Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 7 - Evidence, October 27, 2009
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 9:30 a.m. to study emerging issues related to its communications mandate and to report on the wireless sector, including issues such as access to high-speed Internet, the supply of bandwidth, the nation-building role of wireless, the pace of the adoption of innovations, the financial aspects associated with possible changes to the sector, and Canada's development of the sector in comparison to the performance in other countries.
Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. This is the tenth meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications for our study on the wireless sector. This morning we have with us Jane Tallim and Cathy Wing, co- executive directors of the Canadian Media Awareness Network.
[Translation]
The Media Awareness Network is a Canadian non-profit organization that has been pioneering media literacy since its incorporation in 1996. Members of its team have backgrounds in education, journalism, communications, media production and cultural policy.
[English]
Welcome to the committee. Please proceed.
Cathy Wing, Co-Executive Director, Media Awareness Network: Thank you honourable senators for having us here. We are pleased that you have given us this opportunity to speak to you about digital literacy. We understand we are the first people to speak to the people about this issue., which is core to our organizational mandate and to us as individuals.
I am Cathy Wing, Co-Executive Director. With me are Jane Tallim, Co-Executive Director, and Jay Thompson, the chair of our board of directors, who is joining us today as an observer.
We have do not want to poison you with PowerPoint slides, but we have a lot of information. Much of it will be on slides and you have the deck in front of you. We want to introduce our organization; explain our role in the digital landscape in Canada; explain our role in major policies and strategies the federal government has had in regard to digital landscape over the last 15 years; and talk about the critical importance of digital literacy in creating engaged citizens in our country who are able to take full advantage of the opportunities of digital media.
The Media Awareness Network is the largest Canadian not-for-profit centre for media and digital literacy. We have been around since the mid-1990s. We came out of a CRTC initiative on TV violence. Our vision statement is: ``To ensure that Canadian children and youth possess the necessary critical thinking skills and tools to understand and to engage actively with media.'' ``To engage actively'' is very important, because media literacy includes creating media as well as understanding media content. In the age of digital media, that is exactly what young people are doing: they are creating media.
There was a CRTC initiative on TV violence in the mid-1990s, when the federal government engage with the issue. A few initiatives began at that time. The CRTC solution to TV violence has been referred to as the 10-10-80 per cent solution. I do not know if anyone has heard that before. Ten per cent was industry self-regulation — violence codes and guidelines. Ten per cent was technical solutions — the V-Chip that appeared on our TV sets at that time or the TV rating system. Eighty per cent, according to Keith Spicer, who chaired the CRTC at that time, was education and awareness.
At that point, the CRTC understood that the most important tool to give children and young people was critical thinking about all kinds of media content. It directed the National Film Board to set up a clearing house on issues related to media violence. That clearing house was the Media Awareness Network. The National Film Board went through downsizing and the network became a separate NGO in 1996.
At that time, the board of directors included members of the leading media companies in Canada, representatives from funding departments in government and major stakeholder groups — education, libraries, health sector and families. This is the makeup of our board today and it remains true to the original board set up in 1996.
Fifty per cent of our revenues have traditionally come from the federal government and 50 per cent from industry. That is the way we were created. The federal departments involved were Canadian Heritage, Health Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, Industry Canada and Justice Canada. The main industry sources that have supported us over the years have included leading ISPs, telecoms and broadcasters. We receive no funding from the federal government at this point — none whatsoever. Our industry funding in these hard economic times has diminished as well. I will tell you how we have been making up that funding as we move along.
We receive benefactor money through tangible benefits, which is essentially like core funding for us. That is not sustainable. We also have funders in the corporate sector. Our current funders are CTVglobemedia, Canwest, Telus, CTV, the National Film Board and Bell Canada. As well, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, CIRA, came on this year as a funder. We are very excited about this. It is the first time we had a not-for-profit supporting us, another not-for-profit.
