for a faculty member like me and the broader academic community?

My job, as a professor in the department of mathematics and statistics, is to teach science and engineering students in all years the art of logical thinking, problem solving and science communication—the building blocks of their disciplines and careers.

Today’s science discovery is tomorrow’s innovation advantage.

Academia has a responsibility as one of the fundamental pieces of the ecosystem, and there is an urgent need for skills and development. There is a need for more professors who foster environments for cutting-edge research, and a need across many disciplines, like computer science, math, engineering and physics, but also social sciences and law.

Post-secondary institutions are spearheading research and innovation initiatives that align with industry-relevant research and the translation of research-derived innovations to products and start-ups. Entrepreneurs are shaped in our institutions and, as my experience confirms, quantum companies of all shapes and sizes rely on the university’s knowledge base and talent.

There was an interesting discussion at the last meeting about the need to attract, retain and train talent. I would like to contribute a diversity lens to this topic. For me, it's a privilege to be a woman in quantum in Canada. I say this, because it gives me an almost instant camaraderie with a small group of amazing, distinguished women working in this area. Equity, diversity and inclusion are recognized as catalysts to innovation, and there is a potential for Canada to benefit from further efforts in this area.

In conclusion, I feel strongly that the Government of Canada needs to continue to fund inclusive quantum research and its talent pipeline, with the goal of strengthening Canada’s position at the global scale.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. In closing, I would like to extend a warm invitation to the members of the committee to visit the University of Ottawa and see first-hand some of the next generation of talent and our research at work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Madam Broadbent.

I will now turn to Mr. McCauley for six minutes.

[Dr. Edward McCauley, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before the parliamentary committee today.

Quantum computing and, more generally, the applications of quantum science are extremely important for Canada’s economic prosperity into the near and far future. We have a strong position globally in these areas, but countries around the world are investing significantly in quantum research. This should be a strong signal for the Government of Canada about the potential impact on both our immediate and future economic growth and prosperity.

I have three requests for the committee to consider. First, continue to invest in the quantum Canada strategy currently being implemented by ISED. We need to support talent development, particularly at the graduate student level, and talent attraction. Otherwise, we will weaken our competitive position. Countries around the world are investing billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars, in quantum science and initiatives. Historically, Canada has invested, but these investments have been piecemeal and somewhat ad hoc. The quantum Canada strategy is a vehicle to support a national investment in a more coordinated fashion.

My second request is to support initiatives across the country rather than simply all in a particular geographical region. The reasons are simple. For Canada’s diverse regions to benefit, industrial sectors need applications. These are often best developed through industry-university collaborations that are often local in character, reflecting the needs of industry. We need to think about how regions can contribute quantum applications for various industrial sectors, such as energy, agriculture, transportation and logistics. As a country where 70% of business is small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, local collaborations matter. Universities serve as hubs to build industries in quantum science, providing access to machines and talent, and then universities collaborate with each other across the country to create an ecosystem.

My third request is don’t boil the ocean. Competition is international. Identify those areas where we have a competitive advantage and build on those—areas such as quantum information storage, quantum security and information transfer, and of course quantum computing.

The University of Calgary is proud to be a major contributor to the quantum ecosystem. We have tremendous expertise in the area of quantum cybersecurity, building the next generation of the quantum Internet using secure information transfer. We have expertise in quantum information storage, and are building a major industry-facing laboratory for prototyping and manufacturing. Finally, we have expertise in quantum computing algorithms and applications.

The University of Calgary is creating a major vision for activating Calgary as a quantum city. We have attracted Mphasis, one of the world’s largest computer supply companies, to establish their national headquarters here in Calgary, bringing 1,000 employees and partnering with the University of Calgary on developing quantum applications in a variety of areas, including health, finance and commerce, energy, agriculture, and transportation and logistics.

The University of Calgary is also a major collaborator with other regions where critical masses of researchers exist. Please exclude the pun, but our scholars in quantum research are entangled across the country. The University of Calgary has major collaborations with the Université de Sherbrooke and the University of Waterloo, among many.

Finally, I must point out a source of pride for our university. This year the University of Calgary has been recognized as being in the top five for research universities across the country. We have joined the ranks of the University of Toronto, McGill, UBC and Université de Montréal, based on our external research revenue of $504 million. We are the youngest university to achieve this recognition as part of the U15. We were also named as number one in the country in terms of new start-up company creation, surpassing the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. These are all audited quantitative results that are based on data, not subjective interpretation.

Thank you for your attention.

