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E-democracy comes within reach

To this day, the success of the Canada Gazette Directorate depends on its ability to adapt Internet technology to expand its reach. The Canada Gazette experienced its first wave of such change in the late 1990s. Around that time, Web-based technologies were sweeping the country, changing the way business interfaced with its customers, and opening doors for persons to communicate with business. The Canada Gazette was not to be left behind, and the Directorate began to look at the Internet as a relevant tool for disseminating the official newspaper.

The last seven years have witnessed the greatest changes to the newspaper, with the introduction of electronic versions in bilingual PDF (Portable Document Format) side-by-side format, and separate English and French ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) versions as an alternate format for people with disabilities. These changes widened access between Government and its electorate. It also represented immense challenges for the Canada Gazette Directorate.

The production schedule of the Canada Gazette leaves little room for variance. There’s no room to hand off one person’s workload to another to focus on training, for instance. All of the technological advances adapted in the last few years were accomplished in-house, over and above the usual workload of meeting production deadlines. The information in the database cannot be put at risk, therefore the development and testing of any new software must be done at a separate environment and training is usually done after regular working hours. The Canada Gazette team succeeded nonetheless in launching an Internet version of the newspaper in less than six months.

Management team

The Canada Gazette goes on the
World Wide Web

In 1998, all three parts of the Canada Gazette became accessible on the Internet. From anywhere in the world, individuals were now able to access the Canada Gazette at no charge. Although unofficial - the printed copy is still the only official version - the electronic PDF format of the Canada Gazette replicates the printed copy’s bilingual side-by-side format. Readers can browse either official language by accessing specific notices through the table of contents and index.

With an average of 3,500 to 5,000 downloaded pages of the Canada Gazette from the Internet per day, even more interested Canadians are taking advantage of a quick and reliable way to get information about the laws of the country and the opportunity to comment on proposed regulations.

A portion of the readership of the electronic version originates outside of Canada. Approximately one-third of the hits on the Canada Gazette Web site can be traced to other countries. The most international hits come from the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. People from some 81 countries around the world have accessed the Canada Gazette Web site.

Persons with disabilities access the
Canada Gazette

On April 17, 2000, the Canada Gazette first appeared in alternate format (separate English and French) on the Internet making it accessible to persons with disabilities. The ASCII format is a common text language that can be read by virtually any software, including DOS-based systems and screen-reading and speech-output devices. This step has been a success, measured by the fact that over 30 percent of downloaded pages from the Canada Gazette Web site are now done in ASCII format rather than the more traditional PDF.

Paper era

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