E-Government in Canada: Transformation for the Digital Age

Part Two. The Canadian Experience

Part Two The Canadian Experience y adopting the four dimensions of e-government introduced in Part One (service, security, transparency, trust) as a lens through which to examine Canada's public sector, the next three chapters present the manner in which e-government has evolved across all levels of government over the past decade. With such a wide scopeof activities, the purpose is not to provide a detailed inventory of every relevant initiativeundertaken by governments during this time but to map out the major contours of how e-government has been defined, interpreted, and pursued. While our primary focus isthat offederal and provincial governments, Part Twoalso explores the municipal reality as a distinct e-government experienceas well as the interrelations across government levels in a multilevel environment where the evolving meanings offederalism, politicallyand technologically,raiseimportant issues about the organization and performanceof the public sector as a whole. Federally: Chapter 5 provides both a review of the major egovernment initiatives at the federal level and an assessment of the results achieved to date. What is also important to gauge is the degree to which progress has been sufficiently balanced across the four dimensions in order to enable internal organizational change and external institutional adaptation. Nationally, Canada provides a useful basis for examining e-government. One ofthe most advanced countries by measures ofeconomic wealth, quality oflife, and Internet access and affordability, Canada has been aggressively bolstering its use of digital technologies to realize the promise of e-government. On the service delivery front, Chapter 5 will reveal some of the reasons that the Canadian government has enjoyed praise as a global leader in electronic service delivery. Despite this acclaim, however, many barriers to stronger progress have arisen, and 2005 marks a key turning point as the foundational strategy of Government Online, created in 1999, yields to a more ambitious, integrated, and B 106 E-GOVERNMENT IN CANADA multichannel vehiclefor service transformation—namely, the creation of Service Canada. Security underpins much of these efforts —and here as well the federal government has begun to make headway in both designing and implementing, in concertwith its private sector partners, a 'secure channel' that is not only central to underwriting the online delivery of federal services (particularly those involving financial transactions and personal information) but also potentially ofuse by other levelsof government in the pursuit of their own specific service objectives (as well as interjurisdictional offerings). Moreover, the expanding realm of the security mindset since September 2001 is also an important variable here in terms of resource allocation, political attention, and the underlying purpose of deploying digital technologies in an interconnected environment. The interrelated agendas of transparency and trust are also examined —and what is revealed is a government captured by a predominantly reactive mentality responding to either crises or the more incremental but steadily rising demands for more openness and participation. Unlike service delivery, certainly nobody would laud the Government of Canada's efforts in democratic reforms tied to transparency and openness on the one hand and trust, participation, and relational capacities on the other. The consequences of this reluctance are important—both at present and in looking ahead. Provincially: An examination of the evolution of e-government provincially reveals both similarities and contrasts to that of the federal level. Operating within the same parameters of Westminster parliamentary government, and spurred by the same forces that encouraged the federal inception of GOL, most provinces have undertaken electronic service delivery efforts that have much in common with federal initiatives. Indeed, while the federal government may often enjoy greater recognition, provinces have not only kept pace but also, in many areas, are leading in both developing an online presence and reorganizing the backroom functions of government to better integrate services in a multichannel environment. In doing so, new models of public-private partnerships often discussed in Ottawa are delivering results provincially (though not without considerable challenges). With respect to service delivery and security, many of the key challenges that occupy federal public servants can also be found PART TWO: THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE 107 provincially, and the ability to overcomethem variesacrossthecountry. No single province has transformed its service delivery architecture in an ideal manner. In comparison to the federal level, however, the pace of change is more diverse and, like the federal experience, more incremental than radical. Nonetheless, with regard to transparency and trust, and the pressures and opportunities to embrace innovations of a more democratic...