Nick Whalen

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 27th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the work of the industry committee members. They have a lot of very interesting files. With my professional background, I think I would probably bring too much bias to that committee. I do read their reports with a lot of great interest. It is nice to see what a fresh perspective brings to those topics that are close to my heart.

I know that in Newfoundland and Labrador, when I was the only patent agent there, it was very difficult for me. I had to travel to get the support I needed to maintain my professional credentials. I lacked the network of local folks to bounce ideas off of. It really is important to have a true bar.

The creation of an independent college would help grow the profession and result in more patent agents in small communities, like Newfoundland and Labrador, and the markets in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, so that they could have the proper coordinated, long-term professional development that would benefit their clients. There are plenty of innovative companies in Newfoundland and Labrador that seek professional services from Boston, California, Montreal or Alberta, depending on their industries.

The creation of a college would allow better local representation for these folks and growth of our industry.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2, November 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is exciting to be here today to support the budget implementation bill and specifically the legislation establishing the college of patent agents and trademark agents. This is at subdivision D of division 7 of part 4 of the budget implementation bill.

This is an important element of the government's IP strategy. Taken as a whole, that strategy will ensure that Canada's intellectual property regime is modern and robust, and that it supports Canadian innovations in the 21st century.

Patent and trademark agents are a key component of the innovation ecosystem, as they help inventors to secure exclusive IP rights. I was the only Newfoundlander who was a patent agent at the time of my election. Although I am not practising in that area of law now, I have some pretty good information regarding the need for a college of patent agents and a college of trademark agents.

Given the rising importance of IP in the innovation economy and the central role of patent and trademark agents, it is time to have a professional oversight body responsible for maintaining the high standards that are expected of trusted advisers. As a bonus, this would address long-standing gaps in the current framework for regulatory oversight, which previously lacked clarity and transparency and was without a binding code of professional conduct. Given the importance of the profession, good safeguards here are needed to ensure that agents do the jobs they do well and have the trust of their clients and of Canadians more broadly.

While there is no evidence suggesting a large problem with agent conduct, the need for modernization is imperative now that communications with IP agents are protected by statutory privilege in the same way as solicitor-client advice. This is an extraordinary right that requires ethical guidelines to prevent its abuse.

The college of patent agents and trademark agents act would establish an independent regulator, specifically a college, for the professional oversight of IP agents in the public interest. The college would administer a licensing system to ensure that only qualified professionals are authorized to provide agent services. As an independent regulator, it would also be responsible for enforcing a code of professional conduct to ensure that IP agents continue to deliver high-quality advice.

The college would also be responsible for implementing requirements for continuing professional development to ensure that agents stay informed of the ever-evolving IP practice landscape. Ultimately, these measures would raise the bar of IP professional services in Canada.

The college would have an investigations committee to receive complaints and conduct investigations into whether or not a licensee has committed professional misconduct or been incompetent. A separate disciplinary committee would have the authority to impose disciplinary measures if it is decided that a licensee has in fact committed professional misconduct or been incompetent.

Finally, this bill also creates new offences for claiming to be a patent agent or a trademark agent, or for the unauthorized representation of another person before the Canadian patent office or the office of the registrar of trademarks. These offences are intended to serve an important consumer protection function to ensure that innovators are receiving representation from qualified, licensed agents.

I would like now to speak about the important features that have been built into the legislation to ensure that the regulation is undertaken within the public interest and with the public interest as the priority.

Careful consideration was given to ensuring that the legislation supported the public interest in a competitive marketplace of well-qualified and professional IP agents. For example, the college would be governed by a board of directors that includes public interest representatives appointed by the minister, and patent and trademark agent representatives elected by members of the college itself.

Further measures directed toward safeguarding the public interest include providing the minister with the authority to review the board's activities and, if necessary, to direct the board to undertake any action to ensure regulation in the public interest. Another measure requires the board to report to Parliament annually on its activities.

The framework for the legislation takes into account comments from stakeholders over the course of several public consultations. During these consultations, risks were identified relating to the fact that many IP agents are also lawyers. Concerns were expressed about dual regulation, that is that lawyers and agents would be subject to two potentially conflicting regulatory schemes.

