The future of e-government services

Online government services are a two-edged sword: wonderfully convenient yet incredibly frustrating. Sure, online services reduce the amount of time you need to spend waiting in over-crowded government offices, but the moment you have a question not covered by the FAQ, and you need to talk to a real person, you suddenly realize the limitations of e-government.

Whether or not you agree with the digitization of government services is beside the point—the (Internet) die has been cast and we are moving inexorably toward a digitally mediated relationship with government. Canada is not alone in this move; countries around the world are reaching citizens online through a variety of initiatives (Estonia is an especially interesting case). So how is Canada fairing in the switch to e-government?

“While considerable progress has been made over the last few years, we [Canada] still have a long way to go before I would be comfortable stating that we are ahead of the pack,” says Mike Kujawski, Partner & Senior Consultant, CEPSM.ca (Centre of Excellence for Public Service Marketing) in an email interview. “As a starting point, I find the term e-government outdated as it tends to isolate the electronic component of service and is often used solely in the context of moving from paper based services to online services. I believe that at the end of the day the focus should be on making a government service as efficient and effective as possible for its citizens. Sometimes this means doing things online (using different devices for different tasks, i.e. mobile vs. tablet vs. laptop), sometimes offline and increasingly it is becoming a combination of both.”

In Ontario, digitally-mediated government services and the overall strategy for this type of work falls in the Ministry of Government Services’ bailiwick, where they have created something called the e-government strategy. According to the ministry’s website, this means “use[ing] electronic tools to transform … service delivery, the internal management of government, our management of broader public sector systems, our interactions with citizens.” In case you’re wondering what that means, one example is the online newborn registration service launched in 2009, and another is the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) portal, which has been online for over 10 years now. (I’ll be exploring what’s coming next for Ontario in a follow up post.)

Many government ministries and agencies—including Legal Aid Ontario—have been moving services online in recent years. But do people really want to access services this way? According to a PWC report released last year, the answer is yes, although receiving services over the phone and in-person won’t disappear altogether. The PWC report provides some interesting findings, noting that, “online usage dominates” with the majority of Canadians accessing services online “sometimes” or “often.” While only 10% said that they currently use online services “all the time,” that number is set to almost double to 18% in the future.

So what’s next for online government services? Kujawski offers several suggestions for the future including better use of social media, a greater focus on mobile apps and/or mobile-optimized websites, and a slightly different role for ministry websites.

“Government websites will become drastically smaller and have much narrower scopes of purpose since for a few years now, Google has been the true home page for most citizens looking for a government service. Already, various governments have made note of this,” Kujawski says, adding that the “City of Calgary website is essentially a search engine and the new UK government has a single website that acts as a directory.”

Gov.UK is indeed a great example of what a government website can be. Instead of forcing people to hop from one ministry website to another, Gov.UK brings everything into a nice looking, easy to use website. Created by Government Digital Service, the website’s tagline is “Simple, Clearer, Faster,” and it seems to be just that. The same team is also responsible for the Digital Transformation project (another great looking website), which tracks the progress as the team transforms or digitizes 25 significant government services by 2014.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, Kujawski points to the revamped data.gc.ca website, the Federal government’s open data portal, as a good Canadian example.

In a recent column, BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones wrote that “Maybe a few years from now we will be able to interact with public services online without tearing our hair out – and maybe government IT will no longer be a watchword for budget-busting inefficiency.” Now, wouldn’t that be nice?

December 6: National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

Dec. 6 is Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. This day observes the anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre ( a brief history here), and is a day for people throughout Canada to reflect on the ongoing social impact of violence against women.

One common symbol of respect on this day is a red rose and another is a white ribbon. Every Dec. 6, all flags on Ontario Government buildings and Canadian Government buildings fly at half-mast in remembrance of the women Lepine murdered.

How can I participate?

