EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, March 27, 1996

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[Translation]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): I call this meeting to order. We shall resume, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a review of the document entitled ``Science and Technology for the New Century'', including Canada's information highway strategy.

We have Michael Binder with us today, along with a number of his colleagues.

Just to put today's meeting in some context, I understand that the presentation we are going to receive today on the information highway is similar or identical - perhaps, Michael, you can expand on this - to the presentation given to ministers in cabinet. I understand there was a great amount of interest. I only hope we can meet the challenge.

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[English]

I'll ask you to introduce your colleagues and begin the meeting. Thank you.

Mr. Michael Binder (Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum, Information Technologies and Telecommunications, Department of Industry): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to introduce Mr. Richard Simpson, executive director of the Information Highway Advisory Council Secretariat; Pierre Gagné, director of international telecommunications policy; and David Waung, director general of the strategic information branch.

I understand this is ``techy'' day. We launched Strategis, which you are going to hear about later on this morning.

I would like to begin our meeting with a multimedia presentation on the importance of the information highway in Canada. What you are going to see is similar to a presentation given to cabinet to help focus discussion on the information highway as a key component of the government's overall strategy for jobs and growth.

We want to increase the awareness of all Canadians on the information highway and the changes it will bring to the way we work and live. We want to build partnerships with the private sector and with the educational and research communities and other levels of government. This presentation raises some of the issues all Canadians will encounter in one way or another as we enter the knowledge age.

Some of you may find this to be old news, but I hope you will find it useful to establish some of the basic concepts behind the information highway and what it means to all of us as Canadians.

What's all the fuss? Why should you be concerned about the information highway, and why can't we all keep on doing things the way we have always done them? To answer these and other questions about the new technology, let me make use of the new technology.

I'll start by going back a few years. Until recently, we have had lots of communication systems, but each has operated independently from the other, each with its own route into the home or office with no way to interconnect the system. Telephone companies built narrow-band, two-way, point-to-point networks. Their capacity to carry information, that is, their band width, was small, because that's all voice traffic required. Cable companies built high-band-width channels to cope with the demands of video transmissions, but they didn't think they needed two-way communications capabilities. They just pumped programs down the pipeline to every subscriber on the loop.

[Translation]

Information networks such as Internet were originally designed to meet the communication needs of scientific researchers and the military. They were not designed to be used by your average company or consumer. At the other end of the spectrum, people had televisions, radios, telephones, fax machines and computers, each with its own receiver that could pick up just one type of signal. All that is starting to change for good.

[English]

Let's look at what's happening today. For several years, all these industries have been under intense pressure from the interaction of global competitive forces and technological breakthroughs. The breakthrough that has had the greatest impact is digitization, the conversion of all forms of information, whether it be sound, picture, text or numbers, into a universal language of zeros and ones.

In effect, all information is becoming undifferentiated streams of digitized bits that can be moved from point to point at high speed in the form of little bursts of energy. Since all communications systems can be made to carry digital messages, all of them can be interconnected in a single vast network. This we call convergence - all forms of communication converging on the digital method of delivery.

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Firms that were once in only one line of business are forming alliances that cross traditional boundaries. From their point of view, why should they limit what they carry when there is no technological reason to hold back. The stakes are enormous.

Some analysts have estimated that the size of the worldwide market for information technology products and services currently exceeds $1 trillion U.S. and will double within 10 years.

[Translation]

At the same time, other technological advances are changing the economic factors affecting those services. Computer chips, the cornerstone of digitization, are becoming increasingly powerful and affordable. Computers are doubling in capacity while their prices drop by 50% every 18 months.

Fiber-optic cables, broad-band satellite transmissions and the new generation of switches and telecommunications, developed in Canada, have considerably increased the bandwidth, that is the capacity and speed.

[English]

For instance, over regular telephone lines it takes about 12 minutes to download a megabyte of information. At that speed, a 15-minute video containing 100 megabytes of compressed data would take 20 hours to transmit. Over the broad-band networks, soon to be rolled out, the same video could be transmitted in seconds.

As well, the distance that information must travel is rapidly becoming irrelevant. In the age of satellite transmission, the distance from St. John's to Vancouver is only a few kilometres farther than from St. John's to Quebec City and the time for transmission is essentially identical.

The amount of information you can pump through a line in a fixed period of time is the new cost determinant, not how far you have to send it. So both the economics and the ways of doing business are changing dramatically.

At the receiving end, the distinction between TVs, radios, fax machines and so on is rapidly disappearing. The computer being used right here and now is a good example. All the information it uses is in digital form but it displays that information as pictures, videos, sound and text.

Fortunately, the information highway is a work in progress. Let's make it clear that Canada isn't starting from scratch. We've already got a solid base on which to build. Our telecommunications industries are among our strongest, built on world-beating technologies. Revenues generated by Canadian information technology and telecommunications industries approached $50 billion in 1993.

To put this in terms of overall economic impact, the information technology and telecommunications industries employ over 340,000 Canadians and we have some of the highest levels of access in the world to telephone, cable, cellular and other communications services.

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[Translation]

Our base is solid, but broadcasters, telephone companies, computer companies and others are hurrying to set up a complete system, from A to Z, in a last ditch effort to survive and prosper in this new economy. They know that if they don't design the system, someone else from another country will, but not immediately and not before Canada has lost a number of competitive advantages.

Market forces are such that it is up to the private sector to build the information highway, but the government must intervene to make sure it meets our policy objectives, it's consistent with Canadians' values and generates jobs and growth.

[English]

What does it all mean for Canada? There are huge benefits here for long-established sectors such as manufacturing, forestry and mining, as well as for high technology industries and emerging sectors. A study by the Information Technology Association of Canada identified several key results of investment in information and communication technology. The first is improved efficiency across all business operations. For instance, Bedford Furniture Industries introduced electronic data interchange, or EDI technology, with dramatic results. Since the late 1980s, Bedford has seen the real benefit of EDI: a reduced paper flow between trading partners; fewer errors; more efficient production; and improved customer satisfaction. Overall, it is a more competitive company.

The second result is quality and service enhancement. New ways of serving customers are emerging. Perhaps you've heard of Duthie Books in Vancouver. It created a virtual bookstore in June 1994. The store enables Internet users to search for some 50,000 titles. Duthie's gets about twenty orders a day this way, the majority from offshore buyers.

Third, and particularly important in my view, is the emergence of new products, services and jobs. The cellular telephone industry is a case in point, with more than 12,000 people employed today in an industry that scarcely existed a decade ago.

Other examples of newly emerging job creators are Internet access providers, web site developers, multimedia production companies, communication hardware manufacturers, software developers, and a host of others, all created to support and take advantage of this new technology.

[Translation]

An advanced telecommunications infrastructure is a prerequisite and provides an opportunity for every region of the country to flourish because it eliminates any barriers posed by geography or distance.

The success of the information highway will also be based in large part on its capacity to make Canada more attractive to major Canadian and foreign companies who want set up business or invest.

All this dovetails very nicely with the government's program for job creation and growth. The government must provide a competitive environment for businesses to do well and prosper.

