Industry Committee on Dec. 8th, 2022

[Tanya Woods]

I'm a strong supporter of education.

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

On that, what can government do to give it a boost, so more people are aware of what cryptocurrencies are, the risks associated with them, what blockchain technology is and how much it can change our lives in the future?

[Tanya Woods]

That's a fantastic question and a critical one.

It's as much a question for children as it is for teachers, adults and every Canadian. The more we can understand the environment we exist in, the better, and the better we're able to make informed decisions.

What this government can do is fund programs for digital literacy that include blockchain education, crypto education, NFT education, metaverse education and so on. It's fundamental.

The other thing this government can do is inform and support agencies that are working to protect the public interest, and equally equip them with resources to gain this education.

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

That's very helpful.

You also mentioned that there's outdated legislation that we need to look into. Can you be more specific on that?

[Tanya Woods]

I can give you one example, and I would encourage this committee to reach out to Canadian law enforcement and include them in this discussion. I think it's really important that you hear from them. I was part of a Chatham House Rule discussion most recently in Ottawa, maybe about a month and a half ago, and I heard from law enforcement officials who had to take evidence back and forth from court several times to be empowered to make a seizure against a criminal who they clearly knew and had evidence to support was a criminal, because the Criminal Code provisions were out of date.

The Criminal Code provisions, as I understand it from their hearsay, are not adequate to address digital asset crime and crypto crime.

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

That's very helpful.

[Tanya Woods]

They need some support. This is part of my recommendation for a holistic approach, looking at each piece as we go through the system. That would require strengthening to support Canadians.

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

You also talked about trade.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You're already over time, but we'll get back to you, Mr. Dong.

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

Very well, we'll talk about trade later.

Thank you.

[Tanya Woods]

Thank you for your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Monsieur Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Gauthier, My question is about education. Are we giving our fellow citizens, employees and leaders the skills and training needed to understand the impact of important new technologies like blockchain? Are we as a society able to adapt to the needs?

[Jean-François Gauthier]

Your question is particularly applicable to me because Quebec's Institut de gouvernance numérique was advocating that the province should adopt a digital strategy for Quebec in 2014. From the outset, we had been proposing that the government do some serious exploration of these issues throughout Quebec as a way of educating all citizens and increasing their literacy. It has become a major economic and social problem.

Unfortunately, for all sorts of reasons, the government decided not to move forward on it. However, I think that it's never too late to get things right. In a context like that, you are absolutely right: very strong measures should be taken to increase people's digital literacy to help them do a better job of managing their digital identity.

As I was saying in my introduction earlier, I believe blockchain technology is a historic opportunity to change paradigms, not only with respect to digital identity, but also on how to administer technologies within the government. As Ms. Bouchard mentioned earlier, secure distributed ledger technology could eventually make it possible to do what we are now doing differently.

As we all know, you can't solve a problem by sitting all the people who caused it around a table. I didn't say that; it was Einstein. In matters of technology, we can't just continue to do what has been done for years, which is to continually pile things up. The structure has become too unstable and the model that we have been using clearly has to be changed in order to better exploit government technologies.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Who currently benefits from the absence of a legal or legislative framework with respect to the digital economy?

[Jean-François Gauthier]

I believe that Mr. Déziel could answer that better than I can, but I believe it's undeniable that the absence of regulations is benefiting people with bad intentions and causing people to lose the trust they ought to have in blockchains. For me, it's a disaster. As we've been saying from the outset, there absolutely has to be a legal framework to counter what is happening.

Mr. Déziel, if you could take it from here, I'd appreciate it.

[Guillaume Déziel]

Thank you very much.

I would add that it's not just a regulatory matter. It's important not to forget that with distributed technologies, you can't, unfortunately, always regulate everything because that would be like turning a Robocop loose in the wild.

Some people have tried to stop Bitcoin, but they've never managed to do it. It's unlikely that they ever will, and even quantum computers won't be able to do it, according to some of my sources.

Since you can't regulate everything, you have to work much harder on encouraging best practices surrounding the regulatory system. For example, you can probably not stop Bitcoin, but you can encourage people to become knowledgeable and digitally literate about the importance of cryptocurrencies in our environment. You can encourage the use of secure technologies like blockchain. For example, you've just voted on a motion, and could have done so using blockchain technology without any problems or any risk of falsification.

I think that you have a role to play, not only in preventing dishonest people from acting as go-betweens to profit from this environment, and also in encouraging best practices and knowledge. I can't emphasize this enough.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chair, rather than ask a third question, I'd like to let Mr. Anani answer the question I've already asked.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Please go ahead, Mr. Anani.

[Namir Anani]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to add a few words on education, because it's a key issue. There are indeed many avenues to be dealt with.

It should really begin in elementary schools. Education in this area is needed to develop future talent.

Second, work is needed with post-secondary institutions because it's important to develop talent to meet industry needs.

Third, it's essential to work directly with the industry, which is made up primarily of small companies and micro-enterprise that do not have the means to learn about and acquire these technologies to reduce their administrative burden, whether in the manufacturing sector, where they could certainly improve the supply chain, or in health. It's therefore important to do that.

Fourth, citizens need to be trained to adopt the proper approach and to develop the confidence needed to work in that field, and also to become consumers of these products.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you sincerely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

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

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll go back to Mr. Anani. I'm hoping perhaps you can answer this, and maybe someone else wants to chime in as well. If we're looking at trying to create some standards and norms, and as the world grapples with trying to have some type of common link together, would we be better off, as a first step forward, trying to engage the United States and Mexico in our agreement, like USMCA or CUSMA or whatever, versus through our major trading partners? Are we better to work through an entire more universal approach, a multilateral approach, with other nations?

I see Mr. McWaters wants in as well, which is great. I'll go to Mr. Anani and then Mr. McWaters, and then to whoever else wants to comment. We have about two minutes to go.

[Namir Anani]

It is clear that it's best to work with our trade partners, actually, and that's not only the United States and Mexico. Let's not forget the CETA with Europe as well. Specifically, they developed this MiCA regulation, and I think we can leverage lots of these aspects, and maybe go beyond it, creating the regulatory sandboxes that are necessary. Having worked in the regulatory domain at the CRTC, I believe there are instances where innovation requires experimentation, and we have to think larger than that.

We have to also look at what's happening around the world. Singapore is developing lots of these capabilities, as are smaller countries like Malta, Estonia and others, but it's good to start with our trading partners.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Quickly, I'll go over to Mr. McWaters and Mr. Mills. I think I have about a minute and a half, so I'll turn it over to the chair as well, please.