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

Digital Economy

Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy: The E-commerce Targets Revealed

The government posted its Reports on Plans and Priorities for dozens of departments and agencies yesterday. The Industry Canada report makes for interesting reading as there is a section on the still missing Digital Economy Strategy that includes targets for e-commerce buying and selling in Canada. The department states:

Industry Canada will continue to implement measures in support of the Digital Economy Strategy to accelerate adoption of digital technologies, promote trust and confidence in the online marketplace and foster a globally competitive ICT sector based on a modern legislative framework, a robust digital infrastructure and a digitally skilled workforce.

Leaving aside the fact that there is no digital economy strategy – or at least the government has still not released the long overdue document – the report also includes a target to determine whether the Canadian online economy is “governed by an effective policy and regulatory framework.” The government’s performance indicator is the percentage of Canadians buying and selling online, with the targets set at 43% of Canadians buying and 15% selling.

May 9, 2012 — 4 comments — News

Industry Committee Releases E-commerce Study

The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has released its final report on e-commerce in Canada (I appeared before the committee last October). The report has sixteen recommendations, but none are particularly innovative or surprising. They include emphasizing e-commerce in the forthcoming digital economy strategy, increasing affordability of Internet […]

May 8, 2012 — Comments are Disabled — News

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before: Digital Economy Strategy Coming Later This Year

Industry Minister Christian Paradis spoke at the Canada 3.0 conference in Stratford yesterday, providing an update on the government’s digital economy plans. Paradis trumpeted some of the measures in the budget as well as the trio of related laws – privacy reform, copyright reform, and anti-spam legislation (which he indicated […]

April 25, 2012 — 6 comments — News

Cutting Community Internet Access Program Highlights Absence of Digital Strategy

The recent federal budget was a hefty 498 pages, but my weekly technology law column (Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) notes it still omitted disclosing the decision to eliminate funding for the Community Access Program, Canada’s longstanding initiative to provide an Internet access alternative for those without connectivity. The world has changed dramatically since the CAP was first launched in 1995, but the decision to cut it without establishing alternative solutions for low-income Canadians who are not online is a disappointing development that highlights yet again the absence of a national digital strategy from Industry Minister Christian Paradis.

The CAP was once a foundational element in the federal government’s effort to connect Canadians. In the late 1990s, many did not have Internet access at home and wireless data plans were still years away. Today, the majority of Canadians have residential broadband access as well as wireless connectivity through their smartphones or other devices.

The decision to cut the CAP therefore does not come as a surprise.

April 18, 2012 — 9 comments — Columns

Penske File No More? The Canadian Digital Economy Strategy Inches Forward

The lack of progress on the Canadian digital economy strategy has been a source of frustration for many as the still-unreleased strategy has been largely missing in action. Late last year I dubbed it the government’s Penske File, a reference to the Seinfeld episode involving a non-existent work project. While Canada is still without a comprehensive strategy, elements have begun to emerge in recent weeks.

On the legislative and policy front, Bill C-11 has passed the committee stage and seems likely to race toward royal assent by the summer, last week’s unveiling of the telecom policy (including policies on the forthcoming spectrum auction and foreign ownership) puts to rest a major issue associated with the digital economy strategy, the CRTC recently published its final anti-spam regulations with Industry Canada expected to follow with theirs shortly, the open government initiative has been making considerable progress, and Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told the House of Commons on Thursday that Bill C-12 (the PIPEDA reform bill) may finally move forward next week.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis yesterday took another positive step by convening a federal – provincial ministerial meeting on the digital economy.

March 20, 2012 — 2 comments — News