[English]

In my view, competition breeds innovation, innovation is linked to productivity, and productivity leads to growth. We believe that more and better jobs flow from sustained economic growth. The information highway could become the main foundation of productivity gains throughout the economy.

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Many Canadian firms that do not produce a single high-tech product have had their business changed dramatically by computers and telecommunications. Let's look at some examples.

In the oilpatch the high-performance computer centre is enabling engineers to be more precise in pinpointing the exact location of oil and gas pools. From remote locations, raw seismic data is sent to the centre for processing, and the results are returned over the network as three-dimensional graphic images indicating where new wells should be drilled.

[Video presentation]

[Translation]

Mr. Binder: Information technology has led to the development of new markets in the manufacturing sector. For instance, Intercity, a manufacturer of industrial air conditioners, greatly improved its productivity by using leading technologies in its manufacturing process.

[Video presentation]

[English]

Mr. Binder: Now let's turn to the benefit for us as consumers and citizens.

For consumers, the information highway means greater convenience, more choice, and lower prices. It will also mean improved access to important services such as health care, educational and training materials, and Canadian cultural and information products.

Let me show you some more examples. A well-educated and informed labour force is the key to success in the new knowledge-based information economy. This technology has huge potential to reduce the high cost of classroom-based instruction. A good example is the New Brunswick Community College in Moncton.

[Video presentation]

[Translation]

Mr. Binder: Health care is an area that could be greatly improved and where there could be substantial savings. For example, since November 1994, distinguished clinicians from Montreal and Paris have been working together.

[Video presentation]

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[English]

Mr. Binder: In the cultural field, information technology is allowing the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa to share its riches with the rest of the country and the world. Visitors to the museum and several off-site locations can access full-motion video clips of their favourite aircraft, together with a wealth of related information.

[Video presentation]

Mr. Binder: Even for those who don't have their own computer, the information highway can be as close as the local library or community centre. For instance, the Chebucto Freenet in Nova Scotia has made enthusiastic converts of a largely rural population, which has come to appreciate the practical benefit of going on-line.

[Video presentation]

Mr. Binder: Finally, let's look at benefits to users of government services. Governments are able to take advantage of the same benefits as business and consumers are welcoming. In my own department, we are creating a comprehensive, one-stop shop of business information to help Canadian firms become more competitive. Available both on the Internet and through a 1-800 line, information is designed to help managers make critical decisions about new markets, form alliances, find and develop new technologies, and determine risk.

Insight, one of the strategic information products available on CD-ROM and diskette, provides quick access to innovations, trade opportunities, and key contacts in seventeen industrial sectors, from advanced material to information technologies.

Human Resources Development Canada is piloting an interactive computer system designed to match people to jobs and jobs to people. Called the Electronic Labour Exchange, the system can be accessed through the Internet. Employers detail the skills they are looking for and job-seekers list their qualifications. The two are compared and matches identified. It is a powerful tool that will help Canadians identify job opportunities while helping companies to acquire the skilled workforce they need to compete in a rapidly changing marketplace.

As you can see from all these examples, the Information Highway is real. The common thread is the achievement of efficiencies and broadening of capabilities through information technologies. It can create wealth and jobs for Canadians if we seize the opportunity.

This brings the multi-media part of my presentation to a close, but before I invite questions, I want to tell you about a few of the government initiatives to develop the highway.

[Translation]

We are talking about a communications infrastructure that will lead us into the 21st century.

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The impact the information highway will have on Canadians is similar to that of the building of the railways. The information highway is our future. Our jobs will depend on it as will the survival of our communities and our prosperity.

[English]

We are in a fortunate position here in Canada. We are a world leader in information technology, but we need to be a world leader in using these enabling technologies. That's where the real pay-off is.

Not everyone is up to speed on the highway. Part of our challenge is to encourage Canadians to acquire the skills and the technology they need to take advantage of the opportunities. They have to start building partnerships among government, education, research, and business interests.

I think there are three broad tasks before Canadians. We must become very good at all three. The first is building the actual distribution networks. The second is creating content. The third is developing widespread access in our communities.

The government must set policies and rules that create a healthy business environment for the highway. This involves complex policy issues.

We are overhauling and streamlining the telecommunications and the regulatory framework and replacing monopolies by vigorous, yet fair, competition. We are removing disincentives to new entrants, innovation, and investment. Because of this, more choices and lower prices for businesses and consumers will be available.

We will take further action to implement our convergence policy, which allows cable companies to offer telephone services and telephone companies to offer broadcasting services - a major step towards our goal of competition in all information highway facilities' products and services.

We are reviewing the overseas carriage of telecommunication traffic and Teleglobe's status as a monopoly supplier. We are in the midst of opening local telephone services to competition.

The government is also moving aggressively to speed up the introduction of new technologies and services that can help make competition real, as well as create more job opportunities. We have licensed direct-to-home satellite services and personal communication services, or PCS. We have issued a policy paper and called for licences for an exciting new technology called LMCS, or wireless cable.

Our primary role is to establish the environment in which Canadians can get on with the real work. The government will help business implement new, competitive ways of doing business by removing legal and other barriers to widespread economic electronic commerce.

We will pursue initiatives to ensure personal privacy, the security of commercial transactions, and protection of intellectual property on the highway. We are moving on all these fronts.

We have brought with us today material describing some of these key initiatives. I encourage all of you to take a look at this.

To conclude, the issues we are tackling are complex. They certainly go beyond any single department, level of government, industry sector, or country. The information highway presents an extraordinary opportunity. We can achieve so many of our economic, social, and cultural objectives through managing it well. It can be the foundation of the knowledge-based economy of the next millennium.

Canada is poised to win, with our expertise, resources, talent, and technology. It is up to us to translate that potential into reality. We all have a role to make that happen.

Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you, Mr. Binder.

With regard to questioning, given the complexity of the issue and the number of members, perhaps we can get agreement that we will follow the same procedure as we did yesterday, which was five minutes for each member. Is that okay? Thank you.

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Mr. Ménard, we'll start with you.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard (Hochelaga - Maisonneuve): I don't think I have to tell you how much I appreciated your presentation. As someone who basically learned everything from books, I probably have a lot of catching up to do in the next few years. But no challenge is to great for me, and that should be the motto of anyone in politics.

I am very concerned about all the changes in the job market and their impact on employment policies.

You gave us an example of improved appropriateness within... I don't know if this applies to employment centres or to the Department of Human Resources Development, who are trying to set up a system whereby workers can have direct access to information on available jobs and changes in the job market.

On page 8, you talk about the challenges ahead and you start by telling us about possible job losses and relocations.

What would you tell members of this committee if, as Parliamentarians, they wanted to implement the Information Highway and the different branches as quickly as possible? However, there mustn't be any professional dequalification involved. If you look at the history of major industrial revolutions, you can see that they always led to technological changes that greatly affected individuals and consumers. They often led to a process of dequalification.

I represent a riding from the east end of Montreal, and a lot of my constituents went through the dequalification process in the 1980s.

Could you tell us about the impact of the Information Highway, what we should do, how much public money will be needed to ensure there is no dequalification process for workers.

Mr. Binder: That is a difficult question.

