Eleven percent of the Canadian economy is health care. That is the single largest sector of our economy. And if you think about how we’re set up, relative to some of our major competitors, we have large health-care markets — large, unified health-care markets. Size actually does matter in the data-driven economy. So, the quality of an algorithm that you build, an AI algorithm or a machine-learning algorithm, on a large set of data is simply better than a similar algorithm on a smaller set of data. So, when size matters and you’ve got single, large, unified markets, you can take advantage of that. So, we’re in a position to be able to lead.

The structure of our Canadian health-care system, the single-payer aspect, gives us a number of structural benefits, the most of important of which is our power to drive some sort of centralization through procurement and standards. So, if you’re using the public purse and the public procurement power, to be able to say to firms and to your entire health system, that data needs to become accessible for secondary use. And by secondary use what we mean is the ability to create additional products on top of that data.

We also have something else that’s really unique, and that’s an incredibly diverse population. And that takes several different forms. So, you’ve got some monolithic populations in parts of the country, so you’ve got genetic homogeneity in places like Newfoundland, which actually can be hugely beneficial from a health-care perspective because you can start to identify genetic differences. And then you’ve got diversity, so, we’ve got people from all over the world. And the data that comes from that diversity is incredibly valuable to be able to build tools that you can export to other parts of the world.

In the first generation of the data-driven economy, you had companies that mined your data without your knowledge. Tomorrow that won’t be quite so easy. We’re creating a new generation of people who are more hypersensitive and hyperaware to how their data is being used.

So, we have a choice. Either, we are transparent with people who are providing their data and we create a new social contract that allows their data to be protected, for them to know how it’s being used, for them to participate in how it’s being used. Unless we create that new social contract, people are going to withdraw their data sets and as people withdraw, or withdraw their data, the data sets shrink. Only with that trust, are we in a position to move forward on leadership through health data.