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Results: 1 - 15 of 335
Robert Walker
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Robert Walker
2015-06-16 11:06
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to share my perspectives on disruptive technologies.
These are rooted in my 38-year career, first as a scientist, and then as an executive of science and technology organizations and programs that, in one way or another, have been intimately connected to matters of defence, national security and public safety.
Ladies and gentlemen, the early indicators of disruptive potential of technologies often appear long before the disruption occurs, though history shows we often miss these indicators for many reasons. I'll use some anecdotes to make this point.
As a young researcher at one of Canada's defence labs in the early 1980s, I was introduced to a somewhat clunky but fascinating new communications tool called “electronic mail”, or what we had started to call “email”, when our defence labs gained access to an emerging concept being pioneered by the U.S. military, called ARPANET. We immediately had a new, real-time method of collaborating with our Canadian and U.S. defence researchers. Our mindset towards collaboration changed quickly.
In the early 1990s, under a defence program I was managing at the time, we were approached by a group of engineers looking to spin out of Nortel. They had what appeared to be an effective and affordable way of encrypting email. This seemed like a great idea with a potential future market if email were to gain wide use. We agreed to help. The company was formed. Its name is Entrust, now recognized as a world leader in information security technologies.
In the late 1990s, as the ARPANET had moved into civilian mainstream, now known as the Internet, we began to be concerned that as the military became more dependent on information and communication technologies, it would be vulnerable to potential adversaries' disruption of these systems. We formed a group to begin researching information security, including the potential of information warfare and how to defend against it.
In 2008 the world witnessed the first use of cyberwarfare during the Russia-Georgia war. The world had been disrupted.
Here's a second example. In the mid-1990s our defence scientists were examining the potential to bring together two space-based technologies. First, what were the military and civil implications of the U.S. military agreeing to make available for civil use the signals from its newly operational space-based global positioning system? What if low-cost GPS receivers were available commercially? The second was the potential military and civil applications for high-resolution imaging obtained from space-based systems, such as Canada's then recently launched RADARSAT. What if these massive digital images of any location in the world could be made available to users in real time?
Now, couple this with the real-time accuracy of GPS location information and we have enormous potential. We thought these could be game-changers, but we were daunted by the challenges to commoditize them. A decade later, companies such as Apple and Google had made low-cost accessibility to these integrated technologies ubiquitous. The world had been disrupted.
On September 11, 2001, we all watched in horror as the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington unfolded before a global audience. Terrorists had used existing technology—civilian aircraft—in an unconventional way to a massively disruptive effect. Were the warning signals there in advance? Arguably, our cultural bias that suicide was unacceptable, no matter what the commitment to a cause may be, made it difficult to contemplate such a scenario. The month following, the world was introduced to the spectre of biological terrorism when laboratory-engineered anthrax spores were sent to individuals using the U.S. postal system as the delivery mechanism.
What's my point in reciting these incidents? Yes, both were cases of innovative application of existing technologies. However, the real disruptions have been in the way governments and societies have responded to these events through the implementation of new and more stringent security legislation and measures.
Let's look at some of the key issues that are before Parliament legislators and regulators today. In the late 1940s, the oil and gas industry had proven a new and innovative technology, called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Over the past 15 years it has been applied on large commercial scale to shale-oil and gas deposits.
What's the disruptive effect? Arguably the most significant is that within the coming decade, the U.S. is forecast to go from being a net energy importer to being a net energy exporter. The geopolitical implications are far-reaching. In Canada, we are presently dealing with the economic implications of a dramatic drop in the price of oil, tied in part to a global oversupply enabled by fracking. The world has been disrupted.
Now I suggest that the most disruptive technology that the world is experiencing today is social networking. This is profoundly changing the way that people interact. There are many upsides. There are also new ethical, security, and safety implications to which governments, legislators, regulators, and security organizations are scrambling to respond. Cyberbullying, identity theft, and ISIS recruitment of Canadians via social networks are examples of hot topics.
The world needs new technology to address many of the grand challenges facing humankind in the 21st century: climate change, population health, energy security, food supply, and urbanization. We can expect that technological solutions to these grand challenges will be disruptive to markets and to society, just as the consequences of humankind's inability to find technological solutions will most assuredly be disruptive to our current way of life.