There will be changes in employment qualifications, but we don't have any choice: the technology is there and services and products will be provided differently.

We will have to adjust. We think education is the solution. Our schools are among the best in the world. We hope future employees will be sufficiently qualified to fill support positions for these new technologies.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Mr. Ménard: You could take another approach.

I understand that the Information Highway does present some challenges. The United States is often cited as an example. Apparently, the U.S. Information Highway is far more sophisticated than Canada's, mainly because the American Vice-President himself took charge of it. I don't know whether that is true and I do not want you to hold me to it. I don't know if you would like it if I made even indirect reference to Canada possibly lagging behind. In any case, I saw that in the first documents published, including those by the Information Highway Advisory Council.

In your video, you told us that Canada is in a very strong position because throughout its production cycles, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, it had to invest in communications and telecommunications.

I can believe that, because a big country like Canada, with a low ecumene, that has always been worried about its national unity and had to face many communications challenges, could indeed be at the forefront in telecommunications.

However, if you compare Canada with the United States, it would seem that in terms of public effort, available subsidies and political will, Canada lags far behind the United States. That means the United States have a head start over Canada, according to a number of official documents, and that is partly due to the fact that the Vice-President has made telecommunications his pet cause.

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How do you think Canada compares with its major competitors, including the United States, in terms of public funding and in terms of direct investment in the implementation of the Information Highway?

Mr. Binder: It is not true that the United States are more advanced than we are.

Mr. Ménard: I knew you would say that.

[English]

Mr. Binder: I get this a lot. In Canada we have the perception that we always have to look south to learn how to do things better. I like to remind our American friends that a Canadian, Alexander Graham Bell, invented the telephone. Remember that?

In our country we've put in a network that has higher penetration. There's something like 99.8% penetration in telephone. I think we have about the highest penetration in cable, second to Singapore. We have one of the longest cellular networks in the world. In a country with such a low density we have an amazing, remarkable achievement in telecommunications. We are more digitized than the Americans, etc.

The Americans are in the public eye because of all the hype that goes with their new telecommunication bill and because of some of the mergers and acquisitions that have been going on. The Americans are now trying to get their legislative house in order. We have already done it.

We have a spanking new Telecommunications Act from 1993. We have a Broadcasting Act from 1989, I believe, and we have the Radiocommunication Act. Right now we have all the legislative ingredients required to get on with the job. In many ways we are more advanced than the Americans are in certain decisions and policies with respect to convergence and introduction of new services.

I think Al Gore has brought a higher visibility for the telecommunication industry to the whole world. I think that in Canada we're very well positioned to continue to be excellent in telecommunications in an era in which we believe infrastructure will be fundamental to economic growth and prosperity.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard: But in terms of public funds? In his great enthusiasm, the Deputy Minister may have forgotten to make a comparison of the public funds. I'll come back to that on the second round.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you.

Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Schmidt (Okanagan Centre): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for the presentation.

Mr. Binder, I would like to pick up where you just left off: brand spanking new Telecommunications Act, a Radiocommunication Act and a Broadcasting Act and yet we talked about convergence or at least that's what's said over here.

Aren't we providing a lack of convergence with these three distinct classes of legislation? Don't these acts actually prevent the converging of some of these technologies?

Mr. Binder: Not necessarily. They're designed to do different things. The Broadcasting Act was designed to deal with content issues. Telecommunications was designed to deal just with the wires, with the infrastructure. Wireless is a different act because it starts with international agreements. That's how to use radio waves, satellites, etc.

Could they all be in one bill? Maybe, but it is designed to deal with different niches in the market.

Mr. Schmidt: Oh, I quite agree, but do they look backward rather than forward? The whole idea of convergence is that we have two-way communication all the way through based on one single business, which is digitization and the compression of digits so that you can transmit more information faster in both directions. It seems to me that these three pieces of legislation alone, just to give you three examples, do the exact opposite of what you were talking about.

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Mr. Binder: With respect, when we talk about telephone rates in the Telecommunications Act or about how much Canadian content should be on radio, we're talking about different objectives. One is attempting to make sure that Canadian content appears on our airwaves, on our television. The other one deals with economics, transport of data, etc. So one can argue that they are two not necessarily competing issues.

I know where you're going with this in terms of when the telephone companies or satellite companies can start delivering content. We are moving into an era in which content can be delivered by many mediums, but the legislation we have does not prevent us from doing that.

In fact, in its convergence policy to the regulator, the government has already instructed to start hearings on how to do it in a commercial sense. How do you allow the telephone company to deliver broadcasting signals and the cable companies to deliver telephone signals? In fact, we're now in the process of trying to set up the regulatory environment to allow us to do exactly that.

In their telecommunication bill that just passed, the Americans instructed their regulator, the FCC, to hold something like 80 public hearings to come up with the same kind of rules. It's one thing to say that technology and the industries are converging, and it's another thing to establish precise rules on how you set tariffs and how you set interconnection protocols that allow the various networks to interconnect.

Mr. Schmidt: I think that is correct. I agree with that part and I commend you for it, but I'd like to move into an area outside of technology now. I don't totally agree with the first part of your answer, but I think the last part makes a lot of sense.

I'd like to get into the conflict or the apparent conflict between competition on the one hand, in foreign ownership and that sort of thing, and Canadian content and culture. How do you resolve this conflict? On the one hand you have Canadian culture that's being forced, and yet you want international competition. How do you bring those two together?

Mr. Binder: Well, the easy answer would be that I'm dealing with Industry Canada; this is telecommunications.

Mr. Schmidt: But it's not that easy, and you know it. You just said that a moment ago, sir, but then you mixed them up, and that's why I disagree with the first part of the answer.

Mr. Binder: Just so we understand, the mandate of our friends in Canadian Heritage is to make sure that Canadian content is available and accessible to all Canadians. My job is to make sure that in this country we have the most modern infrastructure on which you can transport anything, including cultural products, financial data, and voice and video.

Mr. Schmidt: Isn't that exactly why we have a problem? You can do one thing in your department and these guys over here say you can't do it because it's not Canadian content.

Mr. Binder: Like many issues, they have conflicting objectives, but we are working together and I think we can find a balance. It's not all that bad. I can tell you that some will argue that we would never have had the cable industry in this country. Given our geography, economically it wouldn't have made sense for us to string up cable across this vast land of ours with its low density, if we didn't have the broadcasting policy that insists that if you want to watch some foreign programming you have to watch Canadian programming too.

So in a sense it's forced. We force Canadians to watch Canadian programming by piggy-backing it on their desire to watch American programming, and that's the way we have all gotten cable.

Mr. Schmidt: This is lots of fun, but really that's obsolete technology, or will be very shortly. The point was made clearly on the screen that we're going to go with satellites and communicate that way, so to a large degree cable is irrelevant in that kind of technology. There is some relevance, but it's very regional and very specific. We will be able to communicate right around the globe using the low-flying tel. AT&T is just moving into this area now.

Mr. Binder: I have to tell you that right now, cable is an advantage in broad-band services.

Mr. Schmidt: At the moment, yes, but we're looking forward, say to five years from now.

Mr. Binder: Our hope is that five years from now there will be competition between the telephone companies and the cable companies.

