Redalyc. the Digital Divide: Canada?S Access As a 97 Neo

Revista Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses (nueva época) Asociación Mexicana de Estudios sobre Canadá, A.C. [email protected] ISSN (Versión impresa): 1405-8251 MÉXICO

2008 Martin R. Dowding THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A 97 NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY Revista Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses (nueva época), primavera-verano, número 015 Asociación Mexicana de Estudios sobre Canadá, A.C. Culiacán, México pp. 97-110

Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y el Caribe, España y Portugal

Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México

http://redalyc.uaemex.mx THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S A CCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY

MARTIN R. DOWDING

Abstract The term “Digital Divide” has had and continues to have many different definitions, depending on who is observing the problem, where they are observing the problem, and who is providing the definition. Neo-liberal economic analysts prefer to limit the problem to ICTS as a market- value commodity driven by technological determinism, seeing profitable manufacture, highly concentrated sales, and high adoption rates as a way to overcome the “divide.” Educators and literacy specialists, on the other hand, prefer a broader interpretation, which includes the universal use-value of ICTS in the creation of a better-educated society in which citizens can contribute more than their taxes. This paper defines several “divides” and recognizes existing 97 and long-standing alternatives which might overcome the divides. Key words: Digital divide, connectivity, Canada, universal access.

THE FIRST WAVE AND COMMODITY-VALUE

espite promises of universal access, the Digital Divide is a persistent Dphenomenon in the increasing dominance of Information and Communica- tion Technology (ICT). In the mid 1990s, during the “first-wave” of what was then called the Information Highway, the Canadian Liberal government’s response largely resembled the U.S. government’s analysis of deployment and use, leading to the recognition of the Digital Divide. Following the U.S. policy model, the Liberal government considered access to ICTs in terms of neo-liberal commodity-values in a globalized, deregulated telecommunications market driven by a variety of free-trade agreements at the bi-national and international level. Although both the U.S. and Canadian governments acknowledged a social aspect to ICTs in their early documentation of the ICT experiment, they fundamentally saw the process as an economic issue, designed to blossom in the hands of the private sector, in the process of creating a post-industrial information economy (Bell, 1999). Deploying such a new and massive technological infrastructure meant leveraging huge amounts of money and resources from the public and

RMEC / núm. 15 / primavera-verano / 2008 REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

private sectors, comparable to the way Canada linked “nation-building” with the creation of the railroad in the 19th century. To some optimists the first wave of ICT deployment was seen as delivering Marshall MacLuhan’s Global Village (1964-2003) in a convenient package (Wright, 1990). In an effort to guarantee that Canada be “the most connected country in the world” (in the Speech from the Throne in 1997; Canada: Privy Council Office, 1997), the Liberal government developed a policy for National Information Infrastructure. The government developed policies and practices regarding “e-government,” and also created the nation-wide Community Access Program, the “cornerstone” of the Liberals’ Connecting Canadians Initiative. Although Canada is considered one of the richest and most “just” countries (MacQueen, 2006), the government’s optimism about guaranteeing universal access to information through ICTs is now in jeopardy of never being truly realized. The most recent threat to universal access is a result of the current Conser- vative government’s decision in 2006 to diminish support for the National Infor- mation Infrastructure it inherited from the previous Liberal government. The Conservative government’s focus, although promoting e-government, has cut support for a number of vital programs that promote universal access. Instead, 98 the Conservatives are concentrating on high-profile wars against drugs, crime, and terrorism in Canada and abroad, rather than guaranteeing equitable, sustained access to a dynamic communication infrastructure as a public good vital to health, education, and welfare.