Essentially, our role is to create digital literacy programs and resources. We were created as a public good so we would like our resources to remain free. Eighty per cent of the resources currently are a public asset available through our website in both official languages to urban, rural, remote, northern and Aboriginal communities in Canada. They are rooted in Canadian values and culture, which is extremely important to our user groups in the education sector and libraries. They are linked to public policy, developed in an education framework, which means they meet the curriculum outcomes in every province and territory, and they are supported by original research. Previously that was our own original research, and Canadian research wherever possible. It is critically important to the users of our materials that we use Canadian research.
When the CRTC became the first broadcasting regulator in the world to announce it would not regulate Internet service providers, it stressed the importance of education awareness in the same way it had earlier in its TV violence policy. We were recognized as the lead organization in that area.
Over the years, we have been part of some of the government's task forces. For example, in 2001, we sat on an Industry Canada task force on Internet hotlines that set up cyber chip. We sat on the education and awareness committee as part of the 2005 Industry Canada Task Force on Spam. More recently, we participated in Justice Canada's 2008 task group on combating Internet hate in Canada. It was looking at setting up a tip line to report online hate in Canada. This initiative is currently on hold.
Industry Canada funded us to do the largest longitudinal study of children's Internet use in Canada in 2000. We did phase one in 2000 and phase two in 2004. The study interviewed over 6,000 students from Grades four to 11. It was seminal research not only in Canada, but around the world. It is still referenced because it is the largest study in Canada to date. It set policy for schools, libraries and government through the strategy for illegal and offensive content on the Internet. It fed into all the resources we needed to produce.
After this research, Industry Canada released Cyberwise, its strategy on illegal and offensive content on the Internet. Industry Canada looked at different approaches, including legislation, working with international governments and hotlines, one of which was set up with cyber chip. Awareness, education and knowledge were again the foundations of this approach. They recognize that in a global Internet environment, it was impossible to control the content coming from different jurisdictions. The best tools we could give young people in Canada were education and awareness.
The first phase of the research was very interesting. It showed the disconnect between what kids were doing online and what adults thought the children were doing online. That is why it was so seminal. People did not understand the disconnect, that kids were being exposed to information and content and were not able to deal with it and that no one was holding their hand.
We worked with the education and library sectors, which were the first sectors in the world to be fully connected to the Internet, through the Gates Foundation. We launched a program called Web Awareness Canada. It is a very comprehensive, digital literacy resource. It was to promote wise, safe and responsible use by children and youth in Canada.
The idea of the program is to raise awareness and to build critical thinking in our children, as opposed to protectionism and censorship. We were working with the Canadian libraries who oppose the idea of censorship. They have a policy where they do not censor information in Canadian libraries, except on some children's stations. We were working with our education and library partners to create something that was going to be beneficial to their needs.
This program has grown. It now contains about 17 different resources. We look at a variety of digital literacy skills that young people need. To set out those briefly, they include online safety, authenticating online information, effective search techniques, responsible and ethical Internet use, which includes copyright and plagiarism, protecting privacy, online marking, cyber-bullying, and the list goes on.
The reach of this program shows how needed these resources are. It has been in place for nine years and is now in two thirds of all Canadian schools, covering 80 per cent of Canadian student enrolment. All provinces and territories have access. Eight provinces and territories have province- and territory-wide licences. Some jurisdictions, including the three territories, have had it for nine years. Every year they renew it because they understand how important it is. Every year we update this information because Internet trends and issues change so quickly.
We are in 19 of the 20 largest school districts. We licence to library systems as well. We cover a population of five million. For instance, in Alberta, every library and every school in the province has licensed these resources. They have been a real pioneer, as has Ontario, in the area of digital literacy.
That is the background of the organization. I can answer questions afterwards about more related to our work in this area, but I will pass you over to Ms. Tallim now, who will talk about the importance of digital literacy in any kind of national strategy that is being discussed.
Jane Tallim, Co-Executive Director, Media Awareness Network: As you all know, there has been considerable dialogue over the past several months, at very high levels, on what Canada needs to do to remain competitive in a digital world. Generally, the conversation is focused on infrastructure and e-business, and building a strong and safe electronic marketplace.
