Evidence of meeting #100 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alerts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Like my colleague Mr. Serré, I also listened to the testimony from guests who appeared during the first half of the meeting. They clearly pointed out that communities had already undertaken projects in some areas. The witnesses clearly explained to us that, in the spirit of reconciliation, the alert system should be managed by and for indigenous people.
In this context, how do you picture your collaboration?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Absolutely.
Like I said, I think what the previous witnesses said about working directly with the communities on this issue, particularly, is key. Making sure that they have the power to issue these alerts and to use the technology to its fullest extent is super important.
This is a very specific use case, so I think, as mentioned, different approaches from those that have been taken to date are needed.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
The issue was already raised, but since it's a very important subject for me, I'd like us to talk about it again. New technologies, numbers and data are always linked to ethical and security issues. We're talking here about protecting private information. You're working on designing a system and you still have to deal with the CRTC.
What control measures could the national public alerting system and a strategy like yours include when it comes to respecting privacy and collecting information?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
That's a great question.
The way the systems works now means that there is no privacy concern because it's one direction. It's over TV and radio. The way the wireless alerts work is that they are sent from a cellphone tower directly to your cellphone, and there's no return path. Nobody signs up. Nobody gives a phone number or any personal information. If you're talking about direct to land line phones, you might have to have phone numbers. That would be something we would take on.
Pelmorex has more than eight million users in the country. We're “privacy by design” certified. We take privacy extremely seriously, so we would use similar approaches if a situation existed where we needed to have personal information.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
We therefore would not need additional legislation or regulations to better govern collecting this information, even if we broaden the alert system to include red dress alerts.
Isn't that so?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
I don't know. What we do presently in terms of privacy is well beyond what's required under current privacy laws, so in our case we wouldn't need any additional incentive. We would never jeopardize any privacy at all.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Just as you did for silver alerts in Quebec, which helps find people with a neurocognitive disorder more quickly, you are ready to modify your system and include the alert for indigenous women and girls reported missing.
In short, there are no security problems and you are ready to modify your system, as you did for silver alerts in Quebec. It's something you could do relatively quickly.
Is that right?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Yes, that's definitely one option. They've chosen silver alerts because usually the missing person has stayed within a confined area. They're only using the cellphone channel; they're not using TV and radio, which are extremely broad, because they have a sense that the missing person is probably within blocks or within a confined urban area. The system can be adjusted and used for different use cases, and that's a great example of one.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much.
We're now going to move it over to Bonita.
Bonita, you have six minutes.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Eby, for being here.
I know that with you being the only witness now, you're getting a full hour of questioning from us, so I feel for you.
I'm not sure if SOREM representatives are coming to this committee. They are? Okay, that's great.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Yes, I think we should definitely invite them to come.
Mr. Eby, we don't do procurement in this committee. We don't do anything that has to do with purchasing services or anything in this committee, so I understand you and I hear that you're just here to give technical experience as asked.
I note that you are the regulatory affairs and government relations person for Pelmorex. I was wondering if in your role of regulatory affairs and government relations you have lobbied the federal government. If so, what topics have you lobbied on, and what ministers or departments have you met with?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
I am a registered lobbyist. I do meet with government officials. I've met with members here. I reach out all the time.
The thing I talk about most with MPs is the NAAD system, public alerting and how it works. A lot of people don't understand that The Weather Network operates that system. In the past, when our broadcasting services licence came up for renewal, MPs would write into the CRTC and say, “We think this is great service,” and, “Please support it.” That's the nature of our lobbying largely. I have met with public safety ministers, environment ministers and the industry minister. Minister Anand is our local MP. We've had her to the office and met with her.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
That goes to my next question.
You mentioned that you're lobbying on changes to the CRTC. This is a federal committee. This is an opportunity to get a number of MPs at one time to talk about the federal changes that would be needed to the CRTC or others who could assist in alerts. Today, we heard much testimony that micro alerts might be as effective or more effective. What are the changes that are needed?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Well, alerting is such an interesting field, because, like I said, public safety is a provincial jurisdiction, but certain federal agencies have their own jurisdictions. Environment Canada obviously can issue a tornado alert in any province, but mostly it's run by the provinces.
This has always been a collective and collaborative effort among the federal government and provincial governments, and it's not really about changes so much as directing us to add new features to the alerting system. That's really what it's been about.
Any lobbying I've done about federal government regulations recently has been related to the Broadcasting Act, and that's been specific to the work to regulate streaming services. It's not really part of a public alerting file.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Okay.
Diversity and inclusion were mentioned in some of our earlier testimony, and I think about that in employment, about having indigenous people in an organization.
I'm wondering if Pelmorex has indigenous representation in the organization. Is there a movement around cultural sensitivity and understanding the nations across Canada?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Absolutely, there is a movement. I would have to ask HR. I don't believe we have many indigenous employees. We have an indigenous advisory circle of paid indigenous advisers. We meet with them a few times a year and ask them about content for The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, and things like the use of place names on our apps and websites, things like red dress alerts. Definitely we are trying to push that movement forward.
We recently launched a weather product across the northern territories in six Inuktitut dialects, airing on Uvagut TV, so it's like The Weather Network local forecast but in six different indigenous languages.
We are sensitive to that and trying to do our best.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
My last question is about innovation in your space. What is happening in the way of innovation? Are there new platforms, new ways to communicate? What kind of innovation are you talking about in your industry?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Is that in terms of alerting, or everywhere? We're an innovation company. We started as a broadcaster and we are the most popular Canadian app in Canada. We're constantly innovating. We're doing a lot of work with AI right now that we want to apply certainly to weather forecasting and better early prediction of weather events, but that can be used in conjunction with alerting and all sorts of opportunities.
We're trying to push the envelope as much as we can as a Canadian company to take innovation to Canadians and to other countries around the world.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you so much for that.
You said something about provincial jurisdiction. I was at something recently in B.C.—I'm a B.C. MP—and Bowinn Ma and the Minister of Public Safety were there talking about some alerts for climate change. We're dealing with climate change, so we were talking about some of those alerts.
Are you aware of any other tables where provincial, territorial and first nations, Métis, and Inuit leadership are sitting that would be of importance to this study?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
No, not specifically, but I could get back to you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
That would be wonderful.
Because our time is limited, we're now going to reduce it to three minutes, three minutes, one minute and one minute. When I say one minute, that is flexible.
I'm going to pass the floor over now to Anna.
Anna, you have the floor for three minutes.
Conservative
Anna Roberts Conservative King—Vaughan, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for being patient with us; you're a very popular person today.
I live in a rural area, and I'm really happy that I have a generator, because we have lots of power outages.
What weaknesses in the alert systems in Canada, especially in rural areas, do you see?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Pelmorex Corp.
Obviously, that final reach in terms of coverage can sometimes be an issue. Even if a town has good cellphone service in a rural area, when you get outside the city, it is probably not as good. Certainly I think that's well known, which is why we have the broadcast channel, the radio channel, because the propagation is usually quite good for that, but certainly just for that region.
Taking the technology and adding additional channels to meet those needs, I think, is important.