Broad Societal Issues

2.3 Citizen Engagement with Public and Private Sector Service Providers

In the current climate of massive public debt, public institutions will be called on to innovate to deliver services more efficiently – largely abetted by digital technologies. In turn the citizenry will need the digital skills and literacy to engage with government whose services and communication will be undergoing their own transformation. The watershed change has been the shift from a largely office, phone, and mail contact system to an on-line interactive one. The advent of eHealth solutions, online taxation remittance, and other ‘self-serve’ government services obliges citizens become adept at dealing with public services in this way. Public services are increasingly accessible to the average citizen – as long as they have access to the broadband networks and the skills to participate digitally. Similarly, private sector services are increasingly provided online – from the virtual grocery stores to financial transactions to want ads.

The information on which citizens base their political opinions is also undergoing a similar evolution. In the world of YouTube, online newspapers and magazines, and Twitter, news is increasingly what we make of it. Canadians – certainly younger ones - are relying less than before on broadcast and print media to tell us about the world. Increased digital literacy is thereby also spawning new habits to which conventional media have to adjust.

At the same time, governments around the world (e.g. www.whitehouse.gov), are engaging their electorates to an extent not heard of before. While town hall meetings are nothing particularly new, digital technologies extend this conversation to far wider audience.13 The prospect of online voting could also induce a profound change to the democratic process. 14

The evolution of a more informed, more engaged electorate – which can also deal with government and public services in an interactive way - is key to the future operation of democratic institutions and delivery of public services. A national digital strategy should address how new digital communication and social media tools can be deployed to strengthen government service and the political process.

13 What participants are discussing is not necessarily enlightening, however. Some of the most popular topics in the Obama administration’s electronic democracy have included whether pot should be legalized and whether President Obama was really born in the US.

14 Elections Canada recently released a report that says it will push to implement online registration of voters. And it wants parliamentary approval to conduct an electronic voting test-run in a by-election by 2013. The report comes on the heels of the 2008 federal election that saw a 58.8% voter turnout, the worst-ever in Canadian history. While touch-screen voting systems have had some effect in reducing spoiled ballots and accelerated the counting process, some municipalities such as Markham have experimented using Internet voting system. It produced a 48% increase in voter turnout, from 28% in 2003 to 37.6% in 2006.

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