Where education has been discussed in this dialogue is at the post-secondary level, looking primarily at how universities and colleges can support research and development. Although this is essential and important, we feel that the current focus is too narrow and that any forward thinking digital agenda must also include digital literacy education for citizens of all ages.
In our increasingly global and mobile world, we see digital literacy as a critical life skill, one that represents lifelong learning and includes K-12, post-secondary education, vocational training and public awareness.
Digital literacy is the educational piece of the connectivity agenda. In addition, many elements relating to digital literacy reflect policy areas that the Government of Canada is currently focusing on, such as copyright, privacy, culture and national identity, cyber-crime and safety and consumer education protection, as well as racism and hate.
This chart shows how the Government of Australia will be measuring the success of its digital strategy. As you can see, government, industry and community all are involved in the equation. Education falls under the community piece, but none of these can be looked at in isolation. They are all interconnected.
When it comes to our own education system, digital literacy education varies amongst provinces and territories, in both its scope and its application. There are pockets of excellence across the country, but we do not necessarily have a cohesive strategy. Generally, ICT education is integrated across the curriculum, but there is inconsistency in how well it is being applied in the classroom from province to province and territory to territory. Another real problem is that pre- service and in-service teacher training is just not keeping pace, either with technological advancements or with how to maximize technology to educate children and youth.
As Ms. Wing mentioned, in this presentation we want to provide you with a number of ways that digital literacy might be conceptualized. One well-known model is the literacy standards that have been established by the International Society for Technology and Education. These include benchmarks for creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking and digital citizenship, as well as technology use.
Digital literacy represents more than functional skills. We tend to think of the digital divide in terms of access and economics, but there are more subtle inequities that we also need to address if all Canadians are to benefit from technology. This includes understanding and addressing the ethical, cultural and societal aspects of technology, using technology responsibly, and establishing lifelong positive attitudes as early as possible to foster learning and production.
With this in mind, we want to ask you this question: What level of digital skills should Canadians strive for? Canada actually has a tremendous opportunity right now, given the work that is being done around the world, to define its own standards for digital literacy. In existing national strategies, definitions range from basic skills to help citizens access, use and benefit from services, to more complex e-literacy.
Across the board, special attention is given to citizens at both ends of the age spectrum: Older adults who may lack proficiency with technology or the opportunities to learn more, and children and youth who represent that next generation of users, creators and innovators.
You will also see specific attention paid to more marginalized members of society in countries like Australia and New Zealand. For Britain, three government departments are involved in implementing its digital literacy strategy. In addition, the British broadcast regulator, Ofcom, is mandated to promote and support media literacy, which includes digital media. Ofcom's approach is more consumer-oriented. It focuses on citizens being able to access and benefit from services and information, as well as to protect themselves from harmful and offensive materials.
In British schools the government has established ICT as an essential skill across the curriculum, along with literacy and numeracy, and there is a significant safety education stream that is also being implemented, especially at the primary level.
Similarly, the Australian Communications and Media Authority is mandated to support what they call digital media literacy, which is defined as the ability to access, understand and participate or create content using digital media. As part of its national strategy, Australia is allocating $2 billion over five years to its education system, in what they are calling their ``digital education revolution.'' The government has also committed $125 million over four years to an extensive cyber-safety plan that includes law enforcement filtering, as well as education.
The European Commission has identified three interrelated stages for digital literacy development. You have digital competence, digital usage, and digital transformation, with that last, top level being where significant innovation and change can occur.
Currently, Canada, in its dialogue, seems to be focused at the digital inclusion opportunity level. We tend to be very focused on infrastructure, R&D, access, and distribution. Britain and Australia, you will see if you look in their digital plans, are focused more into building capacity through developing digital life skills. That is a very pragmatic level. Ideally we would argue that we need to aim even higher.
