Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has unveiled his cabinet and one surprise that stood out is the creation of a Digital Innovation Minister role.
Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has unveiled his cabinet. One role we are watching closely is, of course, the Heritage Minister which is basically responsible for the mess that is Canada’s digital policy these days (shared by the Industry Minister of course, but more on that later).
Prior to the election, Carney appointed the unmitigated disaster that was Steven Guilbeault to become the Heritage Minister. While I won’t re-write the article explaining why this is probably one of the worst possible choices he could make, the short of it is that Guilbeault was very obviously in way over his head, not knowing what the heck he was doing, and making a mess of everything he did. We were able to document this quite well in the past, but the fact that he was tapped to fill that role again suggested that Carney has an extraordinary lack of judgment – at least on this file anyway.
Of course, there is some hope in that this was a momentary lapse in judgment. After all, now that Carney and the Liberal party has won the election, maybe he’ll appoint someone that actually has a clue what is going on. Well, as it turns out, Guilbeault retained his role as Heritage Minister.
The guy managed to piss off everyone, table horribly bad legislation, and screw pretty much everything up. It was so bad, it was very obvious that he needed to go. Hell, even Trudeau knew that he had to get Guilbeault out of that role as soon as humanly possible because he was such a bad liability. How does someone look at that past and immediately say, “You’re hired!” It’s absolutely staggering the lack of judgment on that one.
Speaking of unmitigated disasters, there was also the role of Industry Minister (at one point referred to as the “Innovation” minister). That was helmed by François-Philippe Champaigne. Champaigne, ultimately only had one job. That was to put together Canada’s privacy reform legislation. He had a blueprint that was the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). So, he didn’t even have to re-invent the wheel on things. All he had to do was steal the European law and make it his own, table and pass it. That’s it.
Yet, despite all but being handed the answer key for how to do his damned job, he somehow managed to fail at that anyway. Honestly, that’s quite the accomplishment in incompetence, really. Champaigne, during the last government, simply had to re-introduce the legislation that was tabled previously even (which was far from perfect, but at least it was a start). Unfortunately, he spent his time naval gazing and twiddling his thumbs. At some point, he decided to move the odd comma here and there while basically changing nothing. After years of privacy reform being completely missing in action, complaints started understandably coming from all corners. Where was privacy reform? Did he somehow manage to lose his legislation? The answer? It was his “top priority“. This was followed by even more radio silence.
After even more silence, the legislation was finally tabled and it was… basically the same bill. This led to serious questions over what the hell he was doing all this time. Nevertheless, he finally got off of his lazy butt and table the legislation, so we can finally start the debates on how best to craft it, right?
Hahaha! No. He then spent the rest of the government’s time slow walking the legislation. Very little movement occurred throughout the time it spent as an obviously low priority bill for the Liberal party. This despite digital criminals continually and repeatedly making off with the personal information of Canadian’s in numerous high profile breaches and leaks.
Ultimately, the election was called and the legislation died on the orderpaper. That meant that what little progress the Liberal party begrudgingly gave this legislation has been lost completely, forcing us to go back to square one yet again (as it has been for the last decade). Indeed, Champaigne had one job and he still managed to fuck it up royally.
Well, as it turns out, that idiot won’t be helming that role any more (word his, he distressingly got promoted to Finance Minister for his track record at being a fuck up in his last position). So, now that he is out of that role, who is in? As it turns out, that position has been filled by Mélanie Joly. Personally, I really don’t know much about Joly in her abilities on the privacy front, but that’s who we are stuck with in that role. So, it’ll be interesting to see what she does or doesn’t do.
Personally, when I was envisioning this article, this is about where I was thinking this article would end. Well, as it turns out, there was a surprising curve ball thrown into the mix. There is now a brand new minister that could affect things on a number of fronts. This is the introduction of the AI and Digital Innovation Minister. This is quite the change and I don’t personally know what all of this means for where everything fits in.
I mean, would this role involve putting together Privacy Reform moving forward? I guess it’s possible. Would it, instead, work hand-in-hand with the Industry Minister instead? Entirely possible. What is the role of the new Minister with regards to things like the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act? Does that minister fully take that over or does it go hand-in-hand with the Culture Minister? Again, I really have no idea at this stage. What about the Digital Services Tax which would also be a hot topic once the American’s realize that this can be exploited against Canada’s interests? Again, I really don’t know at this stage.
Optimistically, I like to think that the new role of Innovation Minister is to help foster Canadian’s ability to navigate and become successful online. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that’s going to happen.
Why? Simply put, Evan Solomon, who is taking on that role, has long been the face for the interests of mainstream media. Mainstream media has long been at war with the free and open internet. They orchestrated the anti-internet laws such as the Online Streaming Act and Online News Act. They have long been pushing to turn back the hands of time and take Canada back to the bad old days where the internet simply didn’t exist and they had a monopoly on audiences. Unless something significant has changed with Solomon, I can only see this as a case of the fox guarding the hen house.
For Canadians, the name might ring a bell. That’s because he was the host of the CBC’s political program, Power and Politics. If I remember right, he actually was the first host of that show. Afterwards, he moved on to be a part of a political broadcast show on CTV to continue his broadcasting career. This after he was removed from the CBC altogether.
There’s a number of questions this all raises here. Where does the responsibility of this new profile lie? Is Solomon going to take things in a different and more positive direction or is he just going to be the front man for how Canada is cracking down on the Canadian internet? Hard to say at this point. I’m not overly optimistic, but I’ll be waiting to see the proof of where things are going to be heading first before casting final judgment. It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
