Clement meets with provincial ministers to talk digital skills, technology adoption

In advance of a digital economy strategy expected this spring, Industry Minister Tony Clement met with provincial economic ministers in Montreal in January to discuss digital skills and technology adoption. Provincial ministers who attended the meeting say the strategy should focus on developing the infrastructure necessary to encourage businesses to adopt information and communications technologies (ICTs). “So much of the increases in productivity are related to the take-up of business information technology. We have to be certain that we have the right infrastructure to allow that to happen easily, no matter where you are in the country,” Sandra Pupatello, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, who attended the meeting, said in an interview. Pupatello said at the meeting the provinces set up working groups aimed at researching how best to marry the information and communications technology sector with businesses in need of technology upgrades. “We really have to imbed a higher level of knowledge, amongst the industry at large, of the benefit of IT in their business.” Pupatello said she is hopeful the establishment of the working groups will help the national digital economy strategy finally get moving, following numerous delays. In an interim report about Industry Canada’s digital economy strategy released in November, Clement said the department plans to formally launch the strategy in the spring. Some observers speculate that the strategy may be released as a part of the federal budget in March. Sheridan Scott, a partner at Bennett Jones LLP who has been following the implementation of national digital strategies internationally, said in an interview that an element of the digital economy strategy in Canada could be tax incentives for research and development. “There has been a focus on research and development and the possibility of giving incentives to small and medium-sized business. This is an area where the government believes we should be driving faster adoption of technologies that will drive productivity,” she said. But it’s unclear how much the Conservative government will be willing to spend in the budget this year. In what is being considered a period of austerity budgets, the government says it will release a budget plan this spring to eliminate its $45-billion deficit by the end of the 2015-2016 fiscal year. Allan V. Campbell, Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning for Prince Edward Island, said in an interview that the meeting with Clement focused on broadband, infrastructure development, and education. “As a country, we invested a lot of money to bring high-speed Internet to rural areas. Now we need to make sure we can maximize what we can gain from it,” he said. Campbell said a large role for the provinces in the strategy will be providing education and training. “ make sure not only has the infrastructure to work with, but we are living in the knowledge economy. We must continue to focus on education and skills development. We are facing skilled labour shortages right across the country.” Scott said she wonders whether provincial education ministers are also getting involved in the government’s plans. “In federal-provincial conversations that recently took place in Australia, there was an agreement on an allocation of money that went to the country’s states because they have the responsibility for education,” she said. Australia recently implemented a national digital education plan to increase childhood digital literacy. The plan includes deploying broadband into all schools, Scott said. Scott said she believes it is very important to ensure that Canada has a trained labour force to support the digital economy, an area that has been out of federal jurisdiction until now. “The federal and provincial governments work hand-in-hand when it comes to learning, training, and the continuous progress from children to workers in the workplace, and making sure that people are really literate with this new media,” she said. Ida Chong, Minister of Small business, Technology and Economic Development for British Columbia, who also participated in the meeting, said that having a strong, digitally literate workforce does not only come from education. “You want to have the people to fill the jobs. We need to make sure we have enough people in Canada. Economic growth is highly dependent on population growth, and we aren’t populating the way we were in the baby boomer age. This means immigration is going to be hugely important for Canada,” she said. Jim Kenyon, Minister of Economic Development for Yukon, said in an interview that the major issue facing the territories is not a lack of computers in schools, but reliable Internet connections. “We have a single fibre-optic line that runs from Yukon down through B.C. and into Edmonton. If that gets dug up at any point, our province loses Internet for hours,” Kenyon said. Although Industry Canada is implementing Broadband Canada, a large-scale project to provide broadband connections to rural Canadians, Scott said she expects more broadband funding to be announced in the strategy. “There is no real sense of completion with broadband because we are looking at more and more aggressive targets. Some countries are looking towards 100 Mbps services,” she said. “Broadband is going to be the lifeblood of the digital economy. It’s something where investments are going to be continuous,” Scott said. Chong, the B.C. minister, added that Clement is interested in encouraging technology adoption among small and medium sized-businesses. “This is why Minister Clement is so interested and wants all of the economic development ministers to become champions of the information, communications and technology sector,” Chong said. Pupatello said the federal government should aim high due to the exponential growth of digital industries. “It’s hard for governments to catch up, let alone get ahead of the curve in this business. We really need to do some reaching here and pick a target that is way out there, because chances are really good that business product development is going to beat us there anyway.” She added: “I would rather not be talking about a 10G world while Japan’s talking about a 100G world.” Industry Canada spokesman Michel Cimpaye said by email that the meeting in Montreal was productive. “ agreed to work collaboratively on issues in support of the digital economy, including the importance of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) adoption by Canadian businesses and the needs of the ICT sector in Canada, in particular in the area of human talent. Follow up work will be undertaken by officials in the near future,” Cimpaye said. asmith@thewirereport.ca

Clement meets with provincial ministers to talk digital skills, technology adoption

News | February 9, 2011

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