• • Throughout Canada, many community organizations host vigils and local events on Dec.6. Check the websites of your local YWCA, women’s shelter, rape crisis centres and anti-violence organizations for details on what might be happening near you.
  • You can donate to somewhere in your area that provides support services for women who are victims of violence, or see if there’s a way for you to volunteer.

• When you’re in public spaces on Dec.6 (and other days), you can choose to be visible in your support—provided you feel safe to do so—and to wear a red rose or a white ribbon.
•  If someone asks you why, consider taking a moment to explain the significance and to challenge the silence around violence against women.
• Dec. 6 falls within the international 16 Days of Activism campaign to end gender-based violence. Sharing information through your networks online is one way to be a part of encouraging sensitivity to violence against women and girls.Here are a few places you can find information to post:
• Follow the hashtags #Dec6 and #16days on Twitter.
• YWCA Canada has action toolkits available that include listings for resources and anti-violence organizations.
• Visit our Domestic Violence Strategy page to learn about gender and domestic violence in Canada

Most of all, when Dec. 6 and the 16 Days campaign passes, remember that your participation remains needed in creating change all year round, and that violence against women affects everyone.

History of the École Polytechnique massacre

On Dec. 6, 1989, 25-year old gunman Marc Lépine separated the female engineering students from the male students at École Polytechnique, and opened fire on the female students, reportedly just after shouting “You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.” On that day, Lepine killed 14 women, and shot 13 other people.

By name, these women are:

Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968)
Hélène Colgan (born 1966)
Nathalie Croteau (born 1966)
Barbara Daigneault (born 1967)
Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968)
Maud Haviernick (born 1960)
Maryse Laganière (born 1964)
Maryse Leclair (born 1966)
Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967)
Sonia Pelletier (born 1961)
Michèle Richard (born 1968)
Annie St-Arneault (born 1966)
Annie Turcotte (born 1969)
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958)

The CBC digital archives has news footage and interviews from around the time of massacre.

Violence against women in Canada

Dec.6 is a day of remembrance for victims and survivors of violence, but also one for action on prevention and awareness of violence against women. In Canada, 50% of all Canadian women have experienced physical or sexual violence.

While these figures are sobering in and of themselves, it’s important to recognize that in some populations, these figures are disproportionately much higher. Gender-based violence intersects with other forms of violence like: colonization, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and many others.

In 2013, the RCMP reported that there are 1,181 missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. In 2015, the report was updated to reflect 19 more murdered women, and 17 more missing; though even these figures are not considered to be comprehensive.

Do you know someone who may need help in Ontario?

 The Ontario Women’s Justice Network has compiled a list of resources.

Online privacy in the digital age: a Q&A with the IPC

Online privacy is a source of constant tension in our wired world: is online banking actually safe? Should I add my phone number to Facebook? Are my smart phone apps tracking my location? In light of the recent revelations about the extent of the National Security Agency’s wiretapping and wire splitting operations in the US, I thought it would be interesting to see what Ontario’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) might have to say about online privacy issues. Jason Papadimos, a Communications Officer at the IPC responded to my questions on behalf of the organization.

Q. How is the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) involved in online privacy?

A. As part of our mandate to build public awareness about Ontario’s access to information and privacy laws, the IPC develops tools and resources to educate members of the public, including website users, operators and other stakeholders, about their shared responsibility to protect personal information online.

 Q. What are some of the most common online privacy concerns that the IPC deals with?

A. Some common online privacy concerns include identity theft, online reputation management and privacy management on social networks. Our message is that all participants must educate themselves and think proactively about protecting their privacy in the online environment.

Q. Social media is often mentioned as being a privacy concern. What precautions does the IPC suggest people take?

A. Users of social media sites such as Facebook should post information with their eyes wide open. It is crucial to remember that anything posted online may stay there forever, in one form or another.

[The] uncertainty regarding the privacy and confidentiality of potentially sensitive information is a major downside to social networking sites, despite their many positive aspects. Users should…carefully review the privacy settings for each social network they are using. Additionally, consumers must be proactive by carefully protecting their passwords and creating passwords that are difficult to break.