We would argue that reaching higher levels for digital literacy is essential to fuel innovation and citizenship. These skills build upon those more functional skills at the middle level and move people towards participatory citizenship by fostering critical thinking, meaningful interaction with tools and content, working collectively towards common goals, searching for, synthesizing and disseminating information, and evaluating reliability and credibility of online resources.
We are not the only voice out there asking that digital literacy become part of the national dialogue that is taking place. Recent speeches by the CRTC chair, Konrad von Finckenstein, National Film Board Commissioner Tom Perlmutter, Canada's former Commissioner of Competition, Sheridan Scott, and a recent discussion paper on Canada's digital strategy produced by Nordicity, have all referenced the importance of digital literacy and the need for education to give Canadians the appropriate skills for both work and daily life.
We are currently developing a white paper of our own. It will look at digital literacy and use international precedent as well as evidence to demonstrate how literacy can drive and fuel citizenship and innovation. Our paper will be produced early next year and we will certainly share it with the committee.
We hope that with this paper we will be able to strengthen the case and provide direction for establishing digital literacy as a cornerstone for Canadian society. However, to do this fruitfully we strongly believe that thoughtful dialogue needs to take place amongst all stakeholders, and that is not what we are seeing right now.
The Chair: Thank you for the presentation.
Senator Johnson: Thank you for coming this morning. Digital literacy is a very important area. Can you tell us where Canada is in a broad sense with regard to digital literacy in terms of various groups or populations? Do you have that information?
Ms. Tallim: We do not have actual statistics on literacy levels as it relates to digital literacy. This is a bit of a challenge as well. The Council of Ministers of Education is one organization we would like to present to, because they have had pan-Canadian conferences on literacy. However, the focus has been primarily on essential literacies and numeracy. It seems that digital literacy is over here; it is something we are not measuring in the same way at this point, perhaps because we are still trying to work through exactly what we are looking for and what standards are set.
That said, in the curriculum across the country, there are outcomes and expectations that relate to literacies that are digital literacies or media literacies. It is in the curriculum, which is a real advantage, but the measurement, evaluation and implementation in a consistent way is the real challenge for Canada.
Senator Johnson: In that respect, would creating more consistency in the provinces be helpful? You said they are not keeping pace. Are some way ahead of others, for example? Where is it working the best?
Ms. Tallim: Canada is ahead of many nations. Canada is seen as a world leader in media literacy. We were one of the first countries in the world to have outcomes and expectations for media literacy across the country. When we look at various curricula we see pockets of excellence, and I want to strongly say that. There are provinces that are doing things very well from an education perspective. They are focusing on how best to develop digital literacy skills. However, because we have a provincial mandate for education, we do not have that national strategy, those national standards that could be used to get a more accurate picture.
Senator Johnson: What is your relationship with the CRTC now? I know you had no federal funding but then you mentioned the CRTC with regard to the violence initiative. What is your relationship with the CRTC now?
Ms. Wing: The CRTC has been a great support. They did tell broadcasters that they could direct tangible benefits, when they were broadcasting acquisitions and takeovers, towards media literacy organizations and initiatives, so we have benefited from that type of funding over the last ten years. That is probably the only way that they can support us. It is not in our Broadcasting Act, as it is in the U.K., where they have to support media literacy. I do not think that it is within their mandate to be able to support us in any other way.
Senator Johnson: You said you get no federal funding?
Ms. Wing: At this point, we do not.
Senator Johnson: What is your budget?
Ms. Wing: Our budget is about $700,000 now. We are half the size we used to be.
Senator Johnson: What ideal budget would you like to have?
Ms. Wing: We are going through a strategic planning process and the board asked the same question. We could probably grow to about $ 1 million a year. That would be helpful. The demand for our resources is huge. We are the only ones doing this in Canada. We cannot keep up with the demand. Of course, what we produce has to be multimedia because it is for students and they need multimedia. They need something engaging that reproduces the kind of environments they are using online.
Most of our funding now comes through licensing our products, so rather than being a public good, increasingly we have to license our products; but there is a huge demand and we have been very successful in doing that. We find that when we go to federal government programs, they will not fund things that will be then licensed. That is the Catch-22 we are in. To produce a multimedia project is very expensive, so we do have to license it afterwards.
