GOVERNMENT GOUVERNEMENT OF CANADA DU CANADA TO: Ned Ellis DSF FROM: Ghislain Savoie (signed) DSF DATE: February 10, 1993 SUBJECT: Federal-Provincial Implications of the Electronic Highway Initiative --------------------------------------------------------------- Discussions as to potential areas of application of the Electronic Highway and as to its social, cultural, political, economic and legal implications (jurisdictional concerns in the present case) will be conditioned to a large extent by the definition or nature of the proposed Electronic Highway, i.e. the ultimate scope and level of integration that will be technically and economically achievable. Also very important in such an analysis is the role that will be ascribed to the actors that will make it happen, and this also has yet to be clearly specified. Until a better consensus about the parameters and scope of the Electronic Highway is reached, much of the discussion relating to possible applications and implications will remain, to some extent, speculative and academic. This is one limiting factor in the following discussion. Another important one is that the views expressed are those of a dilettante who has an interest in this intricate topic but who has a rather limited knowledge of it. for these reasons, the comments should not be viewed as learned expert opinions, but rather as common sense, intuitive reactions. The Issue of Jurisdiction ------------------------- Some of the applications of the proposed Electronic Highway are already with us and have been put in place without much jurisdictional argument. This is particularly true of applications in the telecommunications area. This is probably because telecommunications is a relatively non-disputed federal jurisdiction. Broader future applications in this area are also likely not to generate much jurisdictional debate by themselves. For that matter, even in more sensitive areas, such as culture (taken broadly), information networks of the kind that could become an integral part of the Electronic Highway concept have been put in place quietly, without creating, to my knowledge, any significant commotion even in a Province like Quebec where culturally related matters are usually very sensitive. The DOBIS system interconnecting the Canadian libraries is one case in point; the CHIN system could probably also qualify in this category. To the extent that the Electronic Highway is conceived as nothing more than a passive and neutral pipe system through which information of all types flows in all directions within and between provinces, a province like Quebec is not likely to object to it on those grounds alone. Quite frankly, businessmen, artists, researchers (etc.) in Quebec have everything to gain by being able to access the knowledge banks and services available in the rest of Canada and, for that matter, in the USA and the world. Of course, this does not mean that, down the road, Quebec will not deem it necessary to impose some gates or rules on the content of information flowing to Quebec, especially in the cultural and related areas. Just like Canada has imposed "Canadian Content" rules in Broadcasting, it is conceivable, for instance, that a province like Quebec could insist, in some areas, on ratios of French content (for instance films or electronic books made available to Quebecers on a national information network, etc.). One of the big jurisdictional problems that I see with the Electronic Highway network is that, although it may objectively be "neutral and passive" in nature, it may be *perceived* as otherwise. The political and opinion leaders in Quebec have had, over recent months, many arguments with Ottawa which they accuse of wanting to establish and impose standards for the whole of Canada in a number of jurisdictions that are constitutionally either exclusively provincial (e.g. education and, arguably, culture and health), or share jurisdiction (e.g. environment). This was one of Quebec's criticisms raised against the Bird Report and against earlier constitutional proposals. These jurisdictions, and especially health and education, are some of the most promising areas of applications for the Electronic Highway. The interest of Ottawa in promoting the Electronic Highway may be connected, in the mind of Quebecers, to the federal will to use this convenient vehicle to "propagate" its standards, including those in provincial jurisdiction. The fact that one of the professed goal of a national Electronic Highway is, like a 21st Century Grand Trunk, to unify Canada by brining Canadians closer together, may be perceived by some as a threat to the distinctive character of Quebec and as another assimilation factor. The same jurisdictional issues that were raised in the past in the case of Broadcasting, because of the unclear line between carrier and content, is likely to recur, on a larger scale, in the various telecommunications, broadcasting, entertainment, culture, education, informatics (etc.) elements that are now coexisting largely in parallel sub-systems, with specific sets of rules governing each aspect. One other possible source of federal/provincial friction that could result from the implementation of a pan-Canadian Electronic Highway, is that some of its aspects may clash with provincial undertakings that are already being put in place. One case that comes to my mind in this respect is Quebec's "Grapes industrielles" initiative, which includes an "Electronic Highway" concept. Finally, I foresee another set of possible federal- provincial issues that may arise, this time, between the peripheral provinces and Ottawa. If federal taxes and federal regulatory mechanisms are to be used to make the Electronic Highway happen and to regulate it, the have-not and peripheral provinces (and remote regions of central provinces) will insist that all of the services made available through the network be available to all Canadians, equally. If strict economic rationale is the basic driving force behind much of the project, many of the applications may prove to be profitable only where the number of big users (big business, high population density, etc.) warrant it. Peripheral provinces will want to fully benefit from these advances in order to avoid widening the gap between them and the central provinces. They will be quick to point to the example of public transport (which is a form of communications) in Canada in recent years: public transport in and to the peripheral provinces, especially rail transport, has been reduced and even dismantled in many remote areas by Ottawa while, at the very same time, the federal government is studying the possibility of constructing a high speed train in the Quebec City/Windsor corridor. The analogy between the high speed train project and the Electronic Highway may indeed cross the mind of many people in peripheral provinces. The above discussion makes it abundantly clear that, to implement such an Electronic Highway successfully and in an orderly fashion, it will be necessary to rally all the parties which have a stake in this issue, including the provinces and especially a province like Quebec. First, passage of the new Telecommunications Act will obligate the federal government to consult more intensively with the provinces; second, many of the most promising applications are in areas of provincial jurisdiction; third, one of the basic roles of the federal government in facilitating the implementation of the Electronic Highway proposal is to act as an "harmonizing agent" in making sure that Electronic Highway initiatives in Alberta or New Brunswick are inter-connectable and compatible with other undertakings elsewhere in Canada. In fact, in line with the prevailing views that were voiced during the constitutional discussions, it may be more appropriate for the federal government to focus its involvement on such inter-provincial and pan-Canadian dimensions of the Electronic Highway. These are all compelling reasons why the Electronic Highway and, most of all, the socio-cultural applications and implications of it, should be on top of the agenda for Federal- provincial cooperation. Many provinces have indicated their keen interest in issues relating to the Electronic Highway and this is certainly an area of potentially fruitful federal-provincial cooperation. .