However, I contend that the public's acceptance of new technology is taking on some troubling dynamics. The public's perception of the risk to society of new technology is being confounded by the inability to communicate in simple terms and build broad public trust in the answer to one question: what does the science say regarding risk? Regulators are frequently faced with public backlash, in effect that the risk is not acceptable, and in fact, that no risk is acceptable. Genetically modified foods, deep geological repositories for radiological materials, pipeline safety, windmill siting, and child vaccinations are each important case studies of how the public perceives and ultimately accepts or rejects risk, despite the significant benefits that these technologies will otherwise bring to society, the environment, and the planet.
The world will surprise us; of this, I'm sure. Many of these surprises will be rooted in the disruptive consequences of new technology or the innovative application of existing technology. Business will be on the front line, both in creating the conditions for disruption that leads to competitive advantage in the marketplace and in responding to others' competitive advantage. There is much that governments can do and must do to help the business sector in this regard.
On the other hand, governments will be on the front line when it comes to addressing the social, ethical, economic, safety, and security disruptions that occur from technological innovation. Efforts to forecast the potential disruptive effect of technologies on markets and society are important. There is much at stake.
Now I contend that to effectively address these challenges requires vigorous engagements of government and science and of the public and science. It's difficult to find a grand challenge facing Parliament that does not have a significant science component. Parliament needs to be a customer of science advice. New mechanisms have been put in place to address this gap—the Council of Canadian Academies, and the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, to name some—and more needs to be done.
One example of “more” is the government's initiative under way to transform Canada's largest science and technology complex located two hours up the Ottawa River at Chalk River into a multi-mission, national laboratory under private sector management. The government-owned, contractor-operated model has been proven to work very well in the U.S. and U.K.
What does this big idea offer by way of potential? It offers relevant and timely science advice and technology innovation for governments to help them understand future disruptive technologies and to address public safety, security, and health needs; the potential to be a key player in meeting the G-7 goal to decarbonize economies; commercialization support for small to large companies seeking to build competitive advantage through technology; and access by academic and industry researchers to large publicly funded science infrastructure. It's a big idea whose time has come.
Thank you.
Karna Gupta
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Karna Gupta
2015-06-16 11:15
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable members. Thank you very much for having ITAC at this session.
Just to introduce ourselves, ITAC represents the technology sector of the country. With over 300 companies, we produce about $160 billion in revenue and one million jobs. Most importantly, we spend about $5 billion on R and D, so the disruptive technology discussion is very apropos.
There are several disruptive technologies that are unfolding at the same time. They range from robotics to the cloud to genomics to 3-D printing to renewable energy. However, we need to address them not only as discrete technologies but also look at how these innovations collide and create a new world, because they are and they will be always connected and intelligent.
A McKinsey report recently talked about several disruptive technologies. Today, I will speak about one that falls in the top three, and it is often referred to as the Internet of things, or IoT. The Internet of things, or IoT, is the online interaction between different technologies. All of the disruptive technologies you have heard about and you will be hearing about over the next little while through this committee will essentially dovetail into IoT as they all become interconnected and in some part reside online.
As ITAC, we look at technology through the filter of public policy. We understand the benefits of innovation but also its implications. For our members this is a major issue in the technology sector: how to deal with the policy and the new business models that will emerge. Today I will comment on what it means, why it is important, and what the impacts are.
ITAC wants this committee and the government to recognize IoT and develop a national discourse, ignite a must-have dialogue amongst academia and private sector and public sector experts, and start a discussion to begin developing a policy framework to proactively deal with it.
IoT creates the ultimate connected world where intelligence is shared between machines, applications, and services, and therefore creates data models that will significantly improve the way we make decisions. In fact, sometimes the decision may not even require human intervention. Simply put, technologies will connect, work together, and communicate online. It provides us with capability rather than technology. The solution comprises technology and telecom hardware, software, services, sensors, applications, security, radio frequency, etc. Most of it will be cloud-based and mobile-enabled.
Just to give you two examples, recently a company in Alberta, called GrowSafe, used RFID tags for their livestock. What that means is that it allows them to measure many factors related to wellness of the farm animals. This gives farmers the visibility on health and development to proactively deal with the animals, and this makes our food supply safer. This is an example of the Internet of things, a capability that resulted from multiple things communicating one with the other through technology and the Internet without human intervention.