Q. Does the IPC have any new areas of concern regarding online privacy that people might not know about yet?

A. Mobile applications can be a concern if people do not take the time to understand what they are agreeing to when accepting terms and conditions. For example, it [is] common for many applications to add time and geo-location data to photos, thereby allowing anyone to track your location.

Consumers need to be vigilant with their personal information and should not routinely agree to privacy policies and terms and conditions without reading them first. Users should take the time to review the settings on their mobile devices and understand who they are sharing their information with.

Q. Website servers are often located in the US. Should Canadians be concerned about their privacy under the US Patriot Act?

A. With respect to the storage of personal information in the US, the Commissioner [Dr. Ann Cavoukian] has always taken the position that you can outsource services, but you cannot outsource accountability. This means that where a provincial institution outsources its operations across provincial or international borders, it remains responsible for the protection of personal information in its custody and control.

In Ontario, there is no legislative prohibition against the storing of personal information outside the province or outside Canada. FIPPA [the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act] requires, however, that provincial institutions ensure that reasonable measures are in place to protect the privacy and security of their records containing personal information, regardless of where the records are located, and makes them accountable for the actions of their agents or service providers, whether located in Ontario or in other jurisdictions.

Q. How does the alleged online/telephone spying in the US fit into the online privacy picture?

A. The recent revelations about the US National Security Agency’s surveillance programs raise different issues altogether, although the question of accountability remains crucial. President Obama has said that “people understand that there are some trade-offs involved” to ensure public security. The IPC has always advocated against this type of zero-sum thinking—it is possible to achieve both privacy and security, and to do so in an accountable and transparent manner…The need for operational secrecy must not stand in the way of public accountability.

Q. What advice would the IPC give lawyers who want to advise their clients about online privacy issues?

A. Privacy is increasingly critical to achieving success in the new economy. While our office cannot provide any legal advice, we encourage all businesses to follow the principles of Privacy by Design (PbD) to help ensure that privacy is protected online. PbD is a principled, flexible, and technology-neutral approach to engaging with privacy issues that calls for privacy to be built right up front, directly into the design specifications and architecture of business systems and processes.

Q. Does the IPC have public resources (brochures, etc) about online privacy that you can share?

A. We have a number of resources available including: Reference Check: Is Your Boss Watching? and Identity Theft: A Crime of Opportunity.

So there you have it, some tips and advice from the IPC to keep in mind the next time you’re online.

(The Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.)

Public legal education on the small screen

Canadians watch a lot of online videos. In fact, we’re second only to the UK in online videos views with the average Canadian taking in an impressive 291 videos a month. According to StatsCan nearly 80 per cent of Canadians aged 18-64 watch videos online.

Education – including public legal education – is one of the many areas benefiting from the growing popularity of online video. Through websites such as Coursera and the Khan Academy, anyone with a broadband Internet connection can access high quality education material for free. (For a passionate discussion of the power of video-based education take a look at the Khan Academy TedTalk.) And although they’re taking a smaller-scale approach, public legal education organizations across Canada are also making excellent use of video to deliver their services.

“When developing our family law website we decided to include a video option for several reasons. The literacy rates in New Brunswick are extremely low. Being a rural province, facilitating access to information is always a challenge,” says Deborah Doherty, Executive Director of Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick (PLEIS-NB). PLEIS-NB sees videos “as one way to help address the needs of individuals who are auditory/visual learners whether because of low literacy in English or French, or by preference.”

In addition to their short family law-oriented videos, PLEIS-NB has also produced a number of longer videos hosted on Vimeo, which “educate and inform various segments of the population about particular law information topics,” including “youth in conflict with the law, youth victims of crime, abused women, and individuals who volunteer or sit on the board of charitable organizations.”

The Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta has also created videos for a range of audiences; their recent The Case of the Vacation Vegetables is aimed at kids, while other videos cover topics ranging from the Youth Criminal Justice Act to tips for landlords and tenants.

