6.3 Concluding Remarks

Without a national digital strategy, there will be no overall vision to guide such a social and economic transformation in the interest of all Canadians. Rather, debate will be mired in the arcane and fragmented languages of broadcasting regulation, copyright revision, technological innovation, cultural subsidies, and broadband infrastructure. Stakeholders in ICT and culture each have their own perspectives in forming their vision as to a coherent strategy in face of the enormity of digital convergence.

Some would argue that each of the relevant spheres of societal, cultural and infrastructure issues could be addressed as mutually exclusive concerns. However, that is not far reaching enough. For a unified vision to come through and for the fragmentation of the debate to be mitigated, all policymakers will need to shift their perception to a more constructive and holistic one. Otherwise, solutions will continue to be piecemeal, and decision frameworks will continue to be reactive and narrowly defined.

This paper has made the case that Canada is in need of a coherent and holistic approach to creating a national digital strategy. For the numerous societal, cultural and infrastructural reasons discussed, Canada can ill-afford to languish on its aging digital laurels. Canada has the opportunity to draw upon suggestions already made in other jurisdictions and improve upon them. We suggest the creation of a national digital panel that will report directly to a special cabinet committee over the course of 12 to 18 months in order to establish and implement a coherent digital strategy.

In order for this process to be effective it must be backed by high-level government officials and assign clearly delineated tasks to various ministries and agencies. There have already been significant calls to action from key policy players and any further delay on this process will only lead to continued fractional efforts that address limited areas of concern. Canada should look at the larger picture and develop a national digital strategy.