Canada must act quickly to stimulate e-commerce: report

Canada's Digital Economy Strategy (DES) is missing in action and a government committee says e-commerce must be included when it is finally released to help close the gap between Canada and competitor nations.

Canadian business invest about 40% less on information and communications technologies (ICT) than other advanced countries, with on-line retail spending accounting for just 1% of overall sales, compared to 8% in the US.

In addition, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology found that on-line transactional costs are too high in Canada and it heard from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce that Canada's once world-leading e-commerce infrastructure has been eclipsed by more aggressive nations.

The committee released a report last week — E-Commerce in Canada: Pursuing the Promise —that contains 16 largely generic recommendations to bring Canada up to par. These include a call for the Business Development Bank of Canada to make ICT adoption a strategic focus, collaboration with the provinces to "develop strategies to meet the skilled workers shortage in information and communication technology industries" and implementing a recommendation in the Jenkins Panel, to "provide an easily accessible directory or service containing all government programs related to innovation and R&D to help firms access the tools and support they need to increase innovation and adopt ICT."

The report included a supplementary opinion by New Democratic Party members of the committee. They called on the government to "release as soon as possible its long-awaited digital strategy so that all stakeholders, especially businesses, have the ability for long-term planning" and "define an innovation and economic development policy, and make high-speed Internet access and e-commerce adoption one of its foundations".

The DES was officially launched in May/10 and gave the ICT sector just 10 weeks to respond. Since then the report has been completed and sits unreleased. The government has not explained why the report is more than one year late although it still occasionally refers to it in speeches and press releases.

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