WATERLOO – Canada needs targeted action supported by all levels of government, universities and the private sector in order to become a true digital nation, says a new report by the Stratford Institute.
The report, which will be released Wednesday at the Canada 3.0 forum, says Canada's adoption and development of digital media technology and practices compared to other developed countries continues to slip as the conversation – but not sufficient action – continues.
"The old caution remains: vision without action is hallucination," said Ian Wilson, executive director of the Stratford Institute. "A compilation of comparative statistics gleaned from authoritative sources, especially international studies, indicates that Canada continues to decline as a digital nation, contrary to the goals of all of us working hard to improve the country's competitive position."
Wilson said that government and the private sector must work together to drive investment and innovation in the use of information and communications technologies, noting that Canada's ranking of government procurement of advanced technology products puts the country in 26th place compared to other developed nations.
The report also highlights a dichotomy between the amount of time Canadians spend on-line, 43.5 hours per month versus the worldwide average of 23.1 hours per month, and what we do with that time.
"Canadians are well connected – to foreign content”, Wilson continued. “Studies show that Canada is one of the best connected countries, extending broadband connectivity to rural areas, but we're connecting to foreign content because only 1% of Canadian audio visual content and 13% of our print content is available on-line which is totally unacceptable."
The Stratford Institute for digital media is a forward looking digital media policy research centre established through a partnership of the University of Waterloo, the City of Stratford, OpenText Corporation, the Canadian Digital Media Network and with support of the Government of Ontario.
