An article in the weekend Toronto Star credits Canada’s strong telecommunications infrastructure with helping the country manage through the COVID-19 crisis so far. I would add that we need strong leadership to guide development of smart telecommunications policy.
In “What Canada can learn from Europe’s COVID-19 response”, Dr. Georg Serentschy and Derk Oldenburg claim: “while ineffective communication enabled the spread of the Spanish Flu—a pandemic that persisted for more than a year — connectivity is one of the greatest strengths at our disposal in the fight against COVID-19.”
Dr. Serentschy was the head of the Austrian communications regulatory authority (RTR) and, later, Chairman of the EU regulatory authority, BEREC. Mr. Oldenburg is a former Dutch diplomat who served as Deputy Ambassador to Germany and the European Union.
Looking at how various countries in Europe have managed to date, they write:
Broadband technology has proven to be an indispensable asset, serving as both a social and economic lifeline. “After weeks of lockdown in Europe, those networks have passed an unprecedented stress test,” says Oldenburg. The EU’s early COVID-19 successes hold important lessons for Canada. Germany, Austria and Denmark’s ability to slow the spread and contain the infection rates demonstrate the critical role of early action, a well-funded public health system, a population that demonstrates trust in elected government and resilient telecom networks that have sufficient headroom, says Oldenburg. In that view, Canada has many of the resources necessary to efficiently overcome the COVID-19 crisis: an early response, a functional federal state, universal public health care and a world-leading telecommunications network that’s been able to shoulder both societal networking needs and the influx of economic activity during the COVID-19 crisis.
As Canada’s economy begins to re-open, wary of a rebound and second wave, what policies will continue to build upon the strengths that have largely enabled our transition to being isolated at home?
How can we best approach the challenges of extending network reach to increase available supply of global-leading services?
What lessons are we learning to help the demand side, helping more people adopt digital connectivity?
A couple of weeks ago, we marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of a consultation to create a national digital strategy. That exercise, launched by then Industry Minister Tony Clement, turned out to be a complete waste of time and effort, as Canada’s digital policy drifted aimlessly.
We don’t need a new expert panel or Royal Commission to set out a digital strategy. As I have written before, we need to demonstrate leadership instead of managing political calculus.
What outcome do we want? What do we want our digital environment to look like in 5 years? In 10 years?
Basic, but strong leadership principles: Set clear objectives; Align activities with the achievement of those objectives; Stop doing things that are contrary to the objectives.