Both PLEIS-NB and CPLEA emphasize that videos are part of an integrated education effort, with additional print and in-person presentation materials playing an important role in providing context for the video-based information. Doherty says that PLEIS-NB knows its target audience, and works with other agencies and organizations to put strategies in place to reach these audiences. For example, the videos are used to assist in a monthly workshops series for self-representing family law litigants, which are delivered pro bono by local lawyers in many (often rural) locations.

Likewise, the CPLEA says that their videos are usually “paired with a print (or PDF) resource,” and are often incorporated into presentations, with positive results. “When the landlord/tenant videos have been shown at presentations, there is a good response,” with “some intermediaries ask[ing] if they can show their clients the videos.”

The ease and low cost of sharing online videos is another benefit. As the CPLEA points out, “videos are embeddable and shareable on social networks and can help spread our message and increase awareness of our organization and mission.” The CPLEA hosts their videos on YouTube, which add another level of connectivity since the online platform “suggests related videos allow[ing] users to find [the CPLEA’s] material serendipitously.”

Of course, online video is not without its drawbacks, especially for many Canadians living in rural areas. In New Brunswick, Doherty says that Wifi connections are limited, and that during their monthly family law presentations, “the videos can be choppy because of bandwidth issues, but that is the reality of living in a rural community.”

Overall, both public legal education organizations have been very pleased with the results of their foray into online video. The CPLEA has even recently invested in Final Cut Pro in order to improve the quality of their finished products and plans to release more videos in the future. And although Doherty isn’t sure when PLEIS-NB will produce more videos, which can be quite resource intensive, the feedback from their current offerings has been positive.

“Court staff and members of the legal community have often told us that they refer clients to the Family Law or PLEIS-NB websites,” Doherty says. “Some specifically mention that they point out that there are videos available since this is one way to direct individuals to information without having to assess their reading levels.”

Does your organization use online videos for education purposes? Share your stories below.

HIV/AIDS and the need for specialized legal services

By Ryan Peck

Being diagnosed HIV-positive is overwhelming.  Combined with poverty, stigma and discrimination that it can bring, it can be downright devastating.

No other disease carries such significant legal, social, cultural and familial consequences.  People living with HIV/AIDS are often isolated from friends, family and society.  They can be denied health care, employment, and services.  Disclosing  HIV status can be traumatizing, even if done voluntarily.

In recent years, HIV has been transformed into a chronic manageable illness, at least for those with access to effective treatment. Also, the science surrounding transmission risks has improved greatly. Yet a 2012 study still found that:

• 16% of Canadians “feel afraid” of people living with HIV.
• 18% would be somewhat or very uncomfortable working in an office with someone living with the illness.
• 23% would be uncomfortable shopping at a small neighborhood grocery store owned by someone living with HIV/AIDS.
• 35% would be somewhat or very uncomfortable if their child was attending a school where one of the students was known to be living with HIV.
• 54% would be somewhat or very uncomfortable with a close friend or family member dating someone with HIV.

Many people living with HIV/AIDS were, and still are, reluctant to approach mainstream service providers. Safe places to access community services are still necessary. These are places where HIV status can be disclosed without fear and where the complex reality of living with HIV/AIDS is understood.  AIDS Service Organizations “ASOs,” community organizations that provide information and services related to HIV/AIDS,  have been established in most communities in Ontario to provide that safe and expert place.

Enter HALCO

The HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) has been providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS across Ontario since 1995.

HALCO was established to provide a safe place with the legal expertise neccesary to assist clients with HIV/AIDS.  Having access to these safe and specialized places continues to be vital to the physical, emotional and mental health of people living with HIV/AIDS, and to the overall HIV response.

The legal needs of the HIV community are varied; ranging from traditional poverty law matters to privacy, wills/estates and immigration matters. Tenancy and social assistance issues comprise almost 30% of our intake, and immigration 16%. Due to pervasive stigma and discrimination, members of our community also frequently seek human rights and privacy law advice. We provide clients with legal information about HIV non-disclosure criminal law matters, and we assist private bar counsel in handling these matters. Our clients also have health and private insurance law issues, in addition to employment, criminal injuries compensation, prison, civil litigation and consumer/debt law needs.