Please feel free to ask any questions you have in French. I would be happy to answer them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We will now hear from Mr. Fursman, of 1QB Information Technologies.

Go ahead, Mr. Fursman.

[Andrew Fursman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, 1QB Information Technologies Inc.]

Thanks for inviting me to share my experience with you today.

My name's Andrew Fursman and I'm the CEO of 1QBit. We're a Canadian company focused on a software-first approach to quantum computing. While many companies take a qubit-first approach—where they select photonics, ion traps or superconducting technologies, usually matching their founder's expertise and then building the best possible devices, hoping to win the hardware race—1QBit starts with an industrial need. We conceive of new algorithms useful to solving specific industrial problems, and then we select the computing technology that's best suited to compute the answer to those problems, usually based on evidence.

We recognize that a computer is only as valuable as the problems it solves, so we partner with hardware companies to ensure that their devices are designed and optimized to solve specific, important problems.

By way of background, I've studied economics at the University of Waterloo, political science and philosophy of science at UBC, financial engineering at Stanford and Hong Kong, and I'm now on the Singularity University faculty in Silicon Valley, where I'm focused on advanced computing.

I was previously co-founder of the Nasdaq-traded company Satellogic, where we put a large number of small satellites in low-earth orbit for Earth observation. I'm a founder of Minor Capital, where we invested in B.C. deep-tech companies, including General Fusion, D-Wave and Kindred. I'm also an adviser in Cambium Capital, focused on advanced computing and investing in companies like IonQ and Seeqc in the quantum world, and Groq in the AI space. I'm an adviser to NATO's one-billion euro deep-tech investment fund. I'm also the industry board chair of Mitacs, as well as a member of the World Economic Forum's council on the future of computing.

I've studied and invested in many deep technologies. I've learned a lot, enjoyed some substantial returns and I'm delighted to share a few ideas with you today.

I wanted to start by making two statements. One, quantum computing is an important industry for Canada's future. Two, quantum computing is not yet industrially useful. These aren't incompatible ideas. There's a lot of hype around quantum technologies and computing right now, because of the transformative potential for a new form of information processing.

Quantum computing is the first revolution in computing, and its development is happening right now. However, because quantum computing is not yet competitive against traditional computers, it's hard to summon the political will to pragmatically support this infant industry, despite the fact that the infant industry argument is one of the most solid economic cases for government investment.

It's important to recognize that promoting the procurement of current quantum computers is not a very helpful way to grow domestic quantum capabilities. I'd like to share why, to help frame how the government can be more helpful.

At Satellogic, we originally envisioned a constellation of hundreds of satellites working together, but at first, we were only able to launch a small number of individual satellites. Individual satellites are less useful than an entire constellation, but they're still able to provide value individually, observing Earth, but revisiting every place on Earth less frequently than a full constellation.

Quantum computing's a little different. It's at a bit of an earlier state. We're not building small, useful quantum computers that will one day become large quantum computers. We're still building the theory and components that will one day become the smallest useful quantum computers. Half of a quantum computer is basically a pile of qubits. It's like a fence that goes halfway around your farm. Half of the satellite constellation is roughly half as useful as the full constellation, but half of a fence is about as useful as no fence at all. While every fence is at some point half of a fence, it doesn't have real value until it's complete.

The current misconceptions around the state of quantum computing mean that as governments look to support the infant quantum computing industry, they are frequently trying to incentivize domestic consumption of current quantum computers. This is kind of like asking farmers to install new half-fences around their fields.

Quantum computers are not yet industrially useful, and they aren't expected to be for a few years. To recognize the current realities and truly help incubate infant industries, governments shouldn't encourage the adoption of half-fence solutions today, but should instead focus on incentivizing the long-term development of full quantum systems in Canada, including talent development, software design, architectures, control and manufacturing methods.

Pushing quantum computers on industrial users today is like pushing half-fences on farmers.

If governments really want to support the infant quantum computing industry, governments should know that the current goal within our industry is to make quantum computers better than classical computers at any industrially usable task.

Until then, consistent and reliable direct investment in technology development is needed, similar to the great work happening in Quebec—building a formal quantum innovation zone around Sherbrooke—and in many other regions around the world. It's direct investment like this that will help Canadian technology companies weather the hype cycles and business cycles over the next decade, and focus on building real technology over the long term instead of generating absurd short-term marketing hype, and help Canada incubate this infant quantum industry until quantum computers begin to compete against traditional classical computers by delivering real industrial value.