In recognition of this potential for overlap, the legislation would ensure minimal regulatory conflict for lawyers who may also be agents. In addition, where appropriate, the college's investigations committee would be authorized to refer a complaint to another body that has the duty to regulate another profession, for example a law society for a lawyer.

In fact, in my experience as someone who has been regulated as an engineer, regulated as a lawyer in three different jurisdictions, and regulated as a patent agent and a trademark agent in two different countries, I appreciate the concern that might exist about overrepresentation or over-regulation, as well as the concern that might be raised by conflicts in ethical obligations.

Whereas a lawyer, for instance, may have an ethical obligation to maintain strict solicitor-client privilege, an engineer is in fact required to put the public interest ahead of that interest. Therefore, it is important to note that there can be proper and reasonable conflicts in the ethics associated with different professions.

Patent agents are there to obtain the most protection possible for their clients' inventions or the broadest scope of trademark protection for their brands. Sometimes that might conflict with another ethical obligation that might apply in a different fashion to a lawyer or an engineer.

Balancing these is important and means making sure that when patent agents wear their patent agent hats, they are regulated as patent agents, and when they wear their lawyer hats they are regulated as lawyers, and when they wear their engineer hats they are regulated as engineers. This legislation allows for that nuanced differentiation.

We also heard during consultations that specific care must be taken to safeguard privileged information. Significant measures must be in place to ensure the appropriate handling and safeguarding of privileged information and to strictly control access to such information. To do so, the legislation draws upon safeguards and processes similar to those used by provincial law societies in order to safeguard privileged information in the investigation of college members.

More specifically, privileged information can only be used for the purpose of regulating agents. Disclosing privileged information to the college will not be considered a waiver of the privilege, and the privilege will be preserved for other purposes. Those purposes could be some type of lawsuit before the courts on solicitor-client privilege or the maintenance of the confidentiality of an inventor's right to an invention for having filed before first being disclosed to the public, for instance.

The act places strict obligations on employees and directors of the college, preventing them from disclosing privileged information, and further clarifies that the government cannot use its oversight authority to access privileged information. There is a strict process of court oversight to access and contest access to solicitor-client privileged information. These were of importance to the patent bar in the development of the legislation.

From my perspective, as someone who went through the process of becoming a patent agent, I can attest to the fact that an additional element is brought to bear on a regulated profession. Sometimes professions can be regulated in such a manner as to encourage more people to join the profession, and sometimes they can be regulated in a fashion that prevents new people from entering the profession.

The fact that the United States has 100 times as many patent agents or practitioners as Canada does with only 10 times the population demonstrates that our regime for licensing patent agents has become too restrictive.

The creation of an independent college will have the extra function of aligning the college's role of growing the profession with the public's interest in having more patent agents available to help inventors spur the creation of these assets. Patent and IP assets simply do not exist if they are not filed and registered, and if professional advice is not brought to bear.

It is not like in copyright, where people create a new work and then own the rights to that work. In the patent and trademark space, it is the professionals who assist the creators or the brand makers in protecting, acquiring and preserving those rights, both at home and abroad. If that work is not done, there is no asset to protect. Canada needs probably 10 times more patent and trademark agents than it currently has in order to have the same level of asset creation as the United States. This is important in the 21st-century economy.

In conclusion, the college of patent agents and trademark agents will be responsive to stakeholder input and follow international best practices in professional regulation. Care was taken with the legislation to establish well-structured bodies to ensure proper independent oversight, with an option for the government to intervene only if necessary. The checks and balances included in the legislation will ensure regulation in the public interest.

As a whole, I would encourage all members to support the budget implementation act, including this subdivision of part 7.

[Business of Supply, November 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, at times I felt the member was agreeing with us on a couple of points, and certainly with respect to his difficulty with the way that Bill Clinton may or may not have balanced the budget in the United States. He said that was done on the backs of people at the lower end of the economic spectrum. However, our programs here are designed to help raise children out of poverty, to focus on a national housing strategy, and to enrich EI benefits and to do a number of other things to help those worst off. Therefore, it sounds like in a way that he is endorsing the way we are engaging in some modest deficit spending in this case.

However, my question concerns the infrastructure bank. On the one hand, the member mentioned that corporations would have too much power because they are investing more than us, but on the other hand he was saying that we were putting too much into it. I was hoping he could clarify the NDP position on that point.

