Another voice is calling for enhancing demand for a digital Canada. Today’s Globe and Mail has an interview with Google Canada chief Chris O’Neill who observes:
We estimate that there are roughly two million small businesses in this country, and less than half of them have a website. That is a problem [because] consumers are out there actively looking for what businesses offer, and it really is a missed opportunity.
He suggests that Canadians’ lower risk tolerance is part of the problem.
As I have written often on these pages, it is too easy to focus on the supply side – the networks – without enough time being given to looking at conditions that will stimulate demand. Increasing adoption of digital technologies, encouraging businesses to establish a web presence, attacking disincentives for private sector investment.
What else should be part of Canada’s national digital strategy?
I agree that the problems are mainly on the demand side, not the supply side. We need to focus on the 15% – 20% of residences who could have service but choose, for a variety of reasons, not to. Similarly, small businesses all could have access. But some of them choose to not even have e-mail yet.
I think that the solution is education. That includes formal education in schools and colleges, of course, but it goes beyond. I suspect that various outreach programs would be much more helpful than yet another build or, in many cases, overbuild.
But better education is needed not just for Internet use and ICT more generally. Scientific and engineering and technical education doesn’t have sufficient prority or prestige in Canada. But it is the single most important factor that will enable our citizens to succeed. More generally, we need Canadians who have learned to reason, and solve problems, and learn on their own when they need to.
So I think that the many calls for a digital strategy for Canada are misplaced, or perhaps premature. We need an educational strategy first.