To echo Ray Laflamme from earlier this week, quantum computing is happening now, but it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I hope Canada's national quantum strategy can be focused around winning the game, not the match.

I really appreciate your time today and I look forward to our discussion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fursman.

We'll now move to Allison Schwartz.

[Allison Schwartz, Vice-President, Global Government Relations and Public Affairs, D-Wave Systems Inc.]

On behalf of D-Wave Systems Inc., thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee, and I ask that my full written statement be included into the record.

As background, D-Wave is the leader in development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software and services and is the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers. With our headquarters and our quantum engineering centre of excellence based near Vancouver, D-Wave is passionate about preserving Canada’s global leadership.

The quantum computing industry is an important one. We appreciate the attention from the government and look forward to supporting the work of this committee.

D-Wave is a full-stack provider, which means our technology, products and services include hardware, software, cloud platform, professional services, developer tools and more. D-Wave is the only company building both annealing quantum computers and gate-model quantum computers, so our platform-agnostic approach can provide broad industry perspective.

Quantum computing is inherently interwoven across a variety of academic disciplines and touches upon a variety of different technologies. This guides our recommendation of inclusivity of academic disciplines and access, as well as integration with different technologies.

We recommend that engagement on quantum be multidisciplinary. The quantum ecosystem requires a workforce with skills encompassing everything from engineering, cryogenics and software to IP and business strategy. What is often forgotten is that to be successful, users must bring existing skills from a variety of sciences, theoretical and applied, to ensure that the business value of quantum computing is unlocked.

Cloud access to quantum computing technology is another key tool to promote inclusive and diverse use of the technology.

A federal quantum user access program via the cloud should be created. The United States is working on a similar user access idea called QUEST, aimed at expanding access to quantum hardware and enhancing research through a government-funded program.

A similar program should be considered in Canada, but we recommend going one step further and including a national quantum training program. This could serve as a beacon for workforce development by engaging Canadian companies like D-Wave and others to provide skills training on their individual technologies. This program could be open to academia, government, as well as industry to accelerate quantum fluency. It could easily be stood up as a pilot in 2022 through existing organizations, such as the Digital Technology Supercluster, the Quantum Algorithms Institute and the Creative Destruction Lab, all of whom have existing relationships with industry, government, end-users and academia.

As highlighted in the recent consultation report released by ISED, quantum hybrid technology should be supported. This sentiment is also echoed in the United Kingdom.

There will likely always be a need for classical computation as part of the solution for many problems, but the most complex part of those problems are often best suited for quantum computers. For example, the quantum hybrid solvers in D-Wave’s Leap quantum cloud service combine the best of both classical and quantum computing technologies.

Government should think of quantum computing in a holistic manner and note that quantum computing technology will likely be integrated with and work alongside a variety of other technologies. One project to consider is building a domestic high-performance computing data centre that is integrated with quantum.

Lastly, there's a real need to showcase the technology's capabilities for today. D-Wave delivers customer value and practical applications for problems as diverse as logistics, AI, drug discovery and financial modelling for organizations like Volkswagen, Lockheed Martin and even Save-On-Foods for grocery optimization.

In September 2020, we released our Advantage quantum systems that includes more than 5,000 qubits and an expanded hybrid solver service capable of running problems with up to one million variables. This combination gives businesses and governments the ability to run in-production applications today. Yet, with all of this, the first question we hear most often is “What can you do with the technology today?”

Different systems have different capabilities. Our annealing quantum computers are best suited for tackling optimization problems, while gate-model systems are expected to be able to solve problems in quantum chemistry and materials design. We are but one voice trying to showcase the art of the possible.

A dedicated government program, such as a quantum sandbox that supports rapid near-term application development, will accelerate innovation, adoption and commercialization.

Other governments are already focusing on application development. A presidential advisory committee in the United States recommended a quantum sandbox for communications resiliency. The Australian Army is looking at quantum applications for optimizing autonomous vehicle resupply. The Australian government is looking at quantum to optimize their transportation system. In Japan, an application has been piloted that optimizes waste collection while also reducing CO2 emissions by nearly 60%.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's report highlighted near-term quantum applications and showcased global use cases across a variety of industries.

As heard during the ISED round tables, there is a need to nurture a quantum ecosystem and scale commercial activities. The quantum sandbox would directly address that recommendation.

In conclusion, there is a need to act swiftly and in a multipronged fashion. Federal efforts should be inclusive of all technologies, incorporate many academic disciplines, support cloud-based access to the system and online training, and create a quantum sandbox to expedite commercialization. All of these efforts should be in addition to the continued promotion of longer-term quantum computing R and D advancements.