[Fisheries and Oceans, November 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, you will not surprised to know that, like your constituents, Canadians in St. John's East depend on the health and safety of our oceans. Oceans are at the core of who we are as Newfoundlanders. Canadians across the country are so proud that our government is investing in the health of our oceans with the $1.5 billion oceans protection plan. Today is a big day.

On the two-year anniversary of the oceans protection plan, could the Prime Minister share some of the accomplishments that have been made possible by this $1.5 billion investment?

[Business of Supply, November 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from Jonquière for her excellent speech on this very important debate.

I want to reassure her that the government is already ensuring that money returned to the treasury for quasi-statutory programs is used the following year to fund demand-driven veterans programs. She must already know this, since we sometimes serve together on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We have already instituted the pension for life, reopened nine offices closed by the Conservatives and hired 470 new employees. Does she think that we are heading in the right direction to support our veterans?

[Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, November 1st, 2018]

moved for leave to introduce an Act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (broader criteria).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for this opportunity today to introduce what I hope is an important bill.

Our committee, the government operations and estimates committee, last fall, did a study of whistleblower protections, and we made a number of recommendations. Among those, there were a few that were broadly accepted by all members of the committee. I felt that rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, I would propose a private member's bill to get rid of that low-hanging fruit.

In summary, the changes that I am proposing would expand the classes of persons protected against reprisals for certain actions under the act, allow for a protected disclosure to be made to any supervisor or officer within the portion of the public sector where the public servant is employed, extend the period in which a reprisal complaint may be fielded, add to the list of wrongdoings in respect of which the act applies, broaden the circumstances in which certain disclosures of information are permitted, including by amending requirements to act in good faith and to reverse the onus of an applicant to do that.

While I am on my feet, I move:

That the House do now proceed to Orders of the day.

[Sikh Heritage Month Act, October 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am so delighted to support the member for Surrey—Newton in his Bill C-376 to designate a Sikh heritage month. In this place it is difficult sometimes to get things through the House quickly, and I have worked with the member to make sure he had an opportunity to get to third reading so quickly.

I am glad to be the last person to speak to third reading of this bill. There are only two clauses in the bill: its name, and the proposal to make April of every year Sikh heritage month. However, there is one powerful message: Sikh heritage is Canadian heritage, and we are one.

Newfoundland has a modest population of non-European immigrants who each have an outsized impact on raising our cultural awareness. The Sikh community is a perfect example of this graceful and organic process of diversity awareness, and this is the purpose of Bill C-376. It is to provide a forum and an occasion on which we can focus on the important contributions of the Sikh community to our rich Canadian diversity.

The official home of the Newfoundland Sikh Society is the gurdwara on Logy Bay Road in my riding of St. John's East. One could mistake it for a large, white saltbox house in a traditional Newfoundland Irish colonial style but for the bright orange gables and the distinctive Rajput arch style typical of Sikh architecture. It is understated but still quietly dramatic, a perfect meld and juxtaposition of Sikh heritage and Newfoundland heritage.

The physical gurdwara is only 15 years old. It was founded in 2003. Until then, the congregation would meet in people's homes or local halls in St. John's or across the province, demonstrating the spiritual unity of a community that is geographically divided, like so many diaspora.

The population of Sikh Canadians in my province, like that of all Newfoundlanders, waxes and wanes with our economy. According to census data, it tripled from 300 in 2001 to almost 900 in 2011, and has since subsided. However, when I speak to Rami Wadhwa at the Sikh temple, he tells me that it maxed out at 75 families who really participate in the gurdwara.

Now there are about 50, but it will grow again because Sikhs are very welcome in our province. As he was explaining to me, some of the new Sikhs arriving and participating in Newfoundland and Labrador Sikh culture are actually from Italy. They are coming over as skilled workers and to work on farms. They are coming to Canada to become Canadian. It is great that they have a spiritual home in the gurdwara.

This bill would help us prove that Newfoundlanders welcome Sikhs. April is the Sikh new year festival of Vaisakhi, with many important milestones related to the founding of the Khalsa in 1699. It is a very appropriate month to be Sikh heritage month. With the passage of Bill C-376 here and in the Senate, we hope April will have renewed and enhanced significance as an occasion to learn about the young and vibrant teachings and culture of Sikhism, and the selfless pursuit of truth. The values of Sikhism are eternal values shared by all Canadians, like unity and equality of all humankind, selfless service, striving for justice, honesty and honest conduct, and a life devoted to these values.

