Government’s long-awaited digital strategy ‘nothing new’: analyst

A document released by Industry Minister James Moore Friday that outlines the government’s long-promised digital strategy includes “nothing new and nothing bold,” according to telecom analyst Jean-Francois Mezei of Vaxination Informatique. The government has already put in place many of the measures included in the strategy, Mezei said, making the document “more of a report card than a vision for the future.” The strategy, titled Digital Canada 150, includes many previously announced promises from the government, including money for rural broadband access, which it had already publicized in the government’s 2014 budget; a cap on wireless roaming fees, which was detailed in March; and $300 million in venture capital, which the government announced in January. The plan itself is organized under five broad topics: connecting Canadians, protecting Canadians, economic opportunities, digital government and Canadian content. “It's broad in scope, with very real deliverables that will modernize our approach to digital policy as a country,” Moore told reporters after the announcement, according to a transcript of the event held in Waterloo, Ont. on Friday. Members of the information technology and communications industries have been awaiting a formal digital economy strategy since mid-2009, and since then the government has held multiple consultations on the file, including a public consultation in 2010 and meetings with provincial ministers in 2012. Throughout that time, the document was referred to as the digital economy strategy, though Moore said Friday that name was no longer appropriate for the plan as it is now more comprehensive than a narrow economic strategy. To talk about it just in the economic context, Moore said, would be “very limiting.” Mezei said in a telephone interview that “we’ve been told, for five years, to wait for this digital strategy and they finally deliver a 25-page document that basically is just bragging about what they’ve already done.” One new announcement included in the document was an extra $200 million from the Business Development Bank of Canada that will be made available to help small and medium-sized businesses adopt new technology. Deputy chief economist of CIBC World Markets Benjamin Tal welcomed the move, saying it was “a step in the right direction." "If you look at anything to do with connectivity or high tech, the gap between large and small companies is still significant," he said in a phone interview on Friday. "Many small companies are able to use that high-tech media or applications but to a lesser extent than large companies because of the level of sophistication, a lack of technological support, and money." If the new funding is used correctly, he said, it could help Canada address the productivity gap between large and small companies and improve overall productivity in Canada. Monique Moreau, director of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which says on its website that it represents more than 109,000 small business owners across the country, said it was too early to know how effective the new money for small businesses would be. "In the past we've typically advocated for widespread benefits to small-business owners in particular on technology adoption," she said. "Things like tax credits tend to be more widely used than having individuals apply for a grant. We don't have the details on how this will be administered so whether small businesses can access it easily with little red tape remains to be seen.” At the announcement Friday, Moore also said that he would table legislation next week, titled the Digital Privacy Act, which updates the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), something that the government has attempted in the past. “This new Digital Privacy Act will give the privacy commissioner new powers and responsibilities to enforce and protect the privacy of individual Canadians as they venture increasingly online,” Moore said. Moore said that an NDP PIPEDA reform bill that was defeated in the House of Commons in January “went too far, in my view, in providing almost prosecutorial powers to the privacy commissioner. This one doesn’t do that. It provides new tools but it still has the ombudsman role for the privacy commissioner.” He said the legislation will mandate, among other measures, that companies who have sensitive customer information, such as credit card data, “if there’s any data breach, they can’t sit on it.” “They have to immediately inform those customers…they have to tell them about the mitigation that they’re putting in place to protect the information, and they also have to inform the privacy commissioner,” he said. He also promised legislation to come “later this calendar year” on network security. Moore said that the government plans to “have a policy in place where new equipment that’s being considered by networks is filtered through a policy process to make sure that it’s secure and then can be implemented.” “So rather than stigmatizing countries or equipment, you have a proper policy process,” he said. The Wire Report reported last year that concerns regarding the security of equipment manufactured by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. have caused issues for the Chinese company in many Western countries. Overall, analyst Mezei of Vaxination Informatique said that the digital strategy released by Moore on Friday contains “a lot of good things,” though there is nothing in the document to “bring Canada into a digital age. It doesn’t have that bang that will make us go over that fence and declare us to be a digital country.” Mezei also said that the government’s goal of Internet speeds of five megabits per second is “certainly not a bold move when you consider that in Australia, their very minimum for the remotest outback station is 12 Mbps.” He also said the announcement didn’t have enough detail about how that goal will achieved. “It would make more sense if the minister had explained how we’re going to achieve this 5 Mbps, more than just say we’ll have and see private business doing it,” he said. He said that when Australia first announced its National Broadband Network Plan, it set out specific goals of fibre-to-the-home access in cities, fixed wireless in rural areas and satellite for the outback. “They set out clear standards, and that’s what’s missing in our digital strategy,” he said. Byron Holland, president and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), said in a release that the document comes up short in its "lack of a vision for a digital Canada.” “Building a strong digital economy will involve many partners, from the private sector to governments, not-for-profits and academics. What I don't see in Digital Canada 150 is any engagement of or with these partners and the common goal they are supposed to work toward," he said. Advocacy group OpenMedia said in a release that the government “backtracks” in the new plan on a previous commitment by the CRTC to ensure all Canadians have access to Internet speeds of at least 5 Mbps by 2015. “The new strategy pushes back that target date to 2019, and merely promises that most (98%), but not all, Canadians will be covered - 700,000 Canadians will be left behind,” it said, adding that the target speed of 5 Mbps was “unambitious” and slower than targets set by the U.S. and the E.U. The Wire Report reported last month that the CRTC and Industry Canada have set different goals for achieving near-universal access of broadband Internet services in Canada. David Christopher, communications manager for OpenMedia, said in a telephone interview that entities like Australia, the U.S. and the E.U. have “far more forward-looking visions for the digital economy than what Canada’s stuck with.” He said the document released by the government was “a bit of a jumbled bag, really.” “They seem to have pulled together a bunch of previous announcements, warmed them up, stuck them all in together, put a ribbon on top, and called it a digital strategy,” he said. “That’s why we really said it looks like a digital strategy from the last five years than a digital strategy for the next five years.” Moore’s office declined a request for comments on Friday. Speaking with reporters after the announcement, Moore said that the strategy “is stuff that is ambitious but not controversial, and I think it'll be generally very well received,” according to a transcript. “There will always be those who think, well, you have these 39 but, you know, these three other things really would have made it even stronger. And that's fine. We won't necessarily rule out new ideas,” he said. “But for now, this policy has been long-time discussed and thought about, but these are 39 action items, deliverables, that will have a huge impact on making Canada more digital and prepared for the future.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and reporting and editing by Peter Henderson at phenderson@thewirereport.ca

Government’s long-awaited digital strategy ‘nothing new’: analyst

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Government’s long-awaited digital strategy ‘nothing new’: analyst

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