I appreciate your time today, and I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Madam Schwartz.

We'll now move to Madam Simmons, for six minutes.

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons, Founder and Chief Quantum Officer, Photonic Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning. Thank you for inviting Photonic Inc. to contribute.

I am Stephanie Simmons, the founder and chief quantum officer at Photonic. I've been part of computer science and mathematics departments at IQC at Waterloo, material sciences at Oxford, and the School of Electrical Engineering at UNSW. I am here as an associate professor of physics at Simon Fraser University. I am also a CIFAR fellow, a Canada research chair and an hounouree of Canada's Top 40 Under 40.

To my knowledge, I am the only Canadian to have won Physics World's “top 10 breakthroughs of the year” twice, in 2013 and 2015, both of them for my quantum computing breakthroughs, which were covered by The New York Times, Wired, the BBC, the CBC and others.

Photonic Inc. is a majority-owned Canadian company, founded in 2016 for IP, and has been in operation since 2021. We have attracted significant world-class talent and now have over 60 full-time employees based here in Metro Vancouver, in four provinces nationally and in multiple countries.

We are in stealth mode. We are not disclosing our funding, our road map or our pace of progress, but what we can say is that our core technology is on the spin-photon interfaces that enable true modularity of quantum processors and quantum networks, as well as silicon-grade scaling.

The previous quantum sessions at this committee have been fascinating. I agree with much of what has been said, but I hold alternative opinions on many key issues.

I agree with the previous panels of experts that predicting the scope of impact for quantum technologies today is very much like predicting the scope of the two previous times that we commercialized a branch of physics, one with the semiconductor transistor in 1945, and the other with nuclear fission in 1939.

Although the specifics are difficult to predict, I would say that transformative technologies follow quite regular patterns in their adoption. After incubation within academia for decades, there is a shift, a mass proliferation of entrepreneurial activity around many distinct approaches, and then finally, a dominant design emerges. This is a key moment, after which there is a substantial talent shortage and a mass consolidation into a handful of winners. We believe that the quantum dominant design is not yet here, but it will become apparent in the next few years.

I agree with the previous panels of experts that Canada's goal should be to be the home of one of those winners, and that picking winners before a dominant design emerges does entail some risk, but the risk of wait-and-see is much greater. Through the public lens, however, quantum technologies will initially be seen as a sincere cybersecurity challenge. Essentially, unless we defend our cybersecurity infrastructure properly now, the advent of a quantum computer could be positioned as the information-security equivalent of the nuclear bomb.

Quantum computers will break the asymmetric, or RSA, layer of modern encryption. RSA is used everywhere—in all civilian passwords, online communications, the SWIFT payment system, critical infrastructure logins, government and military communications and files and old legacy code that is no longer supported. It all needs to be replaced.

The concern is very asymmetric. Everything needs defending, whereas only one RSA-capable quantum computer needs to be built by an adversary to have god-like access to all modern and stored communications.

Researchers have been working for decades on a potential solution to this issue, to build trust in an alternative, post-quantum algorithm. I strongly support intense development in this area, in all forms, because the cost of failure here is so high. No one knows if these post-quantum codes will hold up against future quantum attack or even a classical computing attack. I sincerely hope they do, but there is optimism and no hard proof. Three of the top candidate post-quantum algorithms have fallen, one at a time, over the past years, including one just a few weeks ago.

We can hope for the best, but we should plan for alternatives. Canada should adopt many layers of protection here. In addition to RSA, we can layer on all post-quantum encryption contenders that are standardized in software so that adversarial organizations must break all of them to get through. This will buy us time. For critical infrastructure, I suggest we additionally layer in provably secure defences during this encryption transition, for insurance purposes. There are two provably secure replacements for RSA—one-time pads, and quantum key distribution or QKD. The physical distribution of one-time pads can be initiated immediately at scale. The second, QKD, requires the targeted development of quantum repeaters, and in the Canadian setting, this means quantum satellites.

Fortunately, this quantum infrastructure is exactly what will be needed for the upcoming quantum internet over which we can deploy blind quantum computing, which was alluded to earlier this morning and offers unique applications of its own. Canada has a big choice to make here, and urgently. We need to replace all of RSA, and decide how much additional insurance we need around critical infrastructure. That choice is substantial because its outcome also determines if we lead the world in building, deploying and exporting technology to enable the global quantum internet.