I'll give you a second example. Dr. Carolyn McGregor, Canada research chair in health informatics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, leads a project that significantly improves the survival of premature babies. The combination of cloud computing, wireless technology, and data analytics has provided their team with the ability to detect infections in preemies earlier than before, and this has saved a lot of lives. Again, it's an example of the Internet of things, whereby a multitude of hardware, software, services, and centres that come together without human interaction will truly usher in a new world we have not seen before.
Unfortunately, not all great things are devoid of consequences. There are several things we need to address. Privacy is one of the greatest concerns. Canada has been at the forefront of global leadership on safeguarding privacy and with the evolution of our digital age this could be compromised. Safety and security is a problem. While these new technologies have benefits, IoT will dramatically increase the attack surface available to bad actors. With the capacity issues, bandwidth and network capacities in rural areas, regardless of infrastructure investments made, will become a scarce resource and their governance even more complex.
Economic and commercial and public policy issues are very far-reaching. There are intellectual property and trade issues. Who owns the data that's being generated? Standards and legal frameworks issues: what regulations can be put in place for competing technologies to work together and what kind of governance is required to be ethical? There are workforce implications. A recent study done in the U.S. demonstrates that robotics may replace up to 40% of their workforce. The policy implications are very serious and we need to address them.
As the Information Technology Association of Canada, we strongly recommend that the standing committee continue this discussion into new sessions and beyond. IoT will be a truly disruptive force, moving faster than you can see it happening.
For our part, ITAC is starting to create a white paper with several top leaders and as soon as it's ready, we'll have it translated and sent to all of you. We have established an IoT round table of leading industry experts who have pledged to contribute and provide perspective, insight, and knowledge on this important factor.
We ask the standing committee and the government that a national discourse be created with a proper secretariat and facilities so we can do a deep dive, have further investigation done, and have the policy framework that prepares for the IoT that is coming. Much like the information highway in the 1990s, it needs that level of attention from the government of the day.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
View John Carmichael Profile
CPC (ON)
If you've been reading some of the minutes of these meetings, some of our witnesses and guests have taken exception to the constant reference to “disruptive technology”. They've used the term “transformative technology” or “transformative changes” to industry. Clearly that is one; it's very impressive.
Mr. Gupta and Ms. Hutchinson, maybe I could swing over to you for a minute. I'd like to ask you about online commerce presenting complexities for securing customers, enterprise, and government communication, all of which call for security techniques. Obviously that's your background, so that's an area I'd be curious to hear your opinion on.
What can government do to foster and capitalize on the opportunities related to the adoption of e-commerce, and how can industry associations like ITAC—I know we've talked about this at previous committee appearances—support these investments so that they're done in a safe way for both business and consumer?
Karna Gupta
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Karna Gupta
2015-06-16 12:20
I think first we need to understand what the situation is today in the Canadian market. In the Canadian market, most of the time you see that small and medium-sized businesses are not using online tools as much as they should in order to grow. That is a statement of fact. If you go look at eBay or others, from their statistical point of view, they will say they're not using it.
Why are they not using it? The underlying economics are not supportive of it. To give you an example, if I'm south of the border and I order some goods from any store, the goods will show up the next day at the price I clicked on my screen. At that price, at my door, they will appear. If I do that sitting in my home today, they will be double the cost with shipping and everything else.
The economics do not support it. Fundamentally, the business model for online trade in Canada is not exactly where it needs to be. That needs a little bit of work.
The second part is privacy and security. That needs a much deeper discussion in terms of what gets disclosed. This is really a policy instrument that government, with industry, needs to develop in terms of what is getting disclosed from consumers and users on the platform. When we talk about data on a platform, it's not necessarily residing here. The moment your computer is connected to a wire, it is reachable from anywhere in the world. We live in a day of false security that everything is resident here. It isn't.
I think the policy instruments need a lot more work. I don't think any study has been done, or government has any work getting done, on what type of data people should put up in online trade. There is a lot of trepidation on the part of users to use the e-commerce platform. Economics aside, they don't want to put data up online. That's holding a lot of the consumption back. People do shopping online but they don't buy because they have to put in some data and information.
This is where some of the policy discussions become very important—what we expect our citizens to put in, how we manage it, and where it resides. On that part, I don't think we have a good answer yet.
