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March 29, 2001
2001-032
Speech by the
Honourable Paul Martin, Minister of Finance for Canada, to the Crossing
Boundaries National Conference
Ottawa, Ontario
March 29, 2001
Delivered text is official version.
Today’s conference on e-government addresses an emerging world where time and place are being reordered and reshaped by the power of information and communications technology. This is true for business and it is increasingly true for government.
However, before I venture further into virtual reality, let me express my real thanks, in real time and with real enthusiasm, to Reg Alcock, Don Lenihan and Jean-Guy Finn for inviting me here today. As an MP myself, I can tell you that Reg has been a unique voice championing the importance of new information technology in Parliament. Reg, Don and Jean-Guy are providing great vision and leadership through the Crossing Boundaries initiative leading to this exciting and timely forum.
In doing so, they follow in important footsteps. For it was 124 years ago – in 1877 – that Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie made Canada’s first commercial telephone call, from Room 310 of Parliament’s West Block to the Governor General’s residence. That was only one year after Alexander Graham Bell received his patent.
Today we are in the midst of a powerful and profound revolution, of a new economy founded on a cascade of technological breakthroughs in a world without frontiers. Globalization and information/communications technologies are compressing time and collapsing distance, changing how we live and how we do business. And for this reason this transformation carries a powerful corollary. The models of the past just don’t cut it any longer. The knowledge economy has brought with it new principles which affect all organizations, public as well as private.
We are in a new era – its imperatives are unequivocal.
First, information has become the global currency of the 21st century. Its creation, acquisition, adaptation and dissemination are what establish and maintain economic advantage for any company, industry and, indeed, nation.
Second, innovation dominates, for you cannot sell yesterday’s products or services on tomorrow’s markets.
Third, speed wins. New technologies are creating new markets. New markets mean new rules, and rule number one is don’t be second, for to the first mover go the prime opportunities.
Fourth, excellence. The fact is, with people surfing the Internet to compare and contrast at will, excellence has become the global standard by which we are all judged.
And the fifth principle is the death of distance. Quite simply, new technology does not just cross boundaries. It makes them increasingly irrelevant. In short, notwithstanding the volatility of the dot-com craze, information/communications technology is dramatically changing the way industry works, thinks and succeeds.
Equally, therefore, government too can, and indeed must, make use of the power of the new information tools: the power to inform and to dialogue; the power to create and deliver conventional and new services; the power to be more efficient and cost-effective.
Let me give you one small example of this, one I suspect many of you are familiar with: the time and cost of sending a 42-page document from Ottawa to Tokyo. By guaranteed post it takes 24 hours and costs $40. By fax it takes 31 minutes and costs about $9. By the Internet it takes 2 minutes and the cost is about one-tenth of a penny! In other words, the Internet is 720 times faster and (you’ll forgive a finance minister for emphasizing) 40,000 times cheaper!
Even more important to this morning’s discussion is the role technology can play in enhancing national governance in a fast-moving marketplace through the provision of quicker and better information. Like business with its "just-in-time" systems, governments must improve their capability to more effectively monitor evolving fiscal and market developments. Just ask a finance minister or a central bank governor, who must make decisions based on a flood of often contradictory data in a constant state of revision.
As an aside, the pressure to take advantage of new technologies is not limited to governments in the most developed economies. The G-20 is an organization of nations which Canada chairs. It represents 66 per cent of the world’s population, 88 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product and 60 per cent of the world’s poor. All of its ongoing organizational and planning communications take place via the Internet. This is not surprising, but what’s really telling is that this practice was not initiated by Canada, or the US, or the UK. It was China that said this is how it intends to leapfrog infrastructure constraints at home, illustrating how new technology can help nations at all stages of development to lead, not lag, 21st century e-governance.
Nor should the public use of the new technologies be limited to dealings between governments. Just as technology will enable more effective economic policy setting by government, it will also provide new power enabling individual citizens to influence, to evaluate and to respond to the decisions we in government make. A young Cape Bretoner can now compare his country’s national performance on a global basis at the click of a mouse – and do it more effectively than an expert financial analyst with a library of written reports just a few years ago. A woman in Whitehorse can speak to her federal government thousands of kilometres away and use the multitude of formats that digital technology provides: voice, data, image and text. And an activist in the Gaspé can establish a Web page to share views with millions of people around the world as easily as he can do it with his friends and neighbours.
So too, governments and international agencies must take greater advantage of these opportunities to become much more proactive. For instance, what about chat rooms to enable people concerned with globalization to register their views with involved officials and hear back? This will certainly result in more productive dialogue than taking to the streets. On that point, I believe that increasingly, one of the basic issues of e-government is not whether governments and elected representatives will go on-line, but will they do so rapidly and effectively enough to stay relevant and responsive to citizens, who are increasingly connected?
