What is government on-line (gol)?
Background

• Championed by the Treasury Board Secretariat Advisory Committee on Information Management Sub-Committee, the Government On-Line (GOL) initiative was officially launched on April 6, 2000.  You may find helpful information about GOL at the following Treasury Board of Canada web site: GOL internet site.
• Transport Canada's co-champions for the GOL initiative are André Morency, ADM Corporate Services, and Gerry Berigan, Regional Director General, Atlantic Region.
• TC's GOL Project Office developed a Strategic Plan and has recently created a Re-Focused GOL Direction for the Department's GOL activities over the coming years.
• Please note that the Treasury Board Secretariat is the comptroller for this initiative and will be providing ongoing guidance.
• Advances in technology and delivery mechanisms, as well as the increasing number of Canadians going on-line, allow the Government of Canada to provide more convenient access to information and services. In fact, more than 60% of Canadians who look for government information do so via the Internet. Therefore, GOL is a client-driven exercise, serving Canadians as they want to be served, not as the governments thinks they should be. For TC and other government employees, GOL will help put an end to the "silo syndrome," enabling federal employees to see themselves as part of the broader corporation, rather than just as a TC employee.

Guiding Principles

Government On-Line is based on a number of principles:

• Client-Driven Service

• Information and services will be grouped according to citizen and business needs.
• Information and services will be intuitive, easy-to-use, relevant, current, and reliable.

• Convenient and Accessible

• Information and services will be accessible from home, work, or public access site, in ways that accommodate the needs of all Canadians in both official languages.
• Access to information and services will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week with live support available during designated business hours.

• Consistent

• Information about programs and services will be consistent for all service delivery channels (i.e., telephone, mail, in-person, and electronic).

• Responsive

• Services will have predictable turnaround times based on pre-determined and published program service standards.

• Private and Secure

• Privacy will be respected and protected.
• Security safeguards will be in place commensurate with client requirements.

Timeframe

Three tiers of targets have been established, building on one another to achieve full secure electronic service delivery for the Government of Canada:

• Tier One: establish a federal on-line presence by December 31, 2000, with client-centered focus, particularly:

• a plan to convert all Government of Canada web pages to the Common Look and Feel (CLF) standards and,
• the development of the Government of Canada portal linked to all primary federal department and agency sites (and vice versa).

• Tier Two: 

• provide secure interactive electronic service delivery (end-to-end where possible) to Canadians by December 31, 2005 and,
• establish key client-centric web portals to make finding information and services easy and intuitive. Government of Canada web sites will have to be converted to the Common Look and Feel standards by December 2002.

• During this phase of GOL, it will be important to 1) provide opportunities for client participation; 2) keep employees informed and provide them with appropriate training and skills enhancement opportunities.
  
• Tier Three: promote inter-jurisdictional electronic service delivery. This stage requires long-term development that begins now and continues beyond 2005. There are a number of inter-jurisdictional initiatives already underway.
  
• If you would like to receive more information on the GOL project, or would like to submit ideas for consideration, please send us an e-mail at gol-ged@tc.gc.ca.   We look forward to hearing from you soon!