Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: I rise today to speak to Motion No. 107, which was brought forward by our colleague, Senator Deacon. Even though my level of interest and expertise in all things digital are far from rivalling his own, I support his efforts to make the delivery of public services more efficient and accessible.

[English]

I must begin by confessing that when I first saw Senator Deacon’s motion, my immediate reaction was to think, “Finally, a chance to rant against government websites.” But then I thought that would not be very constructive in light of what the motion seeks to do.

Still, I would say that we are presented with a kind of paradox. By voting in favour of this motion — and I will — we are asking the government to do more of something it has been pretty bad at. It would be tempting to spend 10 minutes railing against the dysfunction of some of our online services, but I will resist.

Consider only two anecdotes. The first comes from a family of Canadian permanent residents in Montreal. They are immigrants from Eastern Europe. Both are telecommunications engineers. They have two children. They have lived in Canada for a few years, and recently had to renew their permanent resident cards as they prepare to apply for Canadian citizenship. This was a formality. So they went onto the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, website and they started to fill out the online forms for their family of four. These are fairly complex applications, even for people who are already permanent residents.

The father started working on the process one evening, and after encountering some difficulties, he decided to take a day off only to fill out the applications online, but it did not work. For some reason, the government site made it impossible to submit the application. So this man, a telecommunications engineer, started looking for advice, and he discovered entire blogs dedicated to dealing with the IRCC system. He was told the name of his street might be too long. He was told to try to add spaces in his postal code. He was told not to use capital letters. He was told other things, but in the end, nothing worked.

After wasting more than one day on his family’s online application, this very smart and technologically capable man printed the application documents and sent them in paper form.

[Translation]

Here’s the second anecdote. Everyone knows there’s a dire shortage of doctors in the regions, including in Quebec’s Laurentians region. Five years ago, two doctors from France came to lend a hand, and they now have 2,700 patients between the two of them.

Unfortunately, we recently found out that Isabelle Branco and Jean-Louis Ménard had to put their appointments on hold and were in danger of losing their work permits. That means they’re no longer treating their patients, ostensibly because a code was missing from their file even though it had been sent several days earlier.

Fortunately, the whole thing was cleared up yesterday, but apparently it took the media getting involved to sort things out.

It’s something of a paradox. Government websites have been making lots of people, including me, want to tear their hair out for years, yet we still want more. We need more.

Why? Simple: We now live much of our lives online. We pay our bills online. We communicate online. We bank online. We research online. We shop online.

Steve’s Music Store, a Montreal institution, had this motto: “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” These days, if something isn’t on the internet, it doesn’t exist.

That’s why we need the federal government to increase the quantity and improve the quality of its online services.

I will not repeat the statistics given by Senator Deacon regarding Canada’s low digital government ranking, nor will I dwell on the cost savings, because, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s recent reports show, those are difficult to quantify. In any case, the digital transformation is not just about cutting costs. It’s about making life easier and making sure that our public services remain accessible as technology evolves.

In order for that to happen, I would suggest that our federal government focus on two issues in particular.

The first is simplicity. The primary objective of this motion is to increase the quantity of services available online. However, I think that will be impossible if we don’t also improve the quality of those services.

Government websites must be simple to use and written in plain language, not Klingon. The sites must contain simple instructions with an easy log-in and authentication process. They also need to be reliable and flexible. They should not be designed to accept only specific file types, requests, software applications, certificates, characters, browsers or formats. They must be designed so that a 10-year-old child or a 64-year-old adult, like me, can use them without screaming or bursting into tears.

[English]

The Parliamentary Budget Officer report contains an encouraging paragraph on this point:

As part of this goal, the federal government created a link between [an individual’s Canada Revenue Agency and his or her Service Canada Account]. This allows for a single sign‑in and is based on a “tell us once” principle. . . . In addition to being able to connect between [different agencies’ accounts], the federal government also partnered with certain financial institutions . . . and some provinces to access Government of Canada services. The purpose of offering different choices of login credentials . . . is to make its online services “more convenient for clients to access” and having “one less username and password for clients to remember”.

I would like to take a minute to make sure that the eternal archives of the Senate record this critically important prescription for the future of humanity: Please give us fewer usernames and passwords to remember.

The second issue that I think needs to be addressed is that of privacy and information security. I have zero technical knowledge about these issues. To be perfectly frank, these are not problems that wake me up at night — perhaps because I am naive, or because my personal information is fairly boring. But I know that a lot of people are very concerned about privacy and information security — I have one friend in particular — and I know these things matter. As the federal government moves forward with the transition to digital services and digital identification, it must make sure to adopt best practices and be completely transparent about what it does.

This is not just a matter of information security. It’s also a matter of public trust in our institutions, which is something that has implications beyond the delivery of government services. At a time when, sadly, public trust in our institutions seems to be at an all-time low, our government needs to be exemplary in its approach to digital interactions and information processing.

I conclude by reiterating my support for Motion No. 107. The federal government must continue to transition to digital service delivery, and it must do it faster and better. I do not expect this major transformation to be completed in the short term. However, and for this reason, I am grateful to have my husband, children and younger staff to help me navigate these evil web portals. Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Kutcher, seconded by the Honourable Senator Cormier:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology be authorized to examine and report on the negative impact of health disinformation and misinformation on Canadian society and what effective measures can be implemented to counter this impact; and

That the committee submit its final report on this study to the Senate no later than May 31, 2024, and that the committee retain all powers necessary to publicize its findings for 180 days after the tabling of the final report.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Senator Deacon, would you mind answering a question?

[English]