Since 1995, the demand for our services has continued to grow. We provide free legal advice and brief services to anyone living with HIV in Ontario. In addition, we provide legal representation to people who meet our financial eligibility criteria or whose legal issue justifies our making an exception. We are also actively engaged in law reform, public legal education and community development initiatives. We handle over 4000 legal issues per year, and, since January 2012, we have intervened in five Supreme Court of Canada matters. For information about HALCO’s recent activities, please see the clinic’s most recent annual report.

What’s next?

HALCO looks forward to the day that our services are no longer needed; the day when people living with HIV in Ontario no longer face stigma and discrimination; the day that HIV infection is considered a serious illness like any other. Until that day arrives, we will continue to work steadfastly to ensure that people living with HIV are guaranteed their rights and freedoms.

Ryan Peck is the Executive Director of the HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic of Ontario (HALCO)

The jury is out: smartphone use in the courtroom

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: smartphones are changing our lives! By now it’s not exactly breaking news that mobile devices and their social networking capabilities are changing the way we work, live and play. Even the resistant-to-change legal profession has not escaped this barrage of connectivity: a recent survey by Clio found that 62 per cent of law firms use Apple’s iPhone.

While smart phones have changed the way lawyers do business mostly for the better, mobile devices in courtrooms are becoming increasingly problematic. The ability for those in court to connect with (potentially) thousands of people via social networking, text message or email via their smart phone can have serious implications for judicial proceedings.

A January 2013 Slaw post discussed an interview on CBC Radio’s Spark with Canadian Centre for Court Technology (CCCT) CEO Patrick Cormier on the role of smartphones in the courtroom. Work by the CCCT has highlighted a lack of consistent policies on the use of mobile phones and devices in the courtroom.

As Cormier states in the interview, the key decision is whether mobile devices (and the social networking and communications capabilities they enable) are by default permissible or not in courtrooms. In an effort to get courts across the country on the same page, the CCCT has created the Draft National Guidelines Regarding the Use of Electronic Communication Devices in Court Proceedings. The draft guidelines are in the permissible camp, with a few caveats such as a publication ban or judicial orders.

In our age of accountability Cormier notes that smartphone use in the courtroom highlights tensions between the right to a fair trial, and a growing insistence on an open and transparent legal processes. To balance these issues, the draft guidelines permit the use of mobile devices by lawyers, paralegals, court staff and journalists, but not by members of the public in the courtroom.

In keeping with this stance, the Ontario Superior Court recently issued a protocol, effective February 1, 2013, that permits the use of electronic devices in the courtroom for journalists, counsel, paralegals etc., but explicitly prohibits the use of such devices by members of the public. Courtroom photos and video are also banned, so Instagram addicts will have to holster those phones.

Finally, it seems that smartphones and social networking are proving to be a liability for jurors in the US (and perhaps Canada as well?). An article in the Duke Technology and Law Review on jurors and social media use cites a recent case in which “the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a death sentence because a juror Tweeted during deliberations.” In another example of misconduct, “a Connecticut juror wrote on Facebook that jury duty was “boring,” and pleaded for “[s]omebody [to] get me outta here.” That same juror announced “Guilty :)” on her Facebook page on the day of the verdict.”

While it’s clear that social media use by jurors conflicts with the right to a fair trial, banning members of the public from tweeting and texting in the courtroom while allowing lawyers and media to do so seems more controversial and problematic.

What is your take on this issue — do you think that smartphones belong in the courtroom?