I disagree with the previous committee members about a few key items. The first is time scales. The history of nuclear fission may be illustrative here. In 1933, the world's leading nuclear physicist, Rutherford, ridiculed the idea of ever getting energy from nuclear transmutations. That was the predominant scientific view at the time; if it weren't impossible, it was at least 20 to 30 years away. However, it was a mere seven years between the demonstration of nuclear fission a few years later in 1938 and the first nuclear bomb explosion. This is the power of a dominant design and a Manhattan-like mobilization to organize and bring it into reality. We at Photonic believe that quantum technologies are much closer than they currently appear.

The economic benefits will not be evenly distributed. We are the country of the Avro Arrow, the CANDU reactor, Nortel, BlackBerry and Bombardier. We are the home of the first transistor patent, filed first in Canada 20 years before the first Bell Labs demonstration, and where is that?

Many quantum technologies were invented here in Canada, and these are cautionary tales. We have an opportunity to break through this pattern of inventing but not reaping the rewards.

I have six specific recommendations. However, I believe my time is up, and I am happy to yield the floor. If you would like it, I could take two minutes to summarize these six recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Please go ahead, Madam Simmons.

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons]

Thank you so much.

The first is talent. I came back to Canada to launch Photonic Inc., specifically in Vancouver with its high quality of life, because ultimately this competition will be won or lost through the talent we attract and retain. We train lots of talent, but we do not retain it. We need to match global professional quantum salaries, which are roughly five to 10 times the Canadian national average salary. Salaries will grow further when the dominant design emerges and the talent shortage is at its peak. Ultimately Canadian firms need substantial revenue, not small-scale grants, to compete on the salary front.

Second is procurement. A quantum SIF stream that accepts applications from all quantum companies, including pre-revenue companies, would be good. However, the major need is for major procurement contracts or DARPA-like moon shot contracts to companies. There is an immediate need for the procurement of today and future processors for Canada-wide talent development for all those students to train on as well as quantum network infrastructure, as I alluded to.

Third, the government needs to employ a full-time quantum due diligence team so that it can procure or potentially use these tools. Without procurement contracts, the entire Canadian quantum industry will slip away to other jurisdictions that procure from domestic bidders with these due diligence teams, which are under way in the U.S., the UK, France and Germany. There is no team within the Canadian government right now to even initiate a discussion on procurement contracts for the Canadian government.

Fourth is supply chain investment. Other countries can terminate, obviate or forcibly consume our efforts by dominating quantum supply chain items. There are several government cross-platform supply chain investments I can recommend to be made so that we retain a hope of future digital sovereignty.

Fifth is corporate espionage. We need deep support and CSE and CSIS infrastructure support for all quantum tech companies, including the screening of personnel and cybersecurity infrastructure assistance.

Furthermore, we must mandate that all universities publicly disclose all international research contracts around national security items such as this. Substantial funding way beyond Canadian funding standards is easily available, and these research contracts purchase the resulting IP from Canadian universities and specifically insist in that contract upon secrecy as a precondition for funding. Finally, we need to help firms with the post-quantum encryption transition.

Sixth, the scale and openness to immigration is a key strength of Canada, but as we have heard many times, it is simply too slow. Canadian fast-track immigration programs in the 1990s are almost singlehandedly responsible for the Ottawa telecom boom. We need the same for quantum. I have heard from some of the most prominent global quantum researchers. Yes, they were trained in Canada, but they ultimately left because the permanent residency process was too difficult for their families to endure. People want to live here. They want to do quantum here. Let's pay them well and welcome them back.

Thank you. I am very grateful for the chance to share my views. I look forward to the discussions to come. If there is interest, I would be happy to extend these conversations privately. I appreciate your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Madam Simmons for a very interesting presentation. Thanks to all of our witnesses. It's been fascinating. I'm sure members will have many good questions for you.

We'll start without further ado with Madam Gray for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today.

My first question will be for Allison Schwartz. You referenced a quantum training program in your testimony today. Does this or should this also include proactive security training so that people are trained to secure encryption and online security for companies and public institutions to protect data?

[Allison Schwartz]

Thank you so much for the question today. I appreciate it.

The problem with quantum computing is that a lot of people don't understand how to use the different technologies that are out there, and each individual technology has its own unique areas. The quantum training program that I was looking at was really on how to create a quantum algorithm on a D-Wave system versus an additional system.

Obviously, training on security is critically important, and that could be something else that's considered to be factored in, but it was not where I was going with the testimony for D-Wave. It was more about actually building folks who know how to use the different systems that are out there and figuring out what those capabilities are.

