Earlier this week, Industry Minister Tony Clement announced the launch of a consultation on the Digital Economy.
The consultation is examining various themes and each theme has a number of questions for which responses are being sought.
- Innovation Using Digital Technologies
- Should Canada focus on increasing innovation in some key sectors or focus on providing the foundation for innovation across the economy?
- Which conditions best incent and promote adoption of ICT by Canadian business?
- What would a successful digital strategy look like for your firm or sector? What are the barriers to implementation?
- Once copyright, anti-spam and data breach/privacy amendments are in place, are their other legislative or policy changes needed to deal with emerging issues?
- How can Canada use its regulatory and policy regime to promote Canada as a favourable environment for e-commerce?
- Digital Infrastructure
- What speeds and other service characteristics are needed by users (e.g., consumers, businesses, public sector bodies) and how should Canada set goals for next generation networks?
- What steps must be taken to meet these goals? Are the current regulatory and legislative frameworks conducive to incenting investment and competition? What are the appropriate roles of stakeholders in the public and private sectors?
- What steps should be taken to ensure there is sufficient radio spectrum available to support advanced infrastructure development?
- How best can we ensure that rural and remote communities are not left behind in terms of access to advanced networks and what are the priority areas for attention in these regions?
- Growing the ICT Industry
- Do our current investments in R&D effectively lead to innovation, and the creation of new businesses, products and services? Should we promote investments in small start-ups to expand our innovation capacity?
- What is needed to innovate and grow the size of the ICT industry including the number of large ICT firms headquartered in Canada?
- What would best position Canada as a destination of choice for venture capital and investments in global research and development mandates?
- What efforts are needed to address the talent needs in the coming years?
- Canada’s Digital Content
- What does creating Canada’s digital content advantage mean to you?
- What elements do you want to see in Canada’s marketplace framework for digital media and content?
- How do you see digital content contributing to Canada’s prosperity?
- What kinds of infrastructure investments do you foresee making in the future? What kinds of infrastructure will you need in the future to be successful at home and abroad?
- How can stakeholders encourage investment, particularly early stage investment, in the development of innovative digital media and content?
- Building Digital Skills
- What do you see as the most critical challenges in skills development for a digital economy?
- What is the best way to address these challenges?
- What can we do to ensure that labour market entrants have digital skills?
- What is the best way to ensure the current workforce gets the continuous upskilling required to remain competitive in the digital economy? Are different tactics required for SMEs versus large enterprises?
- How will the digital economy impact the learning system in Canada? How we teach? How we learn?
- What strategies could be employed to address the digital divide?
- Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage
- Should we set targets for our made-in-Canada digital strategy? And if so, what should those targets be?
- What should the timelines be to reach these targets?
There are two ways to participate: through the on-line ideas forum, or through a more formal submission of a document.
But there is a problem with the submission guidelines. Formal submissions are limited to 10 pages, with a one page executive summary. So, we have 24 questions (plus some with follow-up questions) organized under 5 themes, plus a couple questions under the broad heading of “Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage”) and the response is limited to 5000 words and 10 pages, whether you respond to one question or to all of them.
I think there is a difference between an objective of keeping things succinct and mandating superficiality.
It seems to me that we should want people and associations and companies to think of wholistic digital strategies, trying to tie together responses that look at multiple themes. Given that the consultation paper asking the questions was 40 pages, is it reasonable to have the responses limited to one quarter the size? As an exercise, I cut and pasted the listing of the questions above. That uses up 543 words and a page and a half at 10 point font.
In speaking with the help desk, it appears that the 10 page limit is more of a recommendation than a hard cap. Uploads are limited to 10MB – which sets more of a firm ceiling on the document size. The point is clearly to manage the work load in reviewing the materials.
Hopefully there will be a re-phrasing of the submission limits – encouraging complete, but succinct inputs toward creating a national digital economy.