DIGITAL DIVIDE: A DEFINITION

The term “Digital Divide” was in general use by the late 1990s and was introduced by the U.S. Department of Commerce (National Telecommunication In- formation Administration –NTIA) in its Falling Through the Net series in 1995. The term has been almost universally adopted since then. But more than 10 years after the first deployment efforts, deciding “who” is “divided” from (degrees of) “what” and “where” they have access to information has not yet been adequately answered. According to the Liberal Canadian government during the late 1990s, income level and who had what technology at home were the primary ways of determining who had access to ICTs (Statistics Canada: Annual Home Internet Use Survey). That posed a limited analytical problem, according to Vanda Rideout (2000). The Internet User Survey didn’t ask about where else, other than at home, Canadians were accessing ICTs until at least four years later. For the reasons above, the current Conservatives government’s ICT policy should continue to interrogate the Digital Divide. The Conservatives should THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY decide what the term Digital Divide means to them today, in light of their “e- government” efforts and neo-liberal market ideology. Defining the Divide can only be fully addressed if the government acknowledges that it signifies different things to different stakeholders and that there is a depth and a breadth to connectivity. For example, the foremost issue remains the possibilities of connectivity for people at different economic levels, often determined by different education levels, or where they live (urban or rural areas), and what their information needs are. This paper reports a brief history of Canadian government connectivity programs. The paper also reviews the parallel NGO and public interest groups that sprang up to critique the Canadian Government’s ICT deployment policies. In spite of the public interest groups’ critiques, governments have never responded with enough financial or technical support to overcome the Divide. We should be concerned about the Digital Divide because it limits some citizens’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities due to shifts to online e-government and “i- government” (or government by information).

DIGITAL DIVIDE AND CONNECTIVITY: THE FIRST WAVE (IHAC 1994-1997) 99 During the first wave of defining universal digital connectivity in the 1990s the Canadian government championed the “Information Highway” as the paramount communication medium at a time of telecommunications de-regulation and market transformation. This was no less problematic than re-defining telephonic universality in 1910.1 As new media converged (computers, TV, radio, VCR, cell phones, etc.), and begat a new global information economy, the “first wave” of neo-liberal Governmental responses to identifying the Digital Divide emerged. Those first and dominant policy responses were problematic in that they identi- fied the adoption, or “penetration,” of ICTs in the same way Government econo- mists viewed the adoption of any less sophisticated stand-alone household commodity such as TV or radio (Sciadas, 2001). In response public interest groups, formed by frequently un-funded or under-funded citizens, academics, and information professionals, began to present their argument to the Government that universal access to ICTs has the potential to transform society by giving all citizens access to information and decision-making powers.

THE LIBERAL POLICY LEGACY (1994-1997)

The default definition of the first-wave Digital Divide in federal Canadian policy documents under the Liberal government between 1994 and 1997 primarily REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

addressed “sustainable competition” and “market linkage,” despite optimistic references to “content and culture,” “access and social impacts,” “learning and training” (Canada: Industry Canada, 1995). The body responsible for setting the ICT agenda during the 1990s, the Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC), under the auspices of Industry Canada, first distributed funding in 1994 for public-access digital connectivity through the Community Access Program (CAP), described on the CAP website in the following way:

Community Access Program (CAP) is a Government of Canada initiative, adminis- tered by Industry Canada, which aims to provide Canadians with affordable public access to the Internet and the skills they need to use it effectively. With the com- bined efforts of the federal, provincial and territorial governments, community groups, social agencies, libraries, schools, volunteer groups and the business community, CAP helps Canadians, wherever they live, take advantage of emerging op- portunities in the new global knowledge-based economy. Under CAP, public locations like schools, libraries and community centres act as “on-ramps” to the Infor- mation Highway, and provide computer support and training. The program plays a crucial role in bridging the digital divide; contributing to the foundation for electronic access to government services; encouraging on-line learning and literacy; fostering the development of community based infrastructure; and, pro- 100 moting Canadian e-commerce (Canada: About CAP).

Despite the positive CAP-site tone and the promising titles and inclusive language in IHAC’s final reports Connection, Community, and Content (Canada: Industry Canada, 1995), cited above, and Preparing Canada for a Digital World (1997), Industry Canada by no means connected everyone. Nor did (or could) they connect everyone equitably or affordably, for a variety of reasons. For example, the IHAC reports encouraged publicly funded and not-for-profit institutions to partner with the private sector, or actually create profit in order to sustain technical connectivity. This, in itself, foresaw the so-called “information economy” that would supposedly, hand-in-hand, support the increasingly “neo- liberal” market. As “less government” was becoming fashionable, this policy would also diminish the government’s responsibilities to support the public good of sustained public access. By relying on market forces, rather than sustained, controlled government programs, the last two Canadian governments have gradu- ally withdrawn from supporting the public interest in information access to create an atmosphere that has changed social behaviour so the idea of the public interest has been subsumed to that of the market. The government does not want to be a “content” provider, except to promote its own activities, instead encouraging Internet users to take advantage of the opportunity to create content them- selves. One result of uneven access, diminished governance, and ineffective use is that there are many poor quality sites, spams and scams on the Web. THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY

By using the Canadian government’s “first wave” policy recommendations from the 1990s (Canada, 1995; 1997), We will now turn to the transformation from the first ambitious ICT deployment of the Liberal government and the interest groups and NGOs that were supported by, worked with, and responded to federal government initiatives, from IHAC to the latest e-government policies being undertaken in Canada. The Liberal government funded cross-country connectivity projects and acted as a “model user” with the first ICT deployment and then let the neo-liberal market decide who would gain access (Canada: Industry Canada, 1995:12-13). In addition, the Liberals developed what they called their “six pillars of connect- edness agenda,” an exemplary series of sites that addressed both cultural issues (under Heritage Canada) and economic issues (under Industry Canada).2 As reported in 1999 (IPRP: Universal Access), the “six pillars” were under the rubric of “Connecting.Canadians”: (1) Canada Online, (2) Smart Communities, (3) Canadian Content Online, (4) Electronic Commerce, now called Digital Economy in Canada; (5) Canadian Government Online (which remains the main Govern- ment of Canada website), (6) Connected Canada to the World. The Conservatives stopped funding “Connecting.Canadians,” although they retained elements #4 and #5, given their economic and “e-government” priori- 101 ties. With its Community Access Program (CAP) the Liberal government during the 1990s began to sustain deployment and connectivity (to a point) and guaran- teed a modicum of training provided by well-meaning volunteers and students (CAP Youth). From its inception in 1994 until 2004-2005 CAP was funded through application without competition by the Liberal government. Then, after a de- cade of Liberal support, established CAP programs across Canada became almost exclusively contingent on competition, leaving some programs to fail, and others to receive lower funding. To make things worse than “competition,” the Conservative government (elected 2006) threatened to eliminate CAP altogether in a package of massive cutbacks, the effect of which would have been disastrous, according to Digital Divide/Internet scholar Marita Moll (2007). At the last minute, however, instead of killing CAP, the Conservatives reduced its funding from $25 million (as it was under the Liberals) to $8.8 million. After vacillating over CAP’s future, as of June 2007 the Conservatives extended its life for one year but at the lower funding level, thereby threatening the survival of many sites. Commodity-based analysis dominated policy creation well after the Informa- tion Highway Advisory Council’s final report (Canada: Industry Canada, 1997), as is evident in Canada’s Journey to an Information Society (Statistics Canada, 2003). Another disappointment to NGO and other public interest observers was REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

that an ongoing National Access Strategy, promised in IHAC’s reports (Canada: IHAC, 1997) was never articulated, nor was a committee struck. Neo-liberal policy continued to be implemented but, apparently, no one was watching the outcome.

SECOND WAVE ANALYSIS: EFFECTIVENESS AND USE-VALUE

While universal technological access has not yet been achieved, alternative schol- arship points to a “second-wave” of Digital Divide analysis. In recognition of the failed efforts to guarantee true universality, Barzilai-Nahon investigates “moving beyond technology to the users” (2006:269) to answer questions of the need for social access recognized by Warschauer (2003) that may actually spur on technological universality. In studies supported by the Canadian government, a “dual divide” was described by Canadian policy analyst Andrew Reddick. Reddick refers to those who cannot access the Internet and those who do not feel the need; whereas, in her book Digital Divide, Civic Engagement, Information Pov- erty, and the Internet Worldwide, Pippa Norris (2001) identifies several more divides including the social divide, and the democratic divide –the last being 102 most appropriate to citizenship concerns. If ICT deployment is viewed more for its societal value by age, gender, class, income, language, geographic region, location (not just in the home) –then there is a more profound foundation for citizens’ understanding use-value and use- value analysis of ICTs. With that in mind the Liberal government eventually asked questions about language and ethnic groups other than the English and French, the two Canadian “founding nations.” They also asked about some for- gotten peoples, specifically the Indian (First Nations, Aboriginal) population at the first National Aboriginal Canadian Forum (2002) –some five years after the Speech from the Throne (1997) promised to: “Make the information and knowledge infrastructure accessible to all Canadians, thereby making Canada the most connected nation in the world.” That promise had not come to fruition seven years later when Steven M. Cherry (2004) who, interpreting an International Telecommunication Union report reporting a world-wide “Digital Access Index,” observed that Canada had come no closer than tenth place –and decidedly not become the “most connected” nation. THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY

BETTER PURPOSE, MORE ACCESS, AND BETTER MEASUREMENT

If the Digital Divide is more than a measurement of a market commodity, it is important to evaluate patterns of use, content, access, and need as e-Government policy is resulting in more government information on the Web and, conse- quently, more requirements for access for the sake of citizenship.3 We must also, in the context of citizenship, seek out solutions to social exclusion, by consider- ing “Social Capital,” the concept introduced by Vanovetter (1973) who regards weak social ties, such as acquaintances, now frequently online, or arm’s-length e-government, as the best way to sustain a “connected” life. The e-government project is very ambitious but will only be effective, in the light of diminished funding, if everybody can access up-to-date ICTs and Internet Service Providers compatible with Government web sites, can adapt to changing ICTs, and can sustain online, printing and information storage costs. And that connectivity had a promising beginning. By 2000, there was a rapid increase in the level of digital inclusion in Canada. Groups that had traditionally been digital “have nots” (e.g. the poor, ethnic and foreign language groups), were then making dramatic gains (Reddick, 2000). But a later study by Reddick (2002), suggests that there had been a considerable leveling off in Internet adoption at home. This suggests that 2002 was a watershed year for Government Internet 103 commitments, or at least a watershed in willingness or recognizing the need to connect by ICT users. By 2002, Industry Canada and Statistics Canada reported that almost 60% of all Canadians used computers and the Internet. Significantly, that was mostly in larger cities. The 2003 Statistics Canada and Industry Canada report entitled Canada’s Journey to an Information Society (notably still a “Jour- ney”) confirmed that approximately 60% of Canadians use the Internet from any location (a step-up from at-home use analysis). However, the Statistics Canada 2004 Home Internet Use Survey confirms a slow and limited increase in computer use:

An estimated 7.9 million (64%) of the 12.3 million Canadian households had at least one member who used the Internet regularly in 2003, either from home, work, school, a public library or another location. This was a 5% increase from 2002, but well below the annual gains of 19% and 24% observed in 2000 and 2001.

A 2004 survey, conducted by the Canadian Internet Project (CIP, an NGO sub- group of the World Internet Project), suggested that 72% of Canadians were using the Internet in all locations. The latest Statistics Canada figures (at the time of this writing), from 2005, estimated that 68% of Canadians (16.8 million) used the Internet for personal reasons (in all locations, not just at home), REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

and still mostly in larger cities. However, Statistics Canada warns that, due to a new set of variables used in the survey, it is difficult to compare previous survey numbers. It is also difficult to compare the variables of the government and CIP studies, largely due to the prohibitive cost of Statistics Canada’s full survey documentation and methodology (CDN $2,340). How are we to interpret those statistics? Canada’s Journey to an Informa- tion Society is not yet complete if only 68% (or 72%) of Canadians have access to ICTs. This is especially true when we compare computer access to the telephone (now considered essential, for emergencies, employment, or family con- nections), to which we have achieved 98% connectivity in all regions throughout the country. The Conservative Canadian government’s diminished funding for connectivity and training in public institutions through CAP programs strongly suggests that those who have not yet adopted ICTs, or have fallen behind in adopting newer ICTs, will have a harder time in the future. Industry Canada’s “Broad- band” site admits this failing when, in describing the virtues of high-capacity access (or “broadband”), it says:

However, while many Canadians are connected to broadband services, not all 104 Aboriginal, northern and rural communities have access (Canada: Industry Canada, Broadband-Home Page).