Mr. Schmidt: I'm glad to hear you say that. That's wonderful.

Mr. Binder: Absolutely, and that's exactly what we're working on.

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Mr. Schmidt: That's good, Mr. Chairman. We'll remember that.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you, Mr. Schmidt. We'll come back on the next round.

We have Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Lastewka, and then Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Shepherd (Durham): Thank you very much. I just have a very simplistic question, actually.

When I got involved with the Net and that sort of thing about a year ago - in fact, we have our office on the World Wide Web - the one thing that became eminently clear to me was that there is an intergenerational difference in attitude towards the acceptance of this technology. I look at how we're going to introduce it into our business community, because it's clear the baby boomers are still very much in control of that. I think the boomers are to some extent finding their way, but it seems to me that they're less likely to adapt to this new technology. I know we've talked about some programs, and we're going to hire 2,000 students to try to introduce that technology. But I wonder if there are other kinds of ways in which we can bootstrap and bring our industrial structure up very quickly to an acceptance of that technology.

Mr. Binder: I think I'm a little bit more optimistic than you are because in the last two years there has been an explosion in interest in the Internet and computers. At one time we were talking about the haves and the have-nots, but we're now observing a trend that is uniform across the whole population. Everybody is buying computers at a tremendous rate. I think the penetration rate now, depending on whose numbers you believe, is as high as 40%. Either at home or at work, 17% of all Canadians have access to the Internet - and that has come out of nowhere in the last year or two.

It started, obviously, with the young generation. More and more, the older generation is being forced to do it because everybody is doing it. From e-mail to your work requirements, you're more and more in need of knowledge on how to operate a computer and the Net. I'm also told.... This is the last piece of the statistics - Richard, you may want to jump in to help me here - but it seems that with the Internet there is a faster penetration rate than there was with the VCR. You remember that the VCR now has, I think, a penetration rate of something like 80% or 85%. This means that pretty soon all Canadians will be on-line. That will dramatically change everything, in my opinion.

Mr. Shepherd: So you don't see today that the actual use of the Internet itself in the Canadian context is very much skewed towards the younger generation.

Mr. Binder: It still is, but it's very fast-changing. As it becomes more pervasive, more and more people are coming in. For example, we are finding out that a lot of the retirees and the people who travel, etc., have discovered the Internet and they're getting onto it. It's a very easy way to stay connected. We don't have the exact numbers to tell us which segment of the population is doing it, but some preliminary studies say this will be something everyone is going to get involved in.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you, Mr. Shepherd. Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Lastewka (St. Catharines): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a short question.

I appreciate your presentation. I thought it was excellent. I've seen parts of it before and I'm still awed by the advances you've made. The question I keep wanting to ask concerns the report card on the usage of the technology. How do we know we are making sure it's being used across the country? Is there a report card that you have on the success of what is being implemented?

Mr. Binder: There isn't per se, because many of the users are spontaneous: they are run by different levels of governments, municipal governments, the private sector.

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The only time we ever use.... I'm told that you were briefed on SchoolNet. For things like SchoolNet, we have some statistics on how quickly we are connecting schools, communities, etc. We have those statistics. But, for example, in utilizing this technology for general education, health or delivering government services, we hear from our provincial friends, but we have not kept a specific scorecard. It's an interesting idea.

Mr. Lastewka: Since our country is so big, my concern is always about how we are penetrating across the country. Is it only in certain areas?

I would want to know if we're not penetrating into certain areas in terms of the usages and so forth, and what we were doing about it. That's why I keep asking about the report card that tells us we're achieving what.... Someone said earlier about how it will be creating jobs; show me.

Mr. Binder: Let me use a SchoolNet example. By 1998, we will have connected 16,500 schools, which is all schools in Canada. We'll be the first country in the world to do that.

We can tell Al Gore that, too. We have, by the way. In fact, when Bill Gates visited here, he was very surprised and interested by that. The fact is that Microsoft is a partner to SchoolNet.

In addition to this, we're going to connect all public libraries. There are 3,000 of them. I think we are going to connect something like 1,500 community centres. Our hidden agenda was that when you bring those nodes to those communities, it would generate activity and other interests. That's exactly what's happening. We are getting a lot of enthusiastic receptions. There are are spin-offs that come as a result of this activity.

I believe it will happen throughout the whole country. In fact, we're getting a lot more of an enthusiastic reception in rural and small communities because that is a very interesting way of connecting to the rest of the world. You don't have to be downtown Toronto to log on to the Internet and be plugged into everything else that goes on.

So it's the great equalizer. I think it will have fundamental impacts on the way our population distribution.... I'm going now way into the future. There are those who believe that the urban infrastructure in the population distribution, the urbanization of Canada, can be slowed down using such technologies.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you, Mr. Lastewka. Mr. Ménard and Mr. Mayfield.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard: I had two questions and one of them has already been answered, the one on penetration rate. I just wanted to mention to our witnesses that the Human Rights Committee is establishing a subcommittee to study the relationship between human rights and new technologies. That is exactly what we are talking about here.

I know that some members, even from the government side, are very concerned about the type of material used on the information highway. I was wondering if you had any information for the members of the Industry Standing Committee on recommendations you are planning to make to the government on the whole issue of hate propaganda, the negative aspects of broadcasting that information, and making it very accessible. Have you looked into the issue of hate propaganda and the type of material one might find on the information highway that people are scurrying to put on as quickly as possible.

Mr. Binder: That is a challenge. There are problems and no one knows how... Our lawyers told me there are laws for that and they must now be enforced.

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For example, it is hard to identify the source of the information. If the information comes from Canada, you might be able to find the culprits and do something about it. If it comes from Chicago, it's very difficult.

I think the solution would be to have something like the V-chip for the Internet, so that we could control traffic ourselves.

Mr. Ménard: Given what you have told us, I think you would make a good American vice-president.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

Did you want to add something?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Gagné (Director, International Telecommunications Policy and Coordination, Telecommunications Policy Branch, Industry Canada): I would like to go back to the question that was asked at the very beginning about the role of the United States in all this. Mr. Gore has done a lot to put the United States on the map. I think Canada has also benefitted from that.

They have someone to champion their cause, but so do we. In February of last year, there was a G-7 conference in Brussels. Minister Manley played an important role at that conference by making the other G-7 countries recognize the importance of content. You have to think not only in terms of infrastructure, which is very important, which is essentially what the Americans are pushing, but also about content. Minister Manley was very insistent.

You spoke about human rights and access to technologies. We are currently preparing for another conference to be held in South Africa in a few months, that will be attended by 40 countries, of which 30 are developing countries.

We are currently talking to our minister about a possible minister's statement on access to technology as a human right. In fact, Minister Manley had made a statement about that in Brussels last year, in February.

It is true that the Americans have someone to champion their cause. We report to the Department of Industry Canada and are perhaps somewhat biased, but the fact remains that Minister Manley has done very well on this front in the past two years. We often compare ourselves to the Americans. Yes, we should do that, since we can't do otherwise because they are there. However, there are many things about the American system we should not envy. In the next few weeks, we will finalize Canada's position within GATT, for an agreement to reduce tariff barriers, etc., and to free up telecommunications.

