Transport Committee on Feb. 9th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Courville.

I'll move on to our speakers' list. Mr. Rayes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for being here with us today. I think everyone's excited about this topic, although we haven't been discussing it very long.

Mr. Courville, I'm not sure I have fully grasped something you said earlier in your remarks.

In your view, how does Canada fare compared to the other countries in the world in terms of the development of smart cities?

[Grant Courville]

That's a very interesting question. The notion of a smart city, to be honest, is still being defined. Things like the smart cities challenge, for instance, are going to help evolve the definition of a smart city and help push technology and some of those use cases to help us understand what's really important.

On a global scale, we have cities that are connected. We'd have to talk a bit about the definition of a smart city. If you take a look at Stratford, Ontario, for instance, they have installed a wireless network throughout their city, and they're looking at testing autonomous vehicles there and leveraging that connectivity to extend into smart city scenarios.

As another example, if you take a look at the city of Ottawa, all of the traffic lights are connected. I've had meetings with the City of Ottawa to see how we can extend that to enable smarter scenarios, where we can have traffic lights talk to emergency vehicles and potentially to private vehicles and pedestrians.

In terms of ranking, I don't think I have a good answer for you, because there are a number of initiatives that are going on. Some are publicly funded; some are not publicly funded. I would say that we have tremendous potential in Canada, and I think this is where we need some collaboration and some focus on specific goals pertaining to smart city to rally academia, private industry, and government around some specific deliverables.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

At our last meeting, witnesses said that Canada was dead last when it came to developing smart cities.

Is that what you think?

[Grant Courville]

I would say we're not leading. When someone asks me for a ranking, I wouldn't, say, put a specific rank on Canada. Are we leading? No, there are countries in Europe that are leading in those areas. You have companies like Google or Alphabet, for instance, that have invested specifically to enable smart city scenarios.

Because of those initiatives, we're seeing some smart cities, but I wouldn't necessarily—in North America anyway—look at it on a country basis. It's more on a city-by-city basis. In Europe, where the countries maybe are smaller, where they can react and launch initiatives more quickly, yes, they are ahead of us for sure. Again, I think we have a real opportunity.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

What advice would you give to the government for implementing a program to support the development of smart cities?

[Grant Courville]

First, I would recommend collaboration.

Second, many of the programs that are under discussion today are research initiatives, which also obviously pull in funding and so on. I would recommend that the initiatives we put together have specific goals with a view to commercialization and to the benefits that they will bring to the table. Research will fall out of that, if you can define what you're trying to deliver at the end of the day. Whether it's smarter traffic lights or reduced congestion, with some specific things to measure, from a government perspective, those are things we can rally behind. The initiatives have to be very well defined.

If I'm to talk about automotive specifically, if the government could align with the U.S., for instance, in terms of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, I think that would be great. Right now, there are no widely adopted standards for vehicles to talk to infrastructure or for vehicles to talk to vehicles. That's one initiative that we can really get behind.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I would like to hear what you have to say on the role of the private sector in the development of smart cities, electric vehicles and so on.

In Quebec, there was quite a war between the private sector and the government over the Uber system. There really seems to be a divide between governments and new technology. Instead of the two working in partnership, it seems that these people are seen as enemies of the system in place.

Do you also feel that the private sector is not considered to be a real partner in development projects as it should be?

[Grant Courville]

That's a very good point. I would agree with you 100% that some companies are going to advance their agendas, be it in transportation or elsewhere, independent of government activities.

Our approach, just as the nature of our business is in terms of what we do in working with the automotive and infrastructure companies, by definition it has to be collaborative to achieve success. I think you might see some companies that will be more aggressive. However, from a QNX perspective, from a BlackBerry perspective, what we're doing is so foundational that collaboration is extremely important. Government has to absolutely be a part of that. We need standardization.

To your point, Uber is an example of a company and an application and a mode of transportation that was introduced in a number of cities without any co-operation, quite frankly, and it was adopted by the public. In a sense, we were lagging. They were leading, if you like, purely from a technology and a business perspective.