Such an acknowledgement is particularly problematic when the Canadian government has adopted the e-government “solution” to disseminate information about health, voting, safety, or the environment. Information, once available in hard-copy in Government bookstores, and at public and university libraries, is not now accessible to those without adequate high-capacity ICTs. Without ubiquitous, universal, constant access to such information, in a variety of media, the very notion of social cohesion central to citizenship is at stake. Mark Warschauer addresses issues of inclusion in his book Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide (2003). Warschauer uses terms such as “social exclusion,” “social interaction,” and “social networks,” similar to those found in the Canadian Government’s Policy Research Initiative report (Canada: PRI 2006) that make it clear that in some circumstances, certain types of “social capital” networks are more useful than others –many of which today can be enhanced by computer networks. Warschauer sees the Internet as one of the best ways to promote the weak social ties necessary to sustain vital social capital. To put this into context, we should consider it historically. While the technology that inspired the concept of the Digital Divide is new, the idea that there are information “haves” and “have nots” (and therefore social capital “have nots”) is not. A divide is still a divide –whether described as illiteracy versus THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY literacy, distances to libraries, the closest village with a telephone, or access to ICTs.

TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE: PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS & NGOS

While the Liberal government of the 1990s was developing its own vision of universal access, and the scholars cited above observed the weaknesses in neo- liberal market-based technical access other Canadian groups went to work either as government-funded “shadow” policy bodies, as members of international symposiums, or as independent groups with varying degrees of longevity and success in influencing the government-market access model. Their primary role has been to respond to and/or assist government programs, sometimes as sanc- tioned quasi-governmental observers, sometimes as wary groups of citizens, and often as cautionary critics. One of the earliest groups to form (and continue) is Telecommunities Canada (TC), an “association of associations” founded in Ottawa in 1994. At its origin TC helped organize “freenets” (or “community networks”) across Canada and has become known for contributing to and critiquing the government’s access 105 programs. TC had advisory representatives on the Federal Government’s Com- munity Access Program when it began in 1995 and was an officially recognized body at the World Symposium on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 and 2005. TC board members and researchers also contributed to the Canadian Re- search Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN, see below), a federally funded project (2003-2007), designed to critique and improve government internet access projects in the “new economy.” Several other public interest groups sprang up in the early days of the “Infor- mation Highway” planning stages, many of which have withered away, found niche responsibilities, or morphed into organizations that have followed the transformation of the online experience. One such foundational group was the Coalition for Public Information (CPI) a policy body founded in 1993 by the Ontario Library Association (OLA) Strategic Planning Group. Anticipating a society-wide response to new communication crises CPI concluded that:

Libraries needed to confront the reality of more widely used electronic formats; increasing urban populations and decreasing rural and northern populations; a growing need to share information precipitated by more efficient telecommunications; and advantage accruing to those with easy access to information (McDowell and Buchwald, IPRP 1997). REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

