Election season has officially started and it is time to be on the look-out for parties to lay out their digital strategies.
Digital Canada 150 was the official plan of our current government, but I am not certain that it is the last word from the Conservatives on how they plan to move forward with a digital economy.
During the Liberal leadership campaign, Marc Garneau and George Takach had set out views on digital issues. Will any of these find their way into the Liberal platform?
How will the NDP evolve their strategy? In 2011, the NDP had a six-point strategy as well as discussion of furthering the cultural industries; In 2008, the NDP also had strong views on telecom issues clearly set out in its election platform.
Will broadband for low-income households become an issue? Net neutrality?
What about a review of Canada’s Anti-Spam Laws?
Telemarketing continues to bother Canadians – and robo-calls from politicians are not likely going to be a welcome addition to Canadians’ dinner time interuptions. You have to love the idea that politicians exempted themselves from many of the more onerous provisions of the do not call regime.
Will any party commit to studying the impact and cost effectiveness of these laws?
Will digital issues even be a factor in the October 19 election?
What issues would you like to see talked about in this campaign?
Government Internet Policy is Cutting Rural Canada off at the knees before it even gets started. Connecting Canadians Program investing in Obsolete Internet Infrastructure that will not put Rural Communities on a Level Playing Field. Many Businesses in the Modern Internet World are not even going to consider setting up in Rural Canada. Listen in link below how a U.K. company wanted to manage and control all of their processes and network facilities on the East Coast, from their facility in the U.K. So they were concerned about, you know, this is not something you put on DSL, cable modems, or, definitely, not a wireless network.
http://muninetworks.org/…/improving-mid-atlantic-internet-a…
With cloud architectures, is this really a factor? Isn’t Connecting Canadians providing sufficient speeds to enable businesses to maintain a hosted digital presence?
Businesses still have to connect to the host to upload all of their business material such as documents, pictures and videos. That isn’t easy to do when your Internet connection’s upload speed is barely faster than an old dial-up modem.
The legacy internet infrastructure that Connecting Canadians Program is investing is not adequate for cloud computing. Just one example – The cloud will give doctors access to the well being of their patients at all times of the day. For example, patients can be monitored whilst at home by their doctors with the cloud detecting any irregularities, and prescribing any required treatment. The Internet Infrastructure required for this must be Fast, Symmetrical, and Reliable and Free from Usage Caps. The obsolete limitations of the Legacy Internet Infrastructure that our Government is investing in to connect Rural Canadians, makes it incapable of this performance.
So, with Health Care Delivery moving to the cloud, and only Fibre can adequately support Cloud Activity – Then why is the New Brunswick Government Supporting Fibre Deployment to some communities while leaving others Critically behind ? See an example of this at this link:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150702005708/en#.VcDsNfmScr6
First off, your assertion that only fibre can adequately support Cloud activity needs to be explored. For example, most telemedicine actually requires very low bit rates at the client end.
As to why some communities can justify fibre deplyment versus others, it is a matter of economics. Most countries, including those with much higher population densities than Canada, have included wireless and satellite as part of the solution space for delivering universal braodband access. See my post from last May: Rural broadband isn’t easy.
The first political party that agrees to add a B2B exemption (just like there is for the DNCL) and drop the onerous implied vs. explicit consent rules from CASL will get the vote of the entire business community.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to email Canada with reckless abandon, and I advise my clients to not bother marketing in Canada.
The giant sucking sound is not the loss of manufacturing jobs, it’s Canadian tech companies escaping to the Valley and avoiding the anti-commerce law called CASL.