The parliamentary INDU committee released its report on e-commerce yesterday.
Officially, “e-Commerce in Canada: Pursuing the Promise” is a Report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology – a Parliamentary committee.
Despite weighing in at roughly 50 pages, the report is disappointingly light in substantive analysis. Indeed, the NDP provided a supplementary opinion that appeared more thoughtful in its brief 5 pages. The report looks at inhibitors to e-commerce adoption in Canada and it recommends ways to reduce “red tape” while simultaneously calling for bringing the Canada’s anti-spam bill into force, all the while not recognizing the impact that the legislation will have on communications from small businesses.
The Appendix A of the Report provides a summary of reports and programs that could impact e-commerce in Canada. Among the 10 items was the long overdue National Digital Strategy. The section starts with a description:
Based on the priorities identified in the 2010 Speech from the Throne and Budget 2010, the Government of Canada began a national consultation in May 2010 to solicit input on how to return Canada to a position of global leadership in the digital economy. The findings of the consultation were presented in Improving Canada’s Digital Advantage: Strategies for Sustainable Prosperity
On reading this, I thought I had missed the release of the consultation’s findings. The link to the document in the INDU report was broken, so perhaps that is why the Committee didn’t realize that this wasn’t a release of findings. That report can be found in the archives as the original consultation document. It seems to me that an official report from a Parliamentary Committee shouldn’t have such obvious errors in it.
Leading off the list of reports in the Appendix was “Innovation Canada: A Call to Action” which is better known as the Jenkins Report. Tom Jenkins, the chair of the expert panel on innovation, will be the closing speaker for The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit. You should be there.
Have you registered yet?
Perhaps this is the report the government was waiting for to allow it to design its much promised Digital Strategy 🙂
After looking at Table 4 in the study, I’m surprised that there wasn’t any mention of Shopify.com, as they’re based in Ottawa AND their platform is easily accessible by small to medium businesses alike at an affordable price point and is quite robust in terms of its integrations with payment solutions