People are increasingly becoming aware of the fact that we did things well here. Take regulations as an example. We have had a regulatory body for 25 years now. Countries such as France still do not have an independent regulatory body. The Americans have the FCC, but they also have local regulations, state regulations, etc.

The Canadian industry is suffering right now because the regulatory system is far too complex, and we are trying to encourage the Americans to follow our example, to do things the way we do.

If I could make just one last comment, you spoke about the public funds in the United States compared to Canada. One of the decisions made at the February conference last year was to make the private sector the major builder of the information highway. It is not up to the government to finance and build this highway.

Mr. Ménard: That's what scares me. That is the part of the strategy that worries me most.

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If the information I have is accurate, despite the fact that it will be up to the private sector to build the information highway - that was the strategy from the outset with CANARIE, etc., and the minister decided to take that approach - , doesn't the United States have a huge community development fund worth $250 billion that was constantly increased by vice-president Al Gore?

Mr. Gagné: I would have to check, but as far as I know - and I just made a presentation to the Senate a few weeks ago to a committee looking into the Canadian industry's competitiveness - , with the latest changes to the American budget, that fund took a huge cut, or was perhaps eliminated entirely. But I would have to check that. We could get back to you on that.

Mr. Binder: Our challenge is universality and we will make sure it is as universal as it has been in the past.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you. Mr. Mayfield.

Mr. Mayfield (Cariboo - Chilcotin): Thank you very much. I'd just like to pick up a little bit where Mr. Lastewka left off. I'm interested in much the same thing, I believe.

For example, in my constituency, which is a large geographic area right in the centre of British Columbia, there's a large region called the Chilcotin, which is maybe 50,000 square kilometres, and there are probably almost 2,000 who live in that area in a dozen or so very small communities. One of those communities had a CAP node or community access.... They've raised their money, and they've been accepted in the program.

The difficulty for that group of people around that community is they do not have telephone facilities there. They have party lines rather than the modern digital equipment that's needed to give them access to this node.

I'm wondering what your department is doing about this infrastructure problem that brings rural Canadians who want to bring commercial applications to this technology.

Mr. Binder: I can assure you that I hear this quite often, and you have another champion inDr. Gerrard, who also has a very large riding and has been hearing the same kinds of problems.

One, we're trying to eliminate party lines. We're trying to give the telephone company incentives to do so.

Mr. Mayfield: Could you elaborate on the incentives?

Mr. Binder: Well, the idea is that they'll be able to increase local rates. As local rates increase, presumably the customer would like to see some improved services. Right, now they're complaining there's absolutely no resemblance between cost and fees. So that may help a bit, and the regulator, I hope, will help along on this score.

But I think the more interesting approach is to provide alternative services. In fact, I think it was yesterday that Stentor and SchoolNet have announced satellite SchoolNet. So you know this covers the whole country. In fact, it's an amazing technology that allows you to download information locally through satellite.

We're also introducing new wireless technology that means that you don't have to actually string a wire into a remote community. So I'm optimistic that in the next few years we may see some improvement in rural community services.

Mr. Mayfield: I appreciate hearing that, and as far as Cariboo - Chilcotin people are concerned, the sooner the better.

The second question I would like to ask you relates to an issue you alluded to, and that is the issue of privacy - the protection of personal privacy. You mentioned a number a new acts that are facilitating the advancement of your department's work, but I don't think there is an act for the protection of personal privacy in this area. This has also been called for by the council on the information highway that produced a report. I'm wondering what steps your department is taking in this area for the protection of personal information.

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Mr. Binder: We are very conscious of the need to deal with privacy issues, particularly as data more and more is running on networks and all our life can be described by what we buy, by credit, by payments, etc.

We also have another incentive to deal with this issue, because we don't believe that electronic commerce will take off until people are assured of two things: privacy and security. You want to make sure that if you send your Visa card, nobody else has access to it, and also it will reach where you send it to. To get electronic commerce up and running, you need those two ingredients.

We have been working with industry. In fact, we have very recently had a national consensus on voluntary codes that are approved by the Canadian Standards Association, on principles to regulate privacy: how you use it; who is allowed to sell it; consent - somebody should ask permission to use my private information; etc. It's amazing that we actually got that.

But there are those who believe that you need stronger measures, such as a privacy bill. We still are looking into this to see what can or should be done. It's work in progress.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): We have to keep in mind that there may be some votes at 5:30. The committee is scheduled to adjourn at five o'clock. We have a Strategis presentation, which is essentially a five-minute conceptual video and then an interaction by members who are able to ask questions or make certain requests of Mr. Waung, who has an on-line demonstration of Strategis. If you want to get in a couple of very quick questions and very quick responses, I'd like to get on to that part of the presentation.

Mr. Murray.

Mr. Murray (Lanark - Carleton): I'm listening to this and I'm struck by the fact that we're talking about something that's very exciting. Your comment about the penetration rate of Internet, for example, leads me to wonder if the information highway is not something that essentially is going to sell itself and people are going to demand access to it as they realize there are all sorts of reasons why they should get involved - as simple as entertainment. Or maybe for business or intellectual reasons they will want to avail themselves of what's available there.

My question relates to what you see as obstacles. Who are the modern-day Luddites, perhaps, who might be telling politicians and government that they don't want the information highway? Are you encountering that at all?

I'm sure you're aware of what's happening in my own riding of Lanark - Carleton. A very active group there are trying to take advantage of the information highway. They've embraced it and it's had wide public acceptance.

Is there some obstacle out there that I should be aware of as we are looking at this?

Mr. Binder: Right now, there's a perception in many communities that this is a free commodity, that it's a whole new world that's available for free, that you just get a modem and you plug in.

One of the obstacles we're facing is that the band widths, the pipes, have to be upgraded. In the Freenets, the community that provides those free services, it is very tough to log on. That's a technical problem.

I believe that the consumers are there. The service providers will find ways of overcoming all this. That is a technical issue, and I think it will be overcome.

There are some policy issues associated with how we can make sure that it will be accessible to all Canadians. That is related to what an essential service is. In this country we take the telephone as being almost a right. Lawyers don't like me to use those words, because ``right'' means entitlement. But if you think about it, any Canadian who wants a telephone can get telephone service.

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What would happen if all our libraries were on-line? Are we going to decree that libraries must be available to all Canadians?

We have some social issues.... We need to define what the future essential core services are. Access to information, education, health, maybe government service, may be deemed to be essential services. Then the government will have to worry about how to deliver them.

I think you are right, electronic commerce by itself will take off. If that's the way you do home shopping in the future, you do self-education, self-training, it will pay for itself. It will be a commercial service. I think that's the way to go.

We are going to have some problems with - and not everybody will agree - the need to ensure there is Canadian content. The good jobs are in creating value-added, in creating Canadian content, Canadian software, Canadian products and services. That's where the jobs are. There are a lot of people who can create their own little songs and music and books and newspapers and what have you. To make sure they have access to those networks -

Mr. Murray: That's the point I was going to make. I think it's now more important to encourage creativity and imagination in Canada, with this tool. If you're going to lead the world, it's essentially a question of having the technology available, but also of finding ways to encourage Canadians to be creative. I'm not sure how we do that. Maybe we will discover all kinds of creativity out there that never had a chance to flourish before.