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

Great. Thank you very much.

My next questions are for Dr. Simmons.

You brought up a number of important gaps that the government needs to deal with, and I have some questions for you here today. Maybe, if there are things you also have to say that don't come out in this testimony, you can also do that a written submission.

Do you have any recommendations or thoughts on current privacy laws and whether they're sufficient with the potential growth of quantum computing?

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons]

Thank you very much. I really do appreciate the question.

I think the major issue here is that the transition to a post-quantum environment is going to be much more palatable if we take our time to do so. I do think that the privacy laws should recognize that there is going to be an asymmetry in access to information with whoever owns these systems, and so there should be some decision put into how these things are wielded and who gets access to them while that transition is under way.

My preference would be, of course, that the transition happens before an RSA-capable computer gets booted up to our knowledge, but of course, we're not going to have knowledge about what's happening in clandestine environments in adversarial countries.

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

Great. Thank you.

What legislation or action should the government be taking right now so that our systems are protected from the emerging hacking methods that can take place with quantum computing?

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons]

Thank you so much.

In the coming weeks, NIST is going to be recommending some post-quantum algorithms. I would recommend that the Canadian government mandate or look into how to encourage businesses, in a regulatory sense, to invest in this. I don't exactly know how that would look, but it certainly needs to be considered. Internally within the government, it should be considered how to ensure that the critical infrastructure is provably secure.

This post-quantum encryption may or may not actually hold up over time. One of the finalists for that NIST competition, which has been under way for years, just fell to a classical computer laptop hack, so it's not clear if these things will stand up. I absolutely hope they do. I think we should layer them all in and, in addition, put some insurance down on QKD or one-time pad infrastructure for the critical infrastructure.

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

Great. Thank you. That actually flows into another question I have, which is about awareness.

What do you think should be done to increase awareness and ensure that we're ahead of the curve in protecting Canadian security and privacy? Do you believe that not only governments but also institutions like banks, schools and hospitals are aware of the emerging security risks from quantum computing?

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons]

What I would suggest is that, at the moment, people don't feel the urgency, and they need to. What I would say is that 10 years ago people were suggesting that full-scale quantum computers were 30 to 40 years away. Today, in many testimonies, you'd hear that it will be within 10 years. We think it will be sooner. It's going to be a bit of a “hockey-stick” transition, and we don't want this to be a tsunami that overwhelms everybody.

It's absolutely within our power to make these changes now. You don't need quantum talent to start to layer in and look at your infrastructure in terms of all of the different gaps. The problem is that with so much of our computational infrastructure using software as a service, it's difficult to figure out where all the leakage points with RSA are. It's a huge undertaking, and it will be much more convenient if we start now and learn best practices before these capabilities come online and surprise us, because once scale is unlocked it will come very quickly.

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

Great. Thank you.

I know that you had touched on the immigration process that we have here, the huge backlog and a number of the inefficiencies that we have, but to tag onto that, when it comes to ensuring that we have workers in training to be big players in this quantum computing space, do you think that our post-secondary institutions are ready for this, or do they need improvement? Do they have the right capabilities to be able to be training and retaining people here in Canada?

[Dr. Stephanie Simmons]

Thank you again for the question, and I'm happy to yield the floor. I'm sure there are other opinions around the table on this.

Universities have a fairly good time at getting students in. The challenge is getting permanent residency for said students who wish to stay. That is difficult, and the melange of immigration policies to bring people in, in a professional setting, is where we're going to make or break this technology, right? Students offer training, but it's going to be the professional class that's actually going to make this thing live as a true ecosystem.

To bring those people in, we have to move faster. We can't have 20-week terms, and we can't make permanent residency so difficult for them to achieve. We lose them that way. They want to stay here. We just have to make it possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Gray. That's about all the time we have.

We'll now move to Mr. Dong for six minutes.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Chair, I want to thank you for giving Ms. Simmons the extra two minutes so we could hear specific suggestions. That was very, very helpful.

I'm going to start my questions with Mr. Fursman. I really liked your half-fence analogy. If we're maybe not fully ready for mass commercialization, what advice do you have for the government and for legislators to strategically position Canada as a future competitor in quantum science? I'm speaking to whether it's the education infrastructure, whether it's the energy infrastructure or whether it's the broadband infrastructure. Is there anything we must do now to secure that position?

I apologize in advance. I will cut you off at the three-minute mark, so you have about two minutes to answer this.