From an infrastructure perspective, from an automotive perspective, there are no standards widely adopted right now. The opportunity today exists to collaborate, because the industry is going through a disruption. Things aren't defined yet. It has to be collaborative. We need the standardization. We need it beyond municipal, provincial. We need it at the federal level. We need it in collaboration with the G7 countries, quite frankly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sikand.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I don't remember what the percentage is and I apologize for that, but I remember a previous witness had given us percentages on how much technology is in a current vehicle and how that's going to drastically change in the future. It sounds like you're poised to change with that disruptive shift.

My question is on security. What if there's a malfunction in all these vehicles, or in the infrastructure that's communicating? Worse yet, what if there's a security threat and this infrastructure becomes crippled? What are companies like yours doing to mitigate this?

[Grant Courville]

That's a very good question. At the heart of everything we do and have done for three decades now, if you think of how we're integrated in the infrastructure, safety and security are absolutely core to what we do. If you tie that to BlackBerry, this is where BlackBerry has a real opportunity. It's a Canadian company. If you think of the BlackBerry handsets, they're absolutely the most secure handsets on the planet. There's no argument about that. In all of my travels, in all of my meetings on a global basis, there's absolutely no question and this never gets questioned.

What we're doing at BlackBerry, for instance, is that we're taking that expertise and that technology and we're introducing it into the automotive industry and into all of the infrastructure—and I'll say devices—that QNX is in, because, to your point, within the automotive industry there have been some well-publicized security breaches. It was really a wake-up call for the industry. Security has always been important in all of the devices we have in the automotive industry, because of the vehicle changes. If you affect the security of a vehicle, you will compromise the safety of a vehicle. They go absolutely hand-in-hand.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Breaches will happen but there are safeguards in place.

[Grant Courville]

We have work to do in that area.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Okay.

[Grant Courville]

Traditionally, vehicles were mostly mechanical and unconnected. Then they moved to some drive-by-wire functionality, where it's not mechanical. Today when you apply the brakes, for instance, it's not something mechanical being applied from the brake pedal to the actual brakes. It actually goes through electronics.

What happened in the automotive industry is that, when the vehicle became connected, all of a sudden if you breached any kind of security you could potentially affect the safety of the vehicle. Our products are safety certified in the automotive industry. We have to go to third-party safety certification authorities to make sure we adhere to those standards. There is work to do.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned export. Canadian companies like yours have this platform, and if we invest enough can we actually export this technology?

[Grant Courville]

Yes. In fact, we export most of our technology today. If you think about the technology, there are no automotive car manufacturers, if you like, in Canada. Most of our technology is exported.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Just so I understand, other countries are ahead perhaps in their testing of autonomous vehicles, but when it comes to the actual software and technology, we're doing okay.

[Grant Courville]

Absolutely, on the foundation, the core software, yes, exactly. Again, a tangible example is the market share that we have.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

It's good news. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thanks very much.

You mentioned just in passing remarks that the technology could help improve the mobility of people of all ages. Specific to our senior population, I'm curious as to how the technology would help them get about the communities they live in.

[Grant Courville]

The nature of vehicle ownership is changing and the importance that society puts on vehicle ownership is changing. It's a demographic shift. To your point, you're going to see vehicles that are on average used about one hour per day today. If you do the math, it's about one hour a day. These are incredible inefficiencies.

In the investments you see from the automakers, they're investing in ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. They're investing in ride-sharing companies. Ford made an investment, for instance, in Chariot, which is essentially a van shuttle.

We're working with some cities and other organizations where they're looking at putting together essentially mobility on demand, a term you might hear. If I can get access to mobility, if I can get access to a vehicle that I don't necessarily have to own, and it's convenient, then from an elderly person's perspective, I'll have many options potentially available to me. It could be ride-sharing, for instance. I could hail a vehicle, a taxi. There are other mechanisms as well, and public transportation.

The thing we have to think about is this. To get from point A—whatever that is, my home, etc.—to point B, what you might see and what we should try to enable is connected, intelligent, safe and secure, multimodal mobility. In other words, it might be part public transportation, part private transportation. You're seeing e-bikes. I used the word “disruption”. Again, this isn't all established and I think there is a real opportunity.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure.

I only have about a minute or two, maybe a little less. You mentioned that cars can talk to each other. Where I see the real benefit, I assume, is where the cars are talking to the system, so to speak.