Here in Canada the challenge for all levels of government is particularly immediate. Canadians are among the world’s most active and e-franchised citizens. First, we have the advantage of the world’s most advanced optical Internet: Ca*net 3. Second, we’re the first country in the world to connect all its schools and libraries – over 18,000 – to the Net. Third, we have the highest percentage of our population on-line of any country in the world – 39 per cent. Fourth, we have the highest per capita ownership of computers and the widest access to cable systems in the world. In other words, most Canadians understand that being connected and new technologies are important, and they will insist that their governments not fall behind.
All this to say that this poses a real challenge for every level of government in Canada: to join our citizens at the leading edge of technology and to respond to their needs in new, innovative ways. That is why we have pledged to make the Canadian government a model user of information technology and the Internet – allowing Canadians to access all government information and services on-line. You’ll be hearing more about the strategy and sweep of this Government On-Line program shortly from my colleague, Lucienne Robillard, President of the Treasury Board. But let me take a minute to focus on the evolution of one government department, Finance.
Seven years ago, in 1994, we built our first Finance Web site to help communicate the federal budget. At the time we saw it as an experiment, for our primary communications vehicles were the traditional printed materials and 1-800 lines. And quite frankly, speaking personally, I was still thinking of it as an experiment up until a couple of years ago. For example, in the days leading up to the 1998 budget, I remember being focused on a last go-through of the budget books (much of which is read by no more than a few hundred economists and journalists), and I resented having to take time to tape video messages for the Web site.
Well, no longer. Why? Because, for the February 2000 budget, our site received almost 2 million hits on budget day and about 500,000 site visits by interested Canadians over the following two weeks. These visits compare to a total of just 5,004 telephone calls to our 1-800 number. That’s a ratio of 100 to 1.
And what about the video messages? In the 24 hours following Budget 2000, they were accessed by more than 22,000 viewers. In two weeks the total was 37,000 people. Interestingly, we only printed 35,000 copies of the Budget 2000 package. In short, our Web site clips reached more Canadians to tell them about the budget’s key features than could possibly have ever been realized through the budget documents. The Budget 2000 site also provided a real-time Internet "broadcast" of the budget speech. This alone attracted 9,000 viewers – hundreds of them in the United States and abroad who would otherwise have had no access to the TV broadcasts.
As an aside, while the Department likes to know how far its webcasts reach, it does not identify individuals. When we looked at a sample of Budget 2000’s international viewers, we found one location that was particularly interesting. The viewer’s Internet connection took the signal across the continent, across the Pacific, into Asia through Harbin, China, and ended up on the eastern border of Uzbekistan. Now that’s reach!
Finally, the Department’s evolution is ongoing. In fact, today, at this conference, we’re launching our latest-generation Finance Web site – redesigned as part of the Government On-Line initiative. Our new Web site shows the Internet is about more than reach and cost. It is also about service. For example, the new site will soon include a first for the Web: an application that makes economic jargon stand up and explain itself for easier understanding – by automatically creating hyperlinks between specialized words or acronyms in every single bit of text on the Web site, and Finance’s glossary.
Our site also includes a very popular interactive on-line service – a tax calculator to help Canadians see what our tax cuts mean for them personally and their families. By the next budget this calculator will speak aloud, making it accessible to the blind.
Finally, on the very front page of the new site, we’ve got a button called "Consultations" that takes the visitor to consultation initiatives that are currently underway so they can have their say. For me, this is crucial. A budget’s success depends on the quality of consultations conducted with Canadians. We must take advantage of all the possibilities that the Internet and new communications technologies offer to improve dialogue as much as possible.
Enough, however, on the Department of Finance. As the Crossing Boundaries consultation report points out, ultimately, e-government is much more than Government On-Line. It touches not only on how departments work, but on the process of governance itself.
This raises exciting opportunities. It also raises difficult questions. For example, we can combine access to multiple databases to provide more complete, cohesive service tailored to individual needs. But how do we make this compatible with information security and the fundamental right to personal privacy? We can indeed look beyond the traditional structures of government based on "single issue" departments and agencies. But what type of changes do we need – in organization, in attitudes, in accountability – so all of us can work together to provide more flexible, responsive and integrated service to citizens? The new information technologies offer unparalleled opportunities for open government. But how do we ensure that the opening is not closed to those caught on the wrong side of the digital divide? When we say that we seek to empower people, that has to mean all of the people.
We are in a time when the issue of parliamentary reform has acquired new and needed currency. Let us understand that the key to parliamentary reform lies in the degree to which it strengthens the role of the individual MP or MLA. What does the Internet mean for them? How can we enhance their role as decision makers? For it is they in their ridings who are ultimately accountable for the work of government to their citizens.
