Connected

As noted here, Jack Layton called yesterday for the federal government to facilitate e-filing of taxes by offering a small rebate this year, and making necessary software available for free starting in 2008. On its face, this appears to be a simple practical suggestion to make an inconvenience for most Canadians seem slightly less problematic. But there's potential for this to be a signal of a far deeper effort.

Consider the similarities between this latest request and the NDP's action on ATM fees. In both cases, technology is readily available to make a regular action (withdrawing money from the bank or filing taxes) more efficient. Yet in both cases, even as the new process results in benefits to the other side involved (the federal government in the case of e-filing, and the bank in the case of an ATM), an added cost is imposed on Canadians who seek to use that technology. Which works out just fine for the banks or the software vendors who make money out of the bargain, but hardly seems the most effective way to encourage adoption of the technology involved.

Meanwhile, there's also the question of what technology is in fact made available to Canadians. While it's easy for observers in urban centres to assume that there's no gap in access in various regions of the country, that's far from being the case. As pointed out by the Ottawa Citizen, even within a short drive from our national capital it's possible to find a community of 700 lacking high-speed Internet access.

And it's not as if that has to be true - as the NDP can point out thanks to one of its provincial counterparts. Consider by way of comparison SaskTel's internet services: in a province of roughly a million people, 288 separate communities have high-speed Internet access available at a reasonable cost. (Click on "High Speed", then "High Speed Basic - Communities" to see the list of communities already covered within Saskatchewan in addition to the 10 largest centres in the province.) Suffice it to say that there aren't likely many communities in Saskatchewan anywhere near a population of 700 which lack high-speed access.

Of course, it's highly unlikely that every single one of the centres now receiving high-speed access is profitable for SaskTel, or was when service began. Which means that a choice was almost certainly made that at some level, ensuring relatively equal access to high-speed access was more important than extracting every possible cent of profit in the short term. And that in turn offers a stark contrast to the Cons' attitude toward telecommunications under which the market rules all, even if the more likely market outcome is for rural residents to leave due to the gap in their standard of living (not to mention the lowered potential for future development).

Given the choice between concrete measures to reduce technological inequalities or simply paying lip service to the value of rural Canada, it's likely that the former would resonate both in rural areas and among urban voters who recognize the need for more level opportunity.

In sum, there's room for a serious campaign to make sure both that standard technology is available for the use of all Canadians, and that it isn't subject to arbitrary profit-taking. That can serve as a standalone issue ("Building Canadian Connections" maybe?), or as another manifestation of the NDP's current "prosperity gap" theme. But one way or another, it's long past time for a strong focus on the need to better share the benefits of technological advances - and the NDP seems to be laying the groundwork for just that.