Their congregation has changed over the years in so many ways. The initial members of the congregation came in the 1960s as teachers. In the 1970s, engineers and doctors joined the community. Now we have trades and business folks who are coming to participate in the oil and gas industry and other sectors.

I know many of us have friends across the country who are Sikhs, but in Newfoundland and Labrador I have a very close friend, Dr. Jasbir Gill. Dr. Gill was born in England while her father was finishing his studies in engineering. Her mother, who was a trained teacher, was there with him. Then they moved to Goose Bay, Labrador, where he worked at the base. Although her mother was unable to get her teaching qualifications transferred from India to Canada, she ran the day care there.

I asked Jasbir to give me an important feature of Sikhism that she would like me to share, and what makes her cultural heritage so important. One thing that really struck me was when she said there is enormous support within the Sikh community for all other cultures. She talks about how the gurdwara in St. John's East encourages its members to participate and share in the spiritual life of other congregations of other faiths in the community, including the Jewish community, the Hindu temple and others.

It is just so wonderful to see how this melding of cultures truly embodies the spirit of what it means to be Canadian. In fact, it truly embodies what a Sikh heritage month can and should be, this opportunity to share and grow together, to learn about each other's cultures and to develop this type of respect.

There is also a very interesting new immigrant coming to my riding of St. John's East, Satnam Singh Bhamara, the seven-foot, two-inch centre for the St. John's Edge basketball team. He was recently with the Dallas Mavericks farm team. He is the first Indian-born player drafted into the NBA. We are so very excited to welcome the newest member of the Sikh community into our homes and our television sets, and to go to an Edge game at Mile One Centre to see this incredibly tall and talented player play. It is so great.

I want to congratulate the member for Surrey—Newton for all he has done. He has been so excited about this opportunity to help celebrate Sikh heritage month. He has worked with all members to make that happen. He has reached out to the community across the country to let them know about this opportunity.

I encourage all members to support this bill at third reading.

[Genome Canada, October 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, since Watson and Crick decoded the double-helix shape of deoxyribonucleic acid, scientists and policy-makers alike have been dreaming of the benefits this discovery would have in the real world.

New DNA sequencing and computing tools have caused an inflection point in DNA research, and there is now an unsurpassed opportunity to leverage the value of genetics in our daily lives. Since 2000, Genome Canada has led the way, as a vital partner in helping the Government of Canada deliver on our national potential in genomics. In particular, Genome Canada has helped us leverage $1.5 billion of federal funding to well over $3 billion, including provincial government and industry partner support. I would particularly like to thank Genome Canada for launching a leading environmental genomics facility in my riding of St. John's East, called eDNAtec.

I invite all members to join Genome Canada on Parliament Hill today where its scientists will be available to teach us about their exciting industry.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame raised an important point. That is the fact that, throughout North America, jurisdictions are moving away from being only tough on crime to being smart on crime.

It is important to realize, in the confines of a penitentiary system, that there are lots of mental stresses, including acute and chronic, long term and short term, that impact not only the inmates themselves in terms of stress that they bring or acquire while incarcerated, but also the staff.

In the context of segregation and enforcing punishment, it is important that everyone has access to all the tools they need to make sure that in the case of inmates, rehabilitation is possible; in the case of inmates who are not segregated, they are kept safe; and in the case of people who are working in the corrections system, they have the supports that are needed.

That is why our government is committed, over the next two budgets, to adding $80 million toward mental health services within prisons. That is one way we are trying to be smart on crime, and not simply tough on it.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, October 23rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the views of the Union of Safety and Justice Employees, which represents parole officers and program staff, have been consulted on the legislation, and the union is very supportive. As mentioned by my hon. colleague, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers would have preferred to use administrative segregation, notwithstanding the fact that it has been struck. The union viewed it as an important safety tool, but is nevertheless supportive of the introduction of body scanners. The unions' views are taken into account, at least in part.

The legislation is important. There are different stakeholder groups that agree with some aspects and do not agree with other aspects, but all have been consulted on the legislation. As with all things, it is an iterative process to make sure the legislation is right. The committee is the best place to take the next step in this iterative process.