CPI’s membership was far-reaching and included not only librarians and OLA, but members of the publishing industry, Telecommunities Canada, the Ontario government, the Ontario Federation of Labour, and a variety of “freenets” across the country. Recognizing the broad base of stakeholders the OLA discontinued its direct participation. While CPI’s life-span was relatively brief its Chair became one of the few public sector members of the Information Highway Advisory Committee (IHAC). With the aid of Ontario provincial funding and federal con- tracts from Industry Canada CPI made important presentations to the federal regulatory body Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commis- sion (CRTC) and IHAC, and produced Future Knowledge (Skrzeszewski and Cubberley, 1995), a public policy document representing CPI’s ideals of universal access, reasonable cost, intellectual freedom, and cultural diversity. CPI also joined a number of other organizations that called for a never-realized recom- mendation in IHAC’s final report that promised to create a National Access Strategy committee. The Canadian Library Association’s (CLA) Standing Committee on Intellec- tual Property and Access remains a long-standing access advocate. Throughout the year and during its annual conference it prepares submissions for the Federal 106 government as access issues arise. The most active and effective provincial library information policy association in Canada is the British Columbia Library Association (BCLA), whose membership has traditionally been part of and has influenced the national CLA. Another group dedicated to universal access active during and after IHAC’s deliberations was based at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies. The Information Policy Research Program/Project (IPRP), founded in 1995, sponsored research, seminars, and publications related initially to affordable access to information infrastructure, but later to broader concepts such as privacy, censorship, electronic cash, and identity theft. Funded in part by a variety of federal government departments such as Industry Canada, Canadian Heri- tage, Human Resources, and Status of Women Canada, IPRP held a series of workshops and seminars which culminated in more than fifty working papers, book chapters, policy submissions to government agencies, and other projects, most of which remain archived on the IPRP site. Highlighting the Working Pa- pers (WP) series are titles such as “Developing Information Policies for a Cana- dian ‘Information Infrastructure’: Public Interest Perspectives in a Research Frame- work” (WP #1, 1995), “What Do We Mean by ‘Universal Access’?: Social Per- spectives in a Canadian Context” (WP #5, 1997), and a policy submission entitled “Report of the National Access Strategy Meeting with Industry Canada Officials” (1999), published in response to the Liberal government’s failure to follow through on IHAC’s advice to develop a National Access Advisory Com- THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: CANADA’S ACCESS AS A NEO-LIBERAL COMMODITY mittee. Many members of the IPRP and other national researchers, having honed their policy techniques since the outset of the Information Highway project, contributed to the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) initiative (2003-2007). CRACIN, an example of Government and academic co-operation was funded for four years by the Canadian Government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC), “established in 2003 to investigate the achievements of community-based information and communication technology initiatives in Canada.” CRACIN’s web site describes its role as providing: “the amelioration of ‘digital divides’; the development of community-oriented informational resources; the creation and use of community-oriented learning tools; and local innovation in the development of infrastructure, software, and applications.” CRACIN also formed panels and produced reports, available on their web site, such as “Com- munity Networking in Canada” and “Success Doesn’t Compute for the Federal Community Access Program.” One of the longest-standing NGOs dedicated to access to telecommunications, broadcasting, and the Information Highway (among other consumer interests) is the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) which has represented stake- holder interests for more than twenty-five years. Based in Ottawa, the nation’s 107 capital city, PIAC has produced reports and studies with titles such as “Achieving Universal Access to the Information Highway” (1998); “Improving Internet Ac- cess: The Canadian Approach” (1999); “Achieving Universal Access to the Internet: An Impossible Dream?” (1999), all of which were prepared by the then in-house legal counsel Philippa Lawson. A recent and extremely influential group following broadband and other access issues is the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) founded at the University of Ottawa in 2003. Directed by lawyer and Professor Michael Geist, the staff include former PIAC staff member and now one of CIPPIC’s Directors, Philippa Lawson, as well as law students who work pro bono. And, finally, Canada’s role in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), guided by advice from the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, cannot be overlooked. Held in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) and organized by the Inter- national Telecommunications Union (ITU) WSIS was the latest in a series of international meetings about information access and governance that date back to the UNESCO-backed “MacBride Report” (UNESCO, Many Voices, One World) of 1980 when the so-called New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) was being envisioned. And while Canada brought its views on the “Digital Di- vide” to WSIS, vowing to follow the policies developed in Geneva and Tunis, WSIS itself has been criticized for its neo-liberal economic context, reflecting the long-time overall objection to Western governmental methods of attempting to REVISTA MEXICANA DE ESTUDIOS CANADIENSES

overcome the Digital Divide (De Charras, 2005; Pickard, 2007), the very methods researched, analyzed, and criticized by the NGOs and public interest groups cited throughout this paper.

NOTES

1 Based on the views of AT&T president Theodore Vail, described by Milton Mueller in his Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Mo- nopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System 2 The two bodies were created in 1993 when the Department of Communica- tions was divided into the departments of Heritage and Industry, the latter taking the lead in decision-making about the information economy that was emerging as the dominant government concern 3 If we, by virtue of not having adequate access to adequate ICTs, can not know what our government wants from us, or what the government has tooffer us, how can we contribute and benefit as citizens?

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Fecha de recepción: 15 de octubre 2007 Fecha de aceptación: 25 de marzo 2008

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