On this question of band width, we've looked at the information highway as a modern-day version of the railway or actual roadways. Communities were built along the railroad because it was there. You now have a situation where you have bandwidth available in some communities and not in others. I'm wondering if we can actually foresee the future. It may be very different from what we expect right now just because of the way the country sorts itself out essentially according to band width. Though again, there's digital compression. Technology changes. They have wireless reaching everywhere. It's going to make it possible to be anywhere, I guess.

I don't want to belabour this, but I'm interested in this whole question of the future of rural Canada. Have any deep thinkers in Canada been looking at this question of where it may all lead?

Mr. Binder: There have been some, but we're still looking into it.

Let me give you a different parallel. I don't know if it applies here.

It's no different from the desire to reach the rest of the world. While we're talking about almost 100% penetration, there was a famous speech by the vice-president - I think Mandela also, but his vice-president, Membeki - who said half the population of the world have never made a phone call. If you think about that, that's a lot of people who have never made a call. Now the technology is available to reach all those people, not by copper wire in a trench - you would never be able to do it that way - but by wireless, through global satellite, etc.

Therefore I'm more optimistic. If location is not a problem, why not stay in your village? Why not stay in your rural Canadian community? There are advantages. There's quality of life. Different aspects attract us to stay in those places.

I don't know how it will turn out, but there are those who believe if the big pipelines are there, people will stay in their community, because you can work at home, you can pipe your information to headquarters, wherever that is. There's absolutely no physical need to be there.

Mr. Murray: It will have quite an impact on the whole social interaction and the whole society.

Mr. Binder: Absolutely.

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The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): I'll have to stop you there, Mr. Murray. Thank you.

Ms Skoke, please be very quick. I know Mr. Waung wants to give his presentation and we'd like to see it.

Ms Skoke (Central Nova): I guess I'm at the end. My questions are very general and you did touch on most of them, but I want to reiterate some of the concerns I have.

One concern that we already have a high illiteracy rate in Canada and now we're introducing the information highway technology. It's similar to what Mr. Shepherd had said; I think there are people out there who are going to be very timid and have that reservation. I want to know to what extent the federal government is going to educate those people or provide opportunities for them to be educated in this new advancement in technology.

Secondly, the Telecommunications Act sets forth some objectives in section 7, and they're certainly well reasoned ones. One is to promote Canada's identity and sovereignty; another is to strengthen the social and economic fabric of Canada in all its regions; the third is high-quality accessibility to all regions in Canada and to all Canadians; the fourth is to promote ownership control of Canadian carriers by Canadians; and finally, one you've already touched on, is to contribute to the protection of the privacy and security of the persons. These objectives are certainly ones we can commend, but I question how we can achieve these. We certainly have a long way to go.

Mr. Binder: On your point on education and illiteracy, we are aware that it is a problem. On the other hand, we have seen some videos of self-training. Again, the educators are telling me that many of the self-training videos now being produced are surprisingly a lot more effective in reaching people than actual schools are. These interactive training programs are becoming available. A person can interact with a computer. They can go at their own pace, at their own repetition, at their own time, etc. They're getting some pretty good results, so I'm optimistic. We have to educate them in technology, but technology can help. That's the first point.

My second point is that we introduced this SchoolNet program and we have computer-to-school programs where any surplus software and computers are being donated to schools. We are now recruiting summer students and we're trying to train them to train local kids, etc. Community centres will do the same thing.

We're doing as much as we can do as a federal government, and I think the provinces are also now aware of the importance of all of this. I share your concern and I don't think it's going to be done overnight, but I think a lot of people are now moving in these directions.

Regarding the objectives in the Telecommunications Act, I'm really happy to see that you have read it. Not a lot of people have read those objectives and actually understand that you have the law of the land, and both the government and the regulator have to abide by that when they take a regulatory decision. We may not move to your satisfaction in terms of speed, but we're always conscious of those objectives in many of the decisions and the policy debates we are having. So hopefully we'll be able to continue along this set of objectives we've set out.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you very much, Mr. Binder.

Mr. Waung, I understand you're going to provide us with a five-minute conceptual video, and then members will ask you questions and you'll be able to provide them with solutions from the Strategis program.

Mr. David Waung (Director General, Operations, Industry Canada): Thank you very much.

Strategis is a new information service the Department of Industry launched this morning. I'd like to show you a five-minute video, which will give you a very brief overview of what the service is. Then I'll show you an interactive demo of how the service operates.

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[Video Presentation]

Mr. Waung: Now what we're going to do is switch on-line. We are connected to the information highway via modem from this lap-top and into the telephone line.

Okay, we are now on-line. We're hooked up to Bell Canada's Sympatico Internet Service, from which we dial into Industry Canada's strategic service.

.1700

As the video said, there are six categories of information, and I'll just go through them quickly. If you see anything you'd like me to explore further, just let me know.

With regard to market trade and investment, this is the area in which we try to help businesses find information about market opportunities. For example, International Business Information Network is information that was developed with the help of Foreign Affairs on market opportunities from around the world whereby we can help businesses find and explore contacts from other places.

There are international business strategies that were developed by government. There are international business development activities and events, key international contacts, international business information, and procurement opportunities. Let's just take a look at procurement opportunities. Right now the procurement opportunities are all those proposals from the World Bank that a lot of Canadian businesses don't know about. We can go in and take a look at it by country.

Let's say we want to explore opportunities in either Africa or Europe. Let's say we want to look at Latin and South America. All of the countries in Latin and South America are listed, so we can pick any one. Let's go to Jamaica. There is a listing of six opportunities there. Let's look at Caribbean waste management projects. This is the first time I've seen this document. It is a waste management project asked for by the region in Latin America. There will be a description of what the project is all about. There will be information about how to tender information and information about where to send your proposals to. That is an example of the type of information this contains.

We can also go to another product just to be.... As I said, stop me at any time if you want me to explore anything in more detail.

We can look at trade data on-line. For example, now that you have found that there is information, you want to export some things to Jamaica. Now you want to find out maybe a little more about Jamaica. What we have here is information about imports and exports. Every time anybody in Canada imports anything, they have to fill in a form in triplicate. Every time you export something, you fill in a form in quadruplicate. All that information is available from Revenue Canada. We have had that information passed on to Statistics Canada, where the sensitive information is stripped off. Now we have a very rich database of what is imported into Canada and what is exported out of Canada.

What we've discovered is that - and I suppose everybody knows - more than 80% of our trade is with the U.S. Therefore, if we want to explore the U.S. market, we have to have information about where the U.S. is importing its things from also. We did an exchange with the U.S. Revenue Service so that we also have its custom information, so we know where the U.S. imports and exports come from.

Let's look at imports from the U.S. We can pick anything. I'll pick shoes. One of the interesting things as I'm going through here is that.... I want to take a look at the top ten countries the U.S. imports their shoes, sandals, slippers, and leather soles from. When we first built the thing, we thought it was very simple. We'd take the Statistics Canada information and go search it. The first thing we searched for, because it was around dinner time, was beef and steak. We couldn't find steak, beef, cows, or steers. Statisticians call them bovine. So we had to build a thesaurus around it so that now it's easily searchable. So the U.S. imports most of its shoes from Italy, Spain, Brazil, and also India. We can have that displayed in a graph.

