i3 - July/August 2017 - 33

KEY AREAS
OF FOCUS

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Drone regulations
Artificial intelligence
Smart cities
Copyright review
Privacy review
"Super-clusters"
NAFTA and the digital economy

CTA looks forward to continuing its engagement with the
Canadian government to help
build and promote an innovation economy in the country.

Top David Kawai/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Navdeep Bains, Canada's minister of innovation, speaks after unveiling the "Innovation Wall"
during the CANSEC 2017 trade show in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on May 31, 2017.

Canadian households owning a television and three-quarters owning smartphones, digital cameras and laptops.
Armed with this research, CTA presented the findings to Heritage Canada
to inform its consultations on Canadian
content in a digital world. With so
many Canadians embracing consumer
technology, the government needs to
ensure policies are technology-agnostic
and avoid putting up barriers to access
content across a variety of devices.
From there, CTA made a splash at
Parliament Hill by hosting its first tech
demo and reception in November 2016.
CTA participated in seven meetings
with government decision makers, and
hosted 16 Members of Parliament and
C TA . t e c h / i 3

Senators, and more than 220 guests at
the evening reception and tech demo.
During the day, CTA met with
Innovation, Science and Economic
Development Canada, Heritage Canada,
Transport Canada and other officials to
discuss their priorities and contribute
to the government's thinking around frontof-mind projects, such as the Innovation
Agenda, recreational drone regulations
and Canadian content rules. At the tech
demo, CTA was called to testify on drones
at a House of Commons Transport
Committee hearing. On behalf of CTA,
I made the case for why drone regulations
should continue to be flexible and easy to
understand for recreational users in order
to boost compliance while at the same time

being friendly to innovators, who are part
of a relatively nascent, but emerging sector.
With the arrival of a new administration in Washington D.C. this January,
the Canadian government has moved
engagement with key players on Capitol
Hill to the top of its priority list. Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau has taken
pains to put key members of his team
into strategic positions on the CanadaU.S. file while engaging the whole
government in outreach to the new
administration in the interest of
positive relationship building.
When Canada's industry committee
visited D.C. on May 2, CTA hosted the
delegation of Members of Parliament
at CTA's Innovation House. There were
productive discussions about how
Canada and the U.S. could work together
to facilitate harmonization and joint
initiatives across the border to promote
innovation and the tech sector.
Going forward, consumer technology
companies should strive to be part of
a growing conversation inside and
outside of the Government of Canada
regarding key policy areas that range
from disruptive technologies to blockchain to artificial intelligence.
JULY/AUGUST 2017

http://www.cta.tech

i3 - July/August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - July/August 2017