Hon. Colin Deacon: This question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.

Senator Gold, in November 2020, the federal government announced a targeted $250-million investment over five years to support Canada’s innovative intellectual-property-rich firms. This was to be administered through the Strategic Innovation Fund.

You may recall that I recently shared my concern about Canada’s worrisome IP challenges, so you won’t be surprised that I fully support the intention of this initiative. However, two years later, a recent report in The Logic revealed that no funds have yet been deployed.

Senator Gold, when will Canadian companies start to receive this funding, incentivizing them to strengthen their IP portfolios, which is crucial to their global competitiveness?

Hon. Colin Deacon: Thank you, Senator Yussuff, for your speech.

This week there was a very good op-ed in The Hill Times from a Canadian prepaid credit card group talking about how a prepaid credit card for distributing the funds would allow for the funds to be restricted to use in dentistry and eliminate the need for the paper-based audit that has been promised in the future. This financial technology tool is something that I would hope was considered in the development of this program. If it wasn’t, could you perhaps at some point ask the officials why they didn’t consider it, other than it is just something that they viewed as being more complicated and didn’t even explore it? It would be a very easy way of preventing fraud. That is a criticism of a very good program. I would appreciate it if you could just reach out to the officials at some point and see whether or not this was even explored.

Senator Yussuff: Thank you, Senator Deacon, for the question.

As you know, there is a desire to get this program and the money that is associated with it as quickly as possible into the hands of parents who need it to help their children get access to basic dental care. In the context of doing so, the government, of course, has looked to the CRA, recognizing the experience they gained from CERB — the Canada Emergency Response Benefit — delivery to Canadians who needed it in a very short period of time. You are raising a valid point, and it should be considered in the future program delivery, working with the provinces and territories. I will certainly raise it with the minister and his staff for consideration for the future program, because I do believe clearly CRA can do this. There are processes in place to ensure they can prevent fraud. As you know, anyone determined to commit fraud can do so regardless of whatever measures you may put in place.

There is also, within the context of the CRA, delivery of this benefit to parents for their children’s needs. There are penalties should someone decide to commit fraud at the same time.

I do recognize you are raising an important point that should be thought about in a very coherent way, and I hope the government will consider that. Thank you.