Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Noah Zon. I'm a public policy researcher at the Mowat Centre, which is an independent public policy think tank based at the University of Toronto's School of Public Policy and Governance. One of the issues we work on at the Mowat Centre is looking at how technology creates new public policy challenges as it transforms our economy and our society.

You've heard over the course of this study from some very knowledgeable experts about the development of technology in Canada and about some of the programs we have that support research and development and the growth of technology businesses. My remarks today will focus instead on the role of the broader public policy environment and how we can craft a policy framework that responds to disruptive innovation in a way that makes Canada competitive, allows Canadians to benefit from these innovations, and protects our core public policy priorities.

In doing so, I'd like to focus briefly on three main areas today: how to craft more flexible public policy frameworks; modernizing the social safety net to adapt to technology-driven disruption; and the particular role that the federal government and Industry Canada can play.

Beginning with the need for more flexible and responsive approaches to policy and regulation in response to disruptive innovation, I would just note from a public policy perspective that when we're talking about disruption, it's not the technology per se we're thinking about that brings about a significant change. We're thinking about the way that technology is adopted and applied.

The nature of these disruptive innovations often makes traditional command-and-control approaches to regulation either obsolete or, in some cases, entirely unworkable. We're seeing that this is evident in the way that Uber and other transportation network companies are reshaping the ride-for-hire business. In this case, consumers are voting with their feet and their wallets to choose a system of consumer protection that relies both on technology and on their peers.

Other disruptive innovations also push traditionally regulated activity to a much wider scale that makes command-and-control approaches difficult. Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, could make any home a factory of sorts, and changes the way that we look at product safety inspections or even what a workplace looks like. The use of drones for widespread commercial use for delivery or other purposes, both in agriculture and in urban areas, will mean that we will need a different approach to our airspace.

If these new technologies are a bad fit with existing command-and-control approaches to regulation, then how do we think about moving forward? To begin with, our legislatures and our policy-makers can establish a clear set of principles for what we want to achieve, principles that might mention a level playing field for competition, promoting innovation, and managing risks to public safety, for example.

Based on these principles, governments can also look to institute risk-based enforcement and regulations based on performance rather than “one size fits all”. Governments also can design policies to be more flexible, recognizing that it is very difficult to anticipate how technology might change our worlds. One way to do this is to look at instituting either sunset reviews or regular updates for our policy frameworks to make sure that we're not locked into the status quo and falling too far behind the pace of technological change.

Looking at the broader social safety net, if we want to look at the policy implications of disruptive technology, we need to look at the economy more generally, especially the changing nature of work. Most of the core components of our social safety net were designed in the 1960s and in many cases have not evolved to keep pace with our changing worlds. We have fewer people with full-time jobs accompanied by comprehensive benefits, and our policies and programs have left important gaps.

Some of the disruptive innovations that the committee has heard about over the course of this study have the potential to accelerate those trends and bring about other radical changes in our labour market. Though it's too early to measure those effects, the on-demand nature of the sharing economy, for example, counts on people moving from full-time employment to what you might call “flexible entrepreneurship” or “precarious work”. If this is the case, we might need to find other responses to our retirement income security, health and dental insurance, and employment insurance types of needs. Other innovations, such as robotics, autonomous vehicles, or energy innovations, might bring similar or wider-scale changes to our economy.

For us to really prosper as these disruptive innovations take hold, we just need to make sure that we have both a short-term view of the transition assistance that might be needed in industries that have significant dislocation, and a broader look at our social architecture to make sure it's serving people's needs in today's economy.

With this in mind, what are some of the more constructive roles that could be played by Industry Canada and by the federal government more broadly?

One important role is as a convenor and a disseminator of information. While many policy responses to disruptive innovation will need to take place at the provincial and the local level as well, even in those areas the federal government can lead by putting forward principles and helping to convene a pan-Canadian strategy. You would do well to look at the work done by the U.K. government on responses to the sharing economy in this regard.

Industry Canada could put forward a strategic operating framework that sets out what we're hoping to achieve with our policies and that provides a strong understanding for policy-makers across the country of the risks and opportunities. The Competition Bureau in particular can set a proactive tone that welcomes innovation so long as it benefits consumers and is consistent with our broader public policy objectives.

If I could leave the committee with one parting idea, it would be that if we want Canada to be a more competitive and innovative place, then we do need to think as well about our broader public policy environment as an essential component of Canada's competitiveness. In particular, bringing in flexible, transparent regulatory approaches and building a strong and modern social architecture are two important components of the operating environment for innovators in Canada that we can't afford to overlook.

Thank you very much.

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