I read an interesting opinion column in the Toronto Star the other day. The headline was “Canada needs a public digital system not controlled by Big Tech”. (Linda McQuaig, September 7.).Really? The last thing Canada needs is a publicly funded digital system..With all due regard to Ms. McQuaig, no thanks! The author felt that Big Tech, such as Google, Meta and others, has too much power and control over what we see on the internet and on social media networks..Instead, she argues, there should be a publicly funded open-source digital system which would allow independent media to flourish and negate the influence of mega corporations private interests..Now, I don’t disagree with her that Big Tech firms have significant control over their proprietary platforms and use them in a calculated manner to earn themselves and their shareholders ridiculous profits. Nor would I argue that their algorithms don't considerably influence what we see, read and experience online..But is a publicly funded digital infrastructure the answer?.No, emphatically no! In fact, what word is more unequivocal than emphatic? Whatever it is, that, plus infinity, no..Seldom is ‘more government’ the answer to any of life’s problems..We are a G7 country, yet we can’t even provide clean drinking water to many of our remote and indigenous communities. We are unable to provide adequate shelter for our most vulnerable and are increasingly unable to house our middle class. Yet a sound and pressing investment would be a publicly funded digital platform?.Can you imagine the financial blackhole that a government funded digital platform would be? Let’s consider the ArriveCAN app as a presentiment example..ArriveCAN cost Canadian taxpayers $55 million from the period of April 2020 to March 2023. From development to implementation it was a highly contentious and glitch ridden, technological abomination for which we paid too much..In fact, in October 2022, two private Canadian tech companies set out to prove that exact point by recreating the app and all its functions in less than 48 hours. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre told the story during his convention speech..But if you think that's bad, one of the worst publicly funded IT forays our government has ever undertaken was the Phoenix pay system. It was a bi-partisan failure of astonishing proportions..It was introduced by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in 2009 and fully implemented by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau in 2016. By 2018, just two short years, it had negatively impacted more than 80% of federal public service employees. Why?.The system was an off-the-shelf pay program provided by IBM who had won the bid to provide a modernized pay system for Ottawa and federal workers. But instead of trusting the experts at IBM, the government insisted on taking over the responsibility for “training design and execution,” opting for their own proprietary method opposed to IBM’s recommended system..Then later in 2015 IBM recommended delaying the roll-out of the program across the public service, due to critical problems discovered in the trial group — but the government went ahead anyway..The end result is that as of April 2022, the Phoenix pay system has cost taxpayers $2.4 billion and despite that still has an active case load in excess of 209,000 unresolved transactions..All that just for a relatively simple pay system with a base user group of 319,601 federal public servants. Ruined because the government got in the way..Now imagine the headaches and cost overruns the government would become embroiled in if it tried to implement and fund a complex public digital system for 38,781,291 Canadians. Over 100 times as many people as affected by the Phoenix pay system. The dollar value would be staggering..In both the ArriveCAN app and Phoenix pay system examples we see how government involvement within the digital and IT realms resulted in an immense burden for taxpayers..Lastly, it would be safe to surmise that if such a system was publicly funded there would have to be a certain amount of Canadian content, the usual bilingual requirements, and also be subject to review by a regulatory body that would need to be created..It’s funding would also therefore be subject to the whims of various governments officious actions whenever power changes hands in Ottawa..Every time the government ventures into a realm dominated by private industry, such as IT, all we ever get is an expensive, poorly run venture that underdelivers. Trans Mountain is another great example..So why don’t we create a government grocery store, or a state funded vehicle manufacturer?.Because private industry does it better..Those businesses are more accountable to the end users than governments are. Don’t like a product a company makes, go buy something else. That company suffers profit loss and adapts to be responsive to the consumer..Don’t like your government, too bad, you might have to wait five years to maybe vote in a new one and you still have to pay them your taxes regardless..Finally, trying to supplant the power and influence of imperfect private corporations and give it to dubious politicians by running a parallel publicly funded system would be pointless — we’re already doing it..It’s called the CBC.
