Editorial: Canada’s poor ICT ranking rings alarms

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) 2007 ranking of global ICT readiness, Canada has lost its information-technology edge. The only way for this country to regain its earlier, more positive position is to address some classic bugbears.In a white paper published with IBM Corp., the EIU says it changed the way it measures a country's ICT readiness this year, putting more emphasis on government policy and vision, as well as how a population uses technology. That helped some developing nations increase their scores, but it hurt Canada. While we took ninth place in 2006, we're now in 13th, "owing to a slightly reduced social and cultural environment score, and a lower rating for government policy and vision than other developed-market peers," reads the EIU's paper.This poor showing should come as no surprise. It mirrors many of the comments that business and technology-industry observers have made recently. More than a few business analysts decry Canada's poor productivity levels, and high-tech organizations such as the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) have long associated our dismal productivity showing with our relative reluctance to invest in IT equipment.The EIU's results also reflect the government's apparent apathy regarding technological advancement. Whereas federal overseers used to wring their hands over broadband penetration rates, Ottawa has apparently ceded responsibility for bridging the digital divide between rural and urban Canada to the private sector, namely service providers and network equipment makers. While other countries provide tax incentives for business IT investments, the capital costs of keeping up with the digital Joneses represent a heavy financial burden for companies here.Technology-industry advocates are lobbying the government on the tax front, and small communities all over the country are developing innovative broadband strategies. Those efforts will help. But telecom and IT managers in charge of communication technologies in Canadian organizations also have a role to play: encourage intelligent investments - technologies to solve genuine business issues - within their own companies. By shifting our governmental, community and cultural attitudes, we'll fare well in the increasingly global economy, and see our EIU ranking rise in the future.

Editorial: Canada’s poor ICT ranking rings alarms

News | June 26, 2007

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