Let’s Get Digital

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown numerous challenges and opportunities at policy makers. This includes a rare chance to upend Canada’s low-tech, antiquated bureaucratic apparatus and breathe new life — and new technology — into the inner and outer workings of government. More than eight months into the pandemic, has the Liberal government managed to seize the day? 

Like all COVID-related policy questions, the answer is complicated. The federal government has taken meaningful steps toward making its digital presence more efficient, accessible and inclusive to all.  It also delivered a plethora of support programs which, despite cries of overspending, have done a lot to keep the Canadian economy afloat and help those hardest hit.

To date, the federal government has digitally delivered some form of emergency aid to more than one-in-five Canadians and nearly one-million small businesses. That’s no easy feat, especially considering that some departments, like the Canada Revenue Agency, have notoriously struggled to keep up with demand at times. In late July, the federal government also began rolling out its digital exposure notification tool. COVID Alert, developed using Apple and Google’s joint API framework, has been downloaded by more than five-million Canadians, across eight provinces.

Yet, all of this barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to truly bring government, and the various tools that it uses to engage with citizens, into the 21st century. For starters, COVID Alert has been plagued with numerous operational problems  and diagnosis reporting remains unavailable in five provinces and territories. Similarly, Parliament’s new hybrid sittings, which took months to negotiate, are passable. The voting process, however, is excruciating and committees are sitting at a reduced capacity.  

Policy makers and public servants must confront a harsh truth being laid bare by this pandemic: our government institutions and democratic processes are long-overdue for a software update. 

First, Canadians — particularly rural Canadians, Indigenous communities and those belonging to vulnerable groups — need better, more reliable access to their government. Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet took a big step toward making this a reality with the announcement of the $1.75 billion Universal Broadband Fund. The Fund, initially laid out in Budget 2019, promises to connect 98% of Canadians to high-speed internet by 2026. But broadband connectivity makes up only half the equation. A system that is capable of delivering support measures effectively, both during the pandemic and beyond, is essential. 

Despite the overall success of the Liberal government’s emergency response thus far, the pandemic and its economic shockwaves are also raising questions about the efficacy of the tools, norms and institutions that we use to create policy. Next time there is a crisis, many Canadians will expect politicians to not waste precious time debating whether or not decision-makers need to sit in the same room in order to pass emergency legislation. With a rapidly growing number of Canadians able to work from home, the feasibility of our elected representatives to do the same – and shed some aspects of 19th century parliamentary procedure in favour of more modern ways of running a country – will grow. 

This involves a whole lot more than just temporarily allowing MPs to tune into Question Period or committee meetings via Zoom. It calls for a rewiring of our political system and bureaucratic machinery to become more fast-paced, responsive and amenable to sudden change. There are already a number of existing models that Canadians can learn and borrow from, including Taiwan’s crowdsourced lawmaking experiment. Overall, our democratic process has the potential to work better by taking advantage of, rather than shunning, modern technology.

A recent Maclean’s op-ed put it best: “Now is precisely the right time to do something about long-standing policy failures. And we need to do this at the same time as we battle the pandemic’s next wave. The health of our economy, communities and democracy requires us to do both at once.” And nowhere else is this more relevant than in our approach to digital government. The question is, will our leaders choose to press ‘update’ or ‘snooze’