Jeffrey Astle
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Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 8:58
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm here to speak to part 3, division 3, clauses 44 to 72 on intellectual property. My name is Jeffrey Astle. I'm appearing on behalf of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, or IPIC. I serve on IPIC's governing council as the immediate past president. IPIC is the Canadian professional association of patent agents, trademark agents, and lawyers practising in all areas of intellectual property law, or IP law. I am an in-house lawyer, a patent and trademark agent, with the title of intellectual property counsel, working for Pratt and Whitney Canada, headquartered Longueuil, Quebec.
IPIC wishes to thank the committee for this opportunity to comment on Bill C-59.
I thank the members of the committee for having invited us today to comment on this bill.
This bill proposes significant improvements to Canada's IP framework, most notably by establishing privilege to protect confidential communications between clients and their intellectual property advisers from disclosure in court proceedings, an issue on which IPIC has been advocating.
To establish patent and trademark rights, a client typically seeks the advice and assistance of patent and trademark agents who have the expertise necessary to interpret the technical and legal landscape relevant to their client's business, to consider their client's business strategies and objectives, and to advise their clients on how they might use patent and trademark rights to help achieve these objectives. These professionals have the credentials necessary to help clients secure their intellectual property rights.
So that a client may obtain the best advice possible from their intellectual property advisor, the client and advisor must be able to freely communicate all aspects of the client's business strategies and objectives, the client's competitive landscape and challenges, the client's and advisor's strategies on how to use intellectual property rights to achieve those objectives in view of the competitive landscape and challenges, and the client's and advisor's strategies on how they plan to secure those rights worldwide through the preparation and prosecution of patent and trademark applications before the Canadian and other national intellectual property offices.
Where these communications are at risk of being disclosed, free communication between the client and the intellectual property adviser is discouraged, thereby impeding the adviser's ability to work effectively, resulting in less than optimal advice.
In Canada, unlike other jurisdictions such as the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, confidential communications between clients and their patent or trademark advisers, in which advice is sought in respect of patents and trademark rights, are not protected from forced disclosure in court. This circumstance places Canadian innovators at a disadvantage in asserting their intellectual property rights in litigation in Canada and in other jurisdictions such as the United States, where courts force the disclosure of confidential communications because no protection against such forced disclosure is provided in Canada.
Communications between clients and their intellectual property advisers in which advice is sought in connection with patents and trademarks should receive the same protection as those communications in respect of advice sought in other areas of the law. In both cases there is a need for full, free, and frank communication between those who need the advice and those who are best able to provide it.
By fixing this gap, Bill C-59 ensures that Canadian businesses can speak openly with their intellectual property advisers in order to obtain the best possible advice about protecting their inventions or trademarks, knowing that those conversations will not be revealed to their competitors through a court process or litigation.
Businesses small and large can now confidently explore the possibility of securing intellectual property rights while knowing that strategic information shared confidentially with their intellectual property advisers will be protected. This provision will allow Canadian businesses to be more competitive in Canada and overseas.
Bill C-59 also allows the Canadian Intellectual Property Office the ability to extend deadlines in cases of force majeure events, thereby helping to avoid the unintentional loss of intellectual property rights where, for example, floods or ice storms prevent the timely filing of documents with the office. This is another initiative on which IPIC has advocated with the government, and we are pleased to see that the government is taking the appropriate steps to fix this issue.
These improvements will not cost the federal government any money. The protection of confidential communications is consistent with initiatives on this issue taken by many of Canada's most important trading partners and leading innovative economies. It ensures that Canada operates on a level playing field with its international counterparts. With these changes Canada has taken significant steps to reform its intellectual property system and to focus on giving intellectual property professionals the tools they need to better serve and protect innovators.
I welcome your questions.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you.
View Joyce Bateman Profile
CPC (MB)
That's good.
Could you just speak briefly about how these proposed changes in Bill C-59 bring us in line with other countries?
Jeffrey Astle
View Jeffrey Astle Profile
Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 9:42
As I mentioned in my testimony, countries such as the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, for example, have established laws to extend privilege to communications between intellectual property advisers and their clients. Intellectual property rights, such as patent and trademark rights, are international in scope. One needs to rely upon a network of those rights in various countries to be able to be secure in protecting those rights internationally. Those rights only exist in the countries that issue them. A patent in Canada is only good in Canada; a patent in New Zealand is only good in New Zealand. By being on a level playing field with respect to protecting such communications, there's not one jurisdiction that will undermine the rights in other jurisdictions, so that is how by—
View Ron Cannan Profile
CPC (BC)
I appreciate that. I know that it's up for negotiation.