The astonishing success rate of mediation in resolving family law disputes

By John-Paul Boyd

In my last post, I described the results of a national survey of family law lawyers on how they resolve their cases conducted by the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family and two noted academics. In a nutshell, lawyers reported that they primarily resolved their cases through negotiation, followed by judicial conferences and mediation, and that the number of cases resolved through arbitration and trial is a fraction of those resolved by non-adversarial means:

In the same survey, we also asked lawyers about how many of the cases they took to mediation resulted in a settlement of all of the issues, a settlement of some of the issues or a settlement of none of the issues. This is what the numbers told us:

These numbers may not look too terribly impressive at first, but they do when you aggregate the rate of full and partial settlement. By region, lawyers said that the proportion of the family law cases they took to mediation that resulted in a full settlement was as follows:

• North (Northwest Territories, Yukon): 38.0%
• British Columbia: 56.2%
• Prairies (Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan): 50.2%
• Ontario: 57.5%
• Quebec: 47.5%
• Maritimes (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia): 41.1%

(Frankly, a 50% rate of full settlement is still pretty impressive, considering the amount of money and court resources saved by resolving things short of trial.)

The proportion of cases resulting in a partial settlement was roughly the same, with more cases resulting in a partial settlement than a full settlement in the north, the prairies and Ontario, and less cases resulting in a partial settlement than a full settlement in British Columbia, Quebec and the maritimes:

• North: 54%
• British Columbia: 49.8%
• Prairies: 53.4%
• Ontario: 61.1%
• Quebec: 29%
• Maritimes: 40.7%

These numbers are based multiple response data, by the way, and do not sum to 100. However, adding all of the responses together, the proportion of cases resulting in a full settlement or a partial settlement is as follows, and these numbers are astonishing:

• North: 90% of cases taken to mediation result in a full or partial settlement
• British Columbia: 89% of cases
• Prairies: 87% of cases
• Ontario: 87% of cases
• Quebec: 73% of cases
• Maritimes: 80% of cases

Quebec is the outlier here, with 27% of cases taken to mediation resulting in no settlement, but in the territories and other provinces fewer than 20% of cases result in no settlement. The north and British Columbia stand out with the lowest rates of complete failure at 10 and 11% respectively.

It is important to remember that these numbers reflect only those cases counsel took to mediation, and not every case is suitable for mediation. In fact, according to our survey lawyers in British Columbia and Ontario took about a quarter of their files to mediation compared to lawyers in the north and the maritimes who took only a tenth of their files to mediation. However, these numbers do suggest that when mediation is attempted, it is fully or partially successful four times out of five.

The success of mediation as a dispute resolution mechanism is heartening — the resolution of family law disputes through the courts has always struck me as bordering upon the bizarre — however mediation generally comes at a cost, whereas litigating in the provincial court is usually free. Hence the extraordinary participation rates of litigants without counsel in our provincial courts.

This situation strikes me as an intrinsically wrong-headed choice of priorities in the allocation of public dollars; I fail to understand why we continue to direct 95% of our public funding toward the dispute resolution mechanism that is the most destructive and least efficient, and I wonder if it might not be best if legal aid programs channeled their money into providing people with mediators to mediate rather than lawyers to litigate. Even if only 10% of family law disputes resulted in settlement, that would represent significant savings to the justice system in terms of the costs of legal aid counsel, court administration time and materiel, sheriff’s time and judicial resources, never mind the long-term benefits to the parties themselves and to their children.

A note about the data

The greatest number of responses to this question were received from Alberta (about 30 on average), British Columbia (about 34) and Ontario (about 13); all other provinces and territories yielded 10 or fewer responses. As a result, I have lumped the data together by region in an effort to produce more meaningful numbers, giving responses as follows:

• North: 5 respondents
• British Columbia: range of 32 to 53 respondents
• Prairies: range of 34 to 42
• Ontario: range of 10 to 14
• Quebec: range of 5 to 6
• Maritimes: range of 13 to 15

The survey received no responses from judges and lawyers practicing in Nunavut or Prince Edward Island.

John-Paul Boyd is the executive director of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family.

This piece originally appeared on Access to Justice in Canada Blog/Forum on Oct. 27, 2014.