Post Tagged with: "digital economy"

By Neal Jennings (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Digital Canada 150: Why the Canadian Strategy Misses Key Issues and Lags Behind Peer Countries

In my first post on Digital Canada 150, Canada’s digital strategy, I argued that it provided a summation of past accomplishments and some guidance on future policies, but that it was curiously lacking in actual strategies and goals. Yesterday I reviewed how Canada’s universal broadband access target lags behind much of the OECD (Peter Nowak characterizes the target as the Jar Jar Binks of the strategy). The problems with Digital Canada 150 extend far beyond connectivity, however.  In comparing the Canadian strategy with countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom, it becomes immediately apparent that other countries offer far more sophisticated and detailed visions for their digital futures. While there is no requirement that Canada match other countries on specific goals, it is disappointing that years of policy development – other countries were 5 to 10 years ahead of Canada – ultimately resulted in a document short on strategy, specifics, and analysis.

For example, compare the clarity of goals between Canada and the Australia strategy:

Read more ›

April 9, 2014 1 comment News

Digital Canada 150: Why Canada’s Universal Broadband Goal is Among the Least Ambitious in the OECD

The release of Digital Canada 150, the federal government’s long-awaited digital strategy, included a clear connectivity goal: 98 percent access to 5 Mbps download speeds by 2019. While the government promises to spend $305 million on rural broadband over the next five years and touts the goal as “a rate that enables e-commerce, high-resolution video, employment opportunities and distance education”, the reality is that Canada now has one of the least ambitious connectivity goals in the developed world. 

Just how badly does the government’s connectivity ambitions compare to other OECD countries? Consider just some of the target speeds from other countries as compiled three years ago by the OECD:

Read more ›

April 8, 2014 11 comments News

Digital Canada 150: The Digital Strategy Without a Strategy

Four years after the Canadian government first announced plans to develop a digital economy strategy, Industry Minister James Moore traveled to Waterloo, Ontario, Friday for the release of Digital Canada 150. The long-awaited strategy document identifies five key areas for policy development: connecting Canadians, protecting the online environment, developing commercial opportunities, digital government, and Canadian content.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues the release of Digital Canada 150 succeeds on at least three levels. First, it puts to rest the longstanding criticism that the government is uninterested in digital issues. Moore quickly emerged as the government’s digital leader after taking the reins at Industry Canada, promptly focusing on wireless competition, spam regulation, and now a digital strategy. After years of complaints that the digital strategy issue was Ottawa’s equivalent of the “Penske File” – all talk and no action – Moore has acted.

Read more ›

April 5, 2014 6 comments Columns

Canadian Digital Strategy Takes Shape With 2014 Budget

Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 15, 2014 as Digital Strategy Finally Takes Shape With Federal Budget In 2010, the Canadian government launched a consultation on developing a national digital strategy. Despite obvious interest from provincial governments, technology companies, and the public, the issue has languished for years. Successive […]

Read more ›

February 15, 2014 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

It’s (Almost) Here: Why the Canadian Digital Strategy Takes Shape With Budget 2014

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a post about how the Canadian digital economy strategy seemed to be taking shape. The government had moved on several legislative issues including copyright and spam, it was bringing together federal and provincial ministers to discuss the issue, the open government initiative was on the way, and telecom policy was beginning to emerge as a major concern. All that was missing was an announcement, identification of some targets, and the signal that this was a priority. While I’m told that some in government also saw it this way, then-Industry Minister Christian Paradis let the moment slip away and the entire digital strategy become little more than a punchline.

Yesterday’s federal budget marks the revival of the Canadian digital strategy. The government will undoubtedly still point to past accomplishments (the budget references reforms that date back to the 2006, so digital economy activities from several years ago are surely fair game), but this budget provides many of the remaining ingredients for a digital strategy (Mark Goldberg offers a similar perspective). Once again, all that is left is missing is the official announcement from Industry Minister James Moore. So what will the Canadian digital strategy contain? Based on this budget, it would seem to include:

Read more ›

February 12, 2014 8 comments News