This is the import trend of leather shoes in the U.S. The blue is Italy; it looks like it's dropping. The green is Spain; it looks more or less stable. The pink is Brazil, and the white is India, which seems to be improving.

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For a small-businessman without the service, a similar report is extremely difficult to find. You have to hire a consultant and probably spend many thousands of dollars for somebody to hunt through all this information in order to generate a graph like this, which they can easily put into their business plan and use to make good business decisions. Now it is available with the click of a finger.

There's another feature in here that we can take a look at. We want to do business with Jamaica. So let's take a look at Jamaica and what Canada is importing from Jamaica.

A voice: It's probably rum.

Mr. Waung: We'll see if you're right.

A voice: But which kind is it, dark or light?

Mr. Waung: What it's doing now is searching through a very big database of about two billion bytes of statistics, searching through everything that is imported from Jamaica. The report is still being loaded.

What it has picked up are our top 25 imports from Jamaica. It looks as if our biggest import is aluminum oxides; second is rum - you were right; third is T-shirts; fourth is denatured ethylene - whatever that is; papaya; arrowroot; and so on.

Again, very quickly we found out what Canada's top 25 imports from Jamaica are. Again, that is a very good service for a businessman who is trying to find import-export opportunities with that country.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): I'll stop you there for a second and put it into the context of a member of Parliament who has a constituent coming in, a small-business person who is embarking on a new product and wants to do some research. Given the tools that we have at our disposal, what can we do for them?

Mr. Waung: There are a number of things we can do.

First, we can give them our Internet address. If your client has an Internet address, all they have to do is sign and from their own desk they'll get exactly what you see here.

Another thing is that if you have a terminal that is connected to the Internet, they can do the search from your office.

We also have in here a database of Canadian companies. The purpose of this database is so people can search it to find a company that supplies a certain commodity or service. For example, we can do a search for multimedia companies. This search can be limited to multimedia companies that are exporting to a certain location or are doing a certain amount of work. What it has found are 106 multimedia companies in Canada, and we have a file on each of these.

For example, let's take a look at integrated communications and entertainment, which is a typical file of a company that we will have. It'll give the legal name and the operating name of the company, its home address, a description of what the company is doing, the products it makes. It also has an e-mail address, so you can send the company an e-mail message if you have any inquiries about it. This company has also its web site address listed. From here we can jump to the company's web site.

Now we're out of our Industry Canada computer and we're into this company's computer system. I believe this company is in Toronto. Let's go back to Industry Canada, which is here.

For companies that want to be listed on the service, all they have to do is come here and register themselves so others can find them. When they register, they have to fill in a number of forms that give details about who they are, what they make, their point of contact - if they have a web page, how to link to them, or if they have an e-mail address, how to link with them. When they fill it in, they will give themselves a password so that they will be the only people who can come on and update the file.

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Once this file is filled out, we will pass it on to an Industry officer just to verify that this is a legitimate firm. We do not want high school students coming in to make fictitious firms.

Once this verification process is complete, it will go into the database. Anybody from around the world who comes to this service wanting to find a Canadian firm that makes a specific product with certain capability can find that firm. Again, that is a service you can give to people coming to your offices: help them register into this service.

Also in here is a service that helps companies make presentations to potential investors, especially potential foreign investors. That is another thing that small business has told us. A lot of times, a foreign investor comes in and we'll give them a presentation.

You guys have all the economists who can do all of this stuff; here it is only me. So what we have is a whole bunch or presentation slides ready-made for them. The first slide has to do with ``why invest in Canada?'' It is just a series of slides that gives them the ten best reasons to invest in Canada. All that is available to them very quickly. It talks about our economy and our GDP growth. I won't go through this whole deck. We also have more detailed slides, once they know they can invest in Canada. We intend to have sectoral files also.

For example, say you're in the automotive or forest products industry. Let's go to the forest products industry. They will give you a whole profile of why you should invest in Canada's forest products industry. This file can be downloaded to the client's own computer. They can take it along, make changes to it, make presentations, or it can be presented right here on the Internet. They will find a series of slides that talk about Canada's forestry industry, or any other industry that we'll have on-line at that time.

The next series of products we have is an industry prospectus. One of the information resources of the Department of Industry is that we look after some 17 industry sectors.

In order to respond to those questions you were asking, for example, to Mike Binder, his sector has a lot of experts. They know everything about telecommunications, where the technology is going, where regulations are going, both in Canada and abroad, the development trends, and the economic trends. The sources of information used by Mike Binder's people and his experts are all available from the information technologies base.

Once again, the information resources of Industry Canada are now available to everybody in Canada. Within this, we have documents about the software industry, computer microelectronics, new media and entertainment, strategic alliances, and advanced networks. Each one of those is an area of lots of details, specific documents and advice geared specifically for that industry sector. A lot of industry sectors are already up; there will be more coming. It ranges all the way down the alphabet from advanced material and aerospace to software and transportation.

So far, we have covered the top two areas of our service.

Traffic jam time for the Internet is 5 p.m. because everybody checks it before they go home from the office.

The third area has to do with technology and innovation. I won't go over this, because you've already seen some of the services, like Trans-forum and Technology Gateway, whereby you can get information about technology, such as laboratories, some of the latest development in technology, licensable technologies, and the like. We also have information about microeconomic analysis.

Here is where we have the information about the economy, research publications, and monthly economic indicators. These are reports that we provide to senior decision-makers in the governments about where the economy is going. Businesses tell us that if it's good enough for government, it's good enough for them. So we're providing it to them also.

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We also have provincial overviews. This is information about overviews of the economic situation and the industrial situation in all of our provinces. These reports are prepared by experts in our regional office. They're made available through the Internet.

Let's look at the one for Alberta. It gives an overview of the economy in Alberta, with the main economic indicators, the mood of the province and the key industrial sectors. It also gives you the name of the author so that if anybody has any questions or has a bone to pick about the analysis he can always get in touch with the author. It is just a click of the mouse away. You can send the author e-mail to ask why he analysed it that way or to say you need more information in certain areas.

All of that is basic to our philosophy: we want to make the resources of Industry Canada available to businesses. We have a lot of experts. Businessmen who have tried to navigate through the blue pages of the phone book to find anybody in government say they give up after the fifteenth phone call. They have been bounced around but this way they can zoom right in to the expert in that field.

Other information we have here has to do with helping businesses manage more efficiently. This came as a surprise to us. When we did our consultations with them and asked what information they needed they said they needed information on management. We went back to them and said, ``You want government to help you manage?'' They said: ``No. What we need is information about where we can get that kind of assistance. For example, we know that there are a lot of business schools. We know that associations offer courses. We just need one place where all that information is.''

We collected all of this information in one place and now they can do searches from there. There is a research centre that can be used to find the information.

I can search by organization. We can search marketing research organizations. There will be a list of market facts. Here is a firm that will provide this kind of help in market research. Again, it is to help businesses, especially the smaller ones, find resources where they can find marketing help.

