Mr. Doug Allen
Deputy Minister
Ministry of Employment and Investment
712 Yates Street
Victoria, B.C. V8V 1X4

27 September 1995

Dear Mr. Allen:

This letter constitutes the detailed response of the B.C. Coalition for Information Access to the second version of Draft #2 of the Accord, received on August 14, 1995.

As we indicated in the letter dated August 15, the British Columbia Coalition for Information Access has reviewed the final draft of The B.C. Electronic Highway Accord and supports the overall draft with qualifications.

We are pleased with the number of changes made since the draft Accord was presented to the consultation meeting on June 21, 1995 and the additional changes made between draft 1 and the final draft.

While the language of the Accord has changed substantially, we maintain that libraries, community organizations and community networks, such as freenets, require direct financial support from the Government in order to equalize the disparity of resources that currently exist. In other words, to accomplish the laudable goals set out in the Accord, the Government will have to directly support libraries, freenets, and community organizations providing public access points. We are also concerned that the question of ongoing operating costs has not been mentioned and is a significant financial issue. Until the question of financial support is addressed, it is not possible for the B.C. Coalition for Information Access to give other than conditional support to the Accord. "Innovative funding" and ambiguity on financial support are not satisfactory resolutions to this issue.

The Accord requires a Glossary to define ambiguous terms such as "access", "affordable", and "basic service". The concept of "affordable", which is never defined, is used in the vision statement and throughout the document. What is meant by affordable? The Coalition stated that cost should neither be a barrier to access nor a barrier to creating content on the network. This is a rudimentary definition, but a starting point. Without a common understanding of these terms, the use of such significant words will leave much of the Accord document open to interpretation.

Following are some of our remaining detailed suggestions for fine-tuning the Accord document. Our suggested changes are indicated by bolded text.

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

Suggested change for the second bullet: "Participation depends on... community organizations, individuals and businesses". Defining the participating organizations as community-related differentiates and offsets the organizations which are commercial businesses.

In the second sentence, "...the importance of the community, its employers, and public institutions...". Using "employers" rather than businesses" puts the responsibility of training on those who employ workers, rather than the businesses which may be hired to perform the training functions for the employers who are thus obliged to provide training.

This may be a typo in the third bullet: "telecom companies businesses". We suggest changing this to "telecommunications businesses".

GETTING THERE - GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Under clearly defined and complementary roles, the statement "Communities will focus on overcoming knowledge, skills, and championing affordability and universal access" should be worked in with the previous version of that sentence: "Communities will focus on overcoming barriers such as knowledge, skills, and cost for individuals and groups to facilitate their access to and use of communications networks and information services". This includes both the concept of access as well as barriers to be considered and overcome.

This section should also indicate that communities should provide alternate services to meet public needs which are not necessarily being met by commercial information providers.

ACCESS - CAPACITY - TARGETED OUTCOMES:

In the fifth bullet, "libraries" should be individually specified and not subsumed under "education", as part of the "province-wide public public sector electronic initiative".

OBJECTIVE - INCREASE AND ENHANCE B.C.'S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY: TARGETED OUTCOMES:

At our meeting with Rob Botterell on August 9, 1995, we agreed to add the following additional point as bullet #5 to highlight freenet's contribution to regional growth and to balance out the previous point: "Encourage and support the growth of community networks as a source of regional entrepreneurial growth".

OBJECTIVE: INCREASE EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC SERVICES: TARGETED OUTCOMES:

Under the first bullet which defines the role of the new Chief Information Office, the very important policy direction addressing social responsibility should be added: "...supporting research into the social consequences".

A DYNAMIC PROCESS

In the second bullet: "Establish a comprehensive communications exchange via media and public forums...". We suggest the word "exchange", an interactive concept, rather than "process", which suggests a one-way communications program.

THE WORKPLAN

Our proposed changes to the community section of the Workplan are attached to this letter (suggested changes indicated in italics). We would welcome the opportunity to meet with representatives from the CIO to discuss the Workplan in greater detail.

SUMMARY

As stated in our previous letter (August 15), the British Columbia Coalition for Information Access does not have the resources to properly evaluate some of the elements of the Accord, for example, those dealing with the B.C. Systems Corporation. We are therefore abstaining from any comments or any support for that section of the document.

We understand that The Electronic Highway Accord is a general document of principle.However, we are concerned that the Coalition has not been consulted on Workplan details since our early August meeting, which was also our introduction to the Workplan. We understand that the corporate players are extensively involved in discussions in the Chief Information Officer's office. Once again, there seems to be an imbalance with the level of consultation with the community organizations and the corporate sector.

The British Columbia Coalition for Information Access looks forward to participating on the Advisory Committee and the various task forces so that public access to and public presence on the Electronic Highway is assured. However, we must emphasize that community participation cannot be token and must be accepted with equal seriousness as the private sector's participation.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline van Dyk
Chair, Coalition for Information Access

This page last updated 31 January 1996.

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