I want to change the channel for a minute to Mr. Astle, coming from Pratt & Whitney, a world leader in aerospace. My largest private employer, KF Aerospace, formerly Kelowna Flightcraft, has brought forward innovative ideas.
Could you walk the committee through what happens if my constituent comes forward with an innovative idea? How would that change with the proposed amendments versus the present legislation? Is there better protection for them?
Jeffrey Astle
View Jeffrey Astle Profile
Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 10:00
Sure, I'll give it a try.
Today, if your client were to seek advice from an IP adviser, the discussions necessary for them to determine the type of protection that the company wishes to obtain and how to craft their intellectual property rights—their patents, for example—may all be disclosed. If in a litigation there were an opportunity to assert those rights, they would come back in discovery and could potentially be used against your client. The client, therefore, is discouraged from being open and frank in their discussions with their IP advisers out of fear that that may come to bear. As well, your client may be less likely to wish to use their intellectual property rights in an assertive manner because of these defects.
With the changes to the legislation, when a client seeks that advice, those communications related to that advice will be protected as privileged, as would be any other conversations with respect to the legal advisers on legal questions. Therefore, the administration of justice would be better served in the sense that those full, free, and frank conversations can now occur without fear of their being disclosed, and your client will have better access to justice in that they won't fear that in asserting their rights, somehow their strategies and other confidential information needed in seeking that advice will be disclosed to their competitors.
View Raymond Côté Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Astle, the amendments made to the Industrial Design Act, the Patent Act and the Trade-Marks Act will never be examined by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. What do you think about that?
Jeffrey Astle
View Jeffrey Astle Profile
Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 10:02
I'm not aware of everyone who was consulted in connection with these changes, but I do know that the associations; the law societies, the Federation of Law Societies, for example; the Canadian Bar Association; and others that have an interest in these were consulted and had an opportunity to provide input, as did we.
View Dave Van Kesteren Profile
CPC (ON)
It was just a curiosity question, I suppose. Thank you. That's all very helpful.
Mr. Astle, oftentimes we talk about the omnibus bills. This is just a question of curiosity as well. Why was this not done sooner? It's obviously something that was necessary. Other jurisdictions are actively moving in that direction, or have moved in that direction. Why wasn't this entrenched in law sooner?
Jeffrey Astle
View Jeffrey Astle Profile
Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 10:13
I have asked that question myself. I think part of it is that it's a relatively nuanced subject. It's taken some time to discuss with officials and with members of Parliament, for example, to educate them on the issue and why it's important. It just takes a bit of time, I think, on some topics, such as intellectual property, to get people comfortable with the subject matter and have them understand fully the situation.
I think the amendments currently before us coincide with a great deal of effort that has been undertaken by our institute, for example, in the last year or more in pursuing this and seeking to raise the level of understanding. It coincides with efforts in other jurisdictions that are ongoing as well. The entire intellectual property community worldwide is working on this. It just happens to be now that it's taken root.
View Mark Adler Profile
CPC (ON)
View Mark Adler Profile
2015-06-04 10:17
Thank you very much.
Mr. Astle, small business is crucial to Canada's long-term prosperity, and Canadian families depend on the jobs they create and the services they provide.
That is why our government has been continuing to foster an environment for small business to grow and prosper. In fact, we've reduced red tape for small business, and we're in the process of lowering the tax rate from 11% to 9% over the next four years. We provided more assistance to small business. We have lowered EI premiums. We've frozen them. We've provided financing for small business with the small business job credit.
Could you please comment on how privilege, more specifically privilege contained within this legislation, will help small business prosper.
Jeffrey Astle
View Jeffrey Astle Profile
Jeffrey Astle
2015-06-04 10:18
From my perspective a smaller business is more likely to have a single patent they are relying upon to protect the innovation that's securing their future. It's important that whatever protection the small business has sought to obtain is going to be effective and not be undermined by the very discussions that were necessary to seek the advice to get that patent in the first place.
Those small businesses will need to seek advice from their advisers here in Canada and should be given the same degree of protection they would be given in another jurisdiction in similar circumstances. So I think it would be helpful to small businesses.
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