Canada needs a flexible federal smart city strategy, committee hears

Canada is years behind other jurisdictions when it comes to government attention on the development of smart cities, Bill Hutchison, president of the i-Canada Alliance, an organization focused on the development of intelligent communities, told a Parliamentary committee Thursday. “At the federal level, our government is becoming interested in smart cities five years after the U.K. … and four years after the U.S. national government,” he said during his appearance at the House standing committee on transport, infrastructure, and communities. The committee began a study of infrastructure and smart communities earlier this year. While some cities are “pearls of excellence” and are making progress in this sphere, “now we need to string them together to create a necklace of excellence,” he said. There have also been calls for a national strategy for the Internet of Things (IoT), on which many smart city initiatives would be deployed. At the same time, the federal government needs to avoid being too proscriptive, Hutchison added. “Don’t try to develop the federal strategy… fund small cities, fund big ones and have competitions. They will decide what they need,” he said, noting that “our cities are all different, and they have different capabilities, and different goals.” Vicki-May Hamm, mayor of Magog, Que., told the committee that while large cities might focus on transit, smaller cities might focus on other initiatives, like the smart weather stations that give information on road conditions that Magog has begin implementing. Towns need to adapt technologies to their own needs, she said in French, according to simultaneous translation. Cathy Heron, co-founder and councillor of the Alberta Smart City Alliance, said the federal digital strategy should be amended to include smart cities. “It will harmonize the country,” she said. The private sector and telecoms will also need to play a significant role and work closely with cities, said Sehl Mellouli, a professor at Université Laval’s faculty of business administration. “I don’t know how you would force companies to develop this connectivity, but we have to create the conditions to make sure all citizens have access to digital services, especially those who are not connected now,” he said in French.

Canada needs a flexible federal smart city strategy, committee hears

Brief | February 16, 2017

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Canada needs a flexible federal smart city strategy, committee hears

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