The Liberals have released their election platform and included within the section on the economy is the outline of a digital economy strategy. The platform focuses on three key areas for the global economy, identifying the digital environment as one of the three. While the digital economy platform still requires […]
Post Tagged with: "digital economy"
Clement’s Digital Economy Strategy Speech
Industry Minister Tony Clement delivered an update on the digital economy strategy in a speech that was disappointingly short on specifics. There were some comments on timelines for spectrum auctions and foreign investment (heading into 2012), but no reference to open access or open data and no real benchmarks or […]
Pelmorex Calls on Government To Open Data
Pelmorex, which owns the Weather Network, makes the case for open data in its submission to the Digital Economy Strategy: The Government of Canada should continue and expand it practice of adopting digital technologies and making its own digital content freely available. An example of government’s success in this area […]
Opening Up Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy
Appeared in the Toronto Star on June 14, 2010 as Opening Up Canada's Digital Economy Strategy The federal government’s national consultation on a digital economy strategy is now past the half-way mark having generated a somewhat tepid response so far. The consultation document itself may bear some of the blame […]
Digital Strategy Consultation’s Unasked Questions: Who Leads? Who Pays?
Last week Industry Minister Tony Clement unveiled the government’s much-anticipated Digital Economy Strategy consultation. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the consultation is slated to run for two months and includes an online forum, face-to-face meetings, and a 40-page document that sets out key areas of concern. Five areas for discussion are identified: capacity to innovate, building a world-class digital infrastructure, growing the ICT industry, creating digital content, and building digital skills.
Skeptics will argue that the consultation is long overdue or perhaps even comes too late. Canada has inarguably lost considerable ground in comparison with many other countries around the world that were quicker to identify and implement digital strategies. While the delays have been marked by a gradual hollowing-out of the Canadian tech sector and sliding global rankings on network and wireless connectivity, Clement has firmly established himself as the most committed Industry Minister on digital issues since John Manley in the late 1990s.
Prioritizing digital issues is a first step toward remedying the situation, but a decade worth of policy neglect will not be solved overnight. Despite lingering doubts about whether the government is listening – many Canadians fear that last summer’s copyright consultation may be largely ignored – those concerned with Canada’s digital future can ill-afford to stay silent on the sidelines. I hope to address some of the substantive questions raised by the consultation in a future column, but the more immediate concern are two unasked questions that cut across all issues – who will lead the strategy and how will the government pay for it.
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