2 www.lexpert.ca
Editorial
fortuna favet fortibus
ISSUE 22.01
>
FEBRUARY
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Tim Wilbur
SENIOR EDITOR
Elizabeth Raymer
EDITOR
Zena Olijnyk
NEWS EDITOR
Aidan Macnab
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Patricia Cancilla
WRITER
Bernise Carolino
DESIGNER
Ace Dequina
PRESIDENT
Tim Duce
VP, MEDIA & CLIENT STRATEGY
Dane Taylor
SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Steffanie Munroe
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Lynda Fenton
NATIONAL ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Abhiram Prabhu
CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
Amie Suttie
amie.suttie@keymedia.com
Lexpert Special Edition Magazine is published
six times a year. KEY MEDIA and the KEY MEDIA logo
are trademarks of Key Media IP Limited, and used under
licence by Key Media Canada (Law) Ltd.
LEXPERT is a trademark of Key Media Canada (Law) Ltd.
Key Media Canada (Law) Ltd
20 Duncan St. 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON M5H 3G8
Tel: (416) 609-8000 Fax: (416) 609-5840
Website: www.lexpert.ca
All rights reserved. Contents may not
be reprinted without written permission.
Lexpert® Magazine is printed in Canada.
PUBLICATION MAIL REGISTRATION
NO. 41261516. ISSN1488-6553
Copyright© Key Media Canada (Law) Ltd
All rights reserved.
GST/HST#: 79989 8465 RC-0001
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
tim.wilbur@keymedia.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS/ADDRESS CHANGES
Contact: Donnabel Reyes at (647) 374-4536 ext.
243 or email donnabel.reyes@keymedia.com. Annual
subscription costs C$175. To change your subscription
address, please send your new address along with a
copy of your mailing label(s) to the Subscription Dept.,
at the address indicated above. For all other circulation
inquiries, please email Donnabel Reyes.
T
echnology is everywhere these days, from our kitchen table Zoom calls
to the peak of the stock markets. COVID has forced the world to shi
to virtual communications and fast track medical products and services
that rely on complex technologies. Tech IPOs are on fire and the stock price for
companies such as Shopify are shooting past blue-chip banks.
Perry Dellelce of Wildeboer Dellelce LLP lived through the tech bubble
years of the 1990s and says this time it is different (p. 10). Most companies
being financed now have substantive business plans and operations,
Dellelce says.
But there are still big challenges for Canadian tech. ere has been less U.S.
venture investment in Canada since the pandemic, Jamie Firsten of Goodmans
LLP says (p. 4), because the U.S. venture capitalists can't travel to meet with
founders. The pandemic has also created problems in admitting foreign
workers, with the Canada Border Services Agency preventing workers from
entering the country even with visas (p. 22).
Many Canadian tech companies are also finding it difficult to scale to
the level of the big tech, which is oen due to a lack of intellectual property
protection, says Roch Ripley of Gowling WLG (p. 21). "You look at our GDP
per capita and our productivity relative to the Americans, and it's not trending
in the right direction. And I think, to a very large degree, it's because we don't
do a good job of commercializing intellectual assets, which is really the asset of
the 21st century."
And perhaps most significantly for the long term, Canada has just
introduced a radical overhaul of its privacy regime. While part of the impetus
for this legislation is for Canadian companies to compete in an increasingly
global world, says Laila Paszti of Norton Rose Fulbright LLP (p. 17), "it will
negatively impact companies . . . because they will have to grapple with how
this will affect their processing of personal information and how it will require
them to retool their data platforms."
But tech entrepreneurs, and the legal experts who advise them, are
accustomed to change. COVID and new legal regimes are just the latest
challenges in their ascendency that shows no sign of stopping.
Tim Wilbur, Editor-in-Chief
The meteoric ascendance
(and challenges) of tech