From there, we can also find information about SchoolNet, about the national graduate register you've heard about and about Canada's special services centres.

Last but not least, it's a marketplace service. These are the services Industry Canada offers to keep the market operating efficiently, such as how to incorporate a company, information about the Small Businesses Loans Act, information about how to protect intellectual property, whether it's copyright or industrial design, information on spectrum management, how to apply for a radio licence and how to deal with competition. It's all the way down the list.

We also have lobbyist registration, our latest addition to our family of products, with a brief description of what the lobbyist regulation requirements are. Lobbyists can register on-line. You can search the data on-line also. It tells you about the code of ethics and about all of the information that ordinary businesses will have a difficult time finding.

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We also made the system easy to use. These buttons are all over every single page, so any time they have a problem they can send it to our hotline service. Right now our guarantee is that at the end of the next business day, they will get a reply. The reply might be that we've found out about their problem or that we're working on it, but they will get a reply.

One of our design criteria is that we have to respond to what people think about the service and that we'll continuously change and improve, so there's a survey form built in. In our testing, we're getting lots of very useful advice on how to make the service better. It is also linked to many of the other Internet sites in Canada and around the world that provide business information, again as a service that we provide so that people can find the information quickly.

On top of the buttons, we have information about the site map. What we found was that people were saying the information bases are so wide and scattered that they have a tendency to get lost. So any time anybody is lost, they can click on that and it will give them a map to tell them where we are in the service. And of course there's always help available at a search.

So that is a very quick run-through of what the service provides, and I'll be happy to answer questions or do any searches that you would like us to do.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): Thank you very much.

Are there any questions? Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Lastewka: Do you have a promotional video that summarizes what you just said and that we could view?

Mr. Waung: Yes, there's the video that I showed you earlier. It can be made available to you if you wish.

Mr. Lastewka: That's the one, eh?

Mr. Waung: It's a five-minute video.

Ms Skoke: Better still, is there anyone in your department who will come to the riding and promote this? Is that available?

Mr. Waung: Sure, we would love to. All of our regional officers are trained in this, and they love to do these kinds of things.

Ms Skoke: Okay.

Mr. Shepherd: On that point, are you anticipating that people will ask for that service? Are you anticipating that you will actually do a demonstration, possibly in their offices or with a community-based group like the chamber of commerce or something like that?

Mr. Waung: We are anticipating that organizations such as the chambers of commerce will be organizing little events to which we will be invited, and our officers from regional offices will participate and give presentations. We cannot handle a lot of the one-on-one types of presentations, but we are relying on the chambers and other associations to organize these events so that we can spread the word as quickly as possible.

Mr. Shepherd: So do we have sufficient back-up to maintain the integrity of this system? In other words, that data.... I presume you're plugged in to Stats Canada now that it's currently being updated.

Mr. Waung: Yes. The beauty of this system is that the data is alive because it is the data that we at Industry Canada use ourselves to run our own business. If you talk about numbers, there are about 300 people who work on this because it is part of their daily life. People in Mike Binder's office, for example, get documents about the OECD because they're visiting there and the documents are put in there. So the information is constantly refreshing. There is certain information we are getting from Stats Canada. When they update their information, it will be automatically updated here also.

Mr. Shepherd: Another area of concern we hear about from small and medium-sized businesses is financing. You talked about international investors. What about a site that would just try to do a matching routine between small businesses and possible domestic investors?

Mr. Waung: There is one thing that I did not show you because the technology is not working yet. In the managing-your-business area, we have a convention floor on which we would essentially like to run on-going electronic conferences - essentially, people can get together and discuss issues. One of those conferences is on financing, so that we can bring together potential people who have advice to give, people who are looking for investment opportunities, and people who are seeking investors. They can then all discuss things in a forum environment; they can speak to each other electronically in a virtual forum.

Mr. Shepherd: [Inaudible - Editor].

Mr. Waung: But the technology for that is still not there. We may be a month away from launching that.

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Mr. Shepherd: Well, you've done quite well up to there.

Mr. Binder: But the key to all of this is just to remind everybody. We launched it this morning formally with the Prime Minister. The true test now will be in the market, where customers will tell us how good or bad it is or what needs to be changed. So this will be updated continuously as we go along.

Mr. Shepherd: That raises another interesting point, for accountants, lawyers, and so forth. Obviously, if I can just put my name on there and advertise my services as a free service to me.... Looking down the road of the government's orientation toward user fees, is it anticipated that in the future we're going to charge people for getting on this system, at least those who want to advertise and promote their services?

Mr. Waung: What we're telling people is that in about six month's to a year's time we will be putting a charge on it. What that charge will be we have not decided yet. We are working together with the private sector, with the sector that does electronic publishing, so that we will get some advice from them on how to fund the thing.

One of the last things we want to do is enter into the market as a free service and disrupt the markets for these services. What we want to do is have a very healthy business information marketplace so that the private sector people, like consultants, who want to add value to information like this can do so and sell it at a profit.

So we are speaking to the Information Technology Association of Canada, which has established a forum with all the marketers of these. One of the top items we'll discuss is a pricing policy, how we will price the thing. Our basic objective is that we want to make sure that accessibility is maintained for all in Canada.

On the other side, we do not want to jeopardize the market forces that play in providing those kinds of services.

Ms Skoke: My children have the Internet at home and they use it all the time. Their biggest complaint is that there's a delay in obtaining the information. I noticed today that you seemed to be able to access the information very quickly. What's the difference? What's the problem at home?

Mr. Waung: First, there's no magic that we're doing here.

Ms Skoke: I'm from Nova Scotia and we use the telephone lines. Is there a problem? Is there a difference?

Mr. Binder: He's using the Cadillac version. This is the new Sympatico - right?

Mr. Waung: First of all, it is a rather fast modem. It is the 28.8-megabyte modem.

Ms Skoke: That's what the kids want.

Mr. Waung: That makes a difference. If you look at the price, technology is moving so fast that we call them web years. A web year is about two months. Every two months you have a new version.

Ms Skoke: So that explains it. Thank you.

Mr. Waung: Things that now are industrial, in the laboratory, in two month's time are common, everyday, on the marketplace.

With a faster modem, you will see a vast improvement in the speed.

Mr. Binder: It'll come. The service is rolling across the country and other services have time to compete. It's not going to be here tomorrow, but maybe next month. Those things are rolling as more and more customers are logging on.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Valeri): I want to take this opportunity to thank the witnesses for their excellent presentations today. The information you've provided certainly will help us as we go back into our ridings in the coming weeks. The suggestion made by a number of members to have these demonstrations in the ridings is one to which perhaps we should give thought, and establishing a formal mechanism to do that. We would certainly be interested in seeing that in our ridings and applying in essence what you've shown us here today.

Just before we adjourn the meeting, I'd like to advise the members that we have meetings set for Thursday, April 18, to deal with the main estimates. On April 18 we'll deal with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. On April 24 we'll be continuing the discussion on main estimates, focusing on FORD-Q, the Federal Office of Regional Development in Quebec.

This meeting stands adjourned.

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