Many MPs – with Reg being an outstanding example – are already using this technology to communicate with their constituents. Real two-way communication. But if the Government wants to keep the underlying promise of being a leader in 21st century governance, shouldn’t all MPs have effective access to leading-edge communications tools?
To give only three small examples, wouldn’t giving MPs direct, high-speed audio-visual connections between their Hill offices and their constituency vastly enhance their ability to do face-to-face constituency work while in Ottawa – and do better policy work while in the constituency?
Or what about using the new information technologies to enhance the ongoing dialogue, not just between governments, but between parliamentarians and legislators worldwide? It happens now, but not nearly enough and certainly not in sufficient depth. We face many of the same problems. We seek many of the same solutions. Indeed, I believe the use of new technologies will be an important part of the necessary evolution of international governance. It will help us work better together.
Back in Canada shouldn’t we look seriously at improved e-government technologies in terms of the work of parliamentary committees? With the right equipment, software and bandwidth, the Internet offers a unique opportunity for timely face-to-face consultation with individuals and groups of Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, as soon as an issue arises. Committees should be truly able to plug into the views of all Canadians consistently and comprehensively – not just the well-equipped associations and interest groups that can afford to maintain a base in Ottawa.
Now some may see this as an unnecessary extravagance. However, that would be like the member of Parliament in 1898 who criticized the Minister of Public Works for seeking an additional $5,000 to install more telephones on the Hill. The logic that MP used? He said, and I quote: "I trust that because everyone wants them, the Minister will not give way to that appeal. This matter of telephones is one that is very easily abused." He sounds like a finance minister.
Actually, there is a serious issue that this anecdote highlights. The member from long ago is an example of a mindset that marks a very important "digital divide" that we must confront. He looked at new technology and saw only problems. But the knowledge economy requires a different attitude. A mindset that embraces opportunity, sees potential problems as challenges to be solved, and moves boldly to make the human and financial investments needed.
In their discussion paper on governing in the 21st century, Reg Alcock and Donald Lenihan have given us much food for thought. They have broached issues ranging from models of government, the importance of partnerships, and management tools and instruments of governance, to the nature of accountability and transparency in a knowledge-based society.
As we navigate through the currents of rapid technological change, we must constantly guard against two understandable tendencies: wild-eyed optimism and blind cynicism. The first can lead to costly action based on unjustified assumptions about new technologies. The second can lead to costly inaction based on unjustified fears about the risks associated with those same technologies. Instead, more than ever, this is a time for clear vision, cool heads and steady hands. That is why this conference is important.
In closing, let me just say that one of the most important messages that I hope flows from this conference is that, in addition to the excitement that new technologies engender, is also the recognition that mouse-click democracy is an answer to challenging problems only to the extent that it allows for informed debate.
In our attempts to equip Canada and Canadians for the 21st century, we must not forget the enduring principles that have made our system of democratic government a model admired around the world. The first of these is accountability and transparency. Chat rooms and electronic networks are tools to help focus on problems and build consensus. But, in the end, they will only work if we recognize that they are also instruments to further ensure the accountability of governments to the people who elect them and the transparency of the process leading to decisions.
The second principle is responsiveness – governments are only truly connected if they respond to the changing needs and views of the people they serve. This underscores an aspect of the Internet that is truly intriguing: there are several dimensions to the so-called digital divide, and one of these is generational. Today’s young people take the power of new technology as a given. They use it automatically and instinctively. They expect government to be as Web-wise and active as they are. And that means, if you are not plugged in to the "channels" they are using, then you can’t count on hearing their voices. And they will know it, and feel excluded. When this happens, it is not the young people who lose their political "franchise" – it is we in government who are the losers. Because the young can and will act on the frustration they feel at being ignored by those who are not connected to them.
New technologies must not be used to give governments more power. Instead, they must be used to empower citizens, to provide them with a greater ability to influence and scrutinize government decisions and actions. At a time when globalization has become the defining issue of the day, when the lines between domestic and international policy are becoming increasingly blurred, this is a crucial point.
Clearly, growing numbers of people do feel disenfranchised – they do feel they have lost the capacity to influence governments. We must take every opportunity to fill that breach, including the use of new technologies. It is central to the democratic process that citizens have a right to see and to know what their governments are doing.
Our challenge, therefore, is clear. It is to take advantage of new information and communications technologies to strengthen the principles and the practices that have served us so well in our democracy. It is, in short, to give the generations of today and the generations of tomorrow a government that is more accountable, transparent and responsive than ever before. May I just say in closing that this conference provides an excellent start.
Thank you.
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| Last Updated: 2002-11-26 |
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