Senator Zimmer: My cause in the Senate is youth so my questions are youth-related. In your Young Canadians in a Wired World research program, what were your findings in terms of the behaviours, attitudes and opinions of Canadian children and youth with respect to their use of the Internet? What were some of the major recommendations you made?
Ms. Wing: I will send you a link to the report, because it is 100 pages long.
That is a huge question. The first study raised many more questions than it answered. The second study was really important in answering those questions. There was a lot of concern raised by the first study. What we found is that the kids are generally all right, but unfortunately the kids are having to make their way through this new environment on their own. They are learning skills on their own. They are learning how to deal with inappropriate content on their own. They actually said in the research that they want to learn skills to deal with the content they are coming across.
While they wanted protection, they also admitted that they saw how it was very difficult to control the content on the Internet because they had access to content in so many different places. If there was a filter on the computer at the school, their neighbour would not have a filter. There was no way, they knew, that they could be completely protected, so they were asking for skills to learn how to deal with the different issues they were coming across on a daily basis.
Senator Zimmer: Your answer leads into my next question. A majority of young Canadians are caught up in social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. They are releasing a lot of personal information about themselves without realizing the consequences that may result. What types of programs are in place to teach young Canadians the importance of information privacy?
Ms. Wing: That is a really good question. We have been working in that area for a decade. Last year, for the first time, we received funding from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. They had a policy direction last year to be more involved in education. That is a wonderful move on their part.
We did produce a workshop that is available across the country on this issue, teaching lessons that deal specifically with Facebook. Again this is an issue we have been talking about for many years, and not just about its safety aspects. There is a huge marketing aspect to the kind of data collection that is happening on commercial sites that kids are going to. We have been raising awareness about that issue for many years.
Senator Zimmer: With respect to some of the special initiatives such as Be Web Aware, Web Awareness and Media Toolkit for Youth. Are any of these initiatives part of the education curriculum and are they offered in computer classes? Or is it the responsibility of the teacher to locate your site and find these initiatives? If these initiatives as such are not part of the curriculum, are there currently any steps being taken to include them?
Ms. Tallim: It is a bit of both. For example, the Be Web Aware website is actually a website for parents. We believe that, when it comes to children and youth, there must be consistent messaging at home and at school. All adults, whether teacher or parent, can find technology quite intimidating to address the issues. That particular resource is geared more towards parents.
Our resources and our organization are, for many ministries of education, in their recommended resource sections. Most ministries of education will have a recommended resource area that teachers can go to in order to look under various subject areas, and Media Awareness Network will be there. Because we are licensed by, in many cases, ministries or departments of education, we are vetted by the ministries. It is easier to facilitate teacher training because the vetting by the ministry gives a green light to districts to implement training with their teachers. However, it is a challenge, because there is no national agenda or focus.
We are the largest media education website in the world, not just in Canada, and we get tremendous feedback from educators all over world. We are constantly surprised, given that, that there are still many Canadian educators who say, ``Oh, my gosh, I just heard about your website. I am so glad.'' It is a challenge for us, being a small organization, to promote the work that we do as well.
Senator Zimmer: Thank you. I wish you the best of luck.
Senator Mercer: Thank you, presenters, for an interesting presentation and for giving us a whole new side of this study that we have not touched upon before. In your presentation, you said that awareness varies amongst provinces and territories and that there are pockets of excellence, but there is nothing cohesive. The obvious question to me is, which are the strongest provinces and which are the weakest?
Ms. Tallim: Now you are really putting me on the spot. If I were to look at a particular pocket of excellence, Manitoba right now has a continuum framework for information communication technology education that we like because it has been thoughtfully put together. They are implementing a major teaching training process with it. It focuses on citizenship which, ultimately, is where we would like to see digital literacy head. It is all about citizenship and encouraging participatory, responsible citizenship.
I would say that Manitoba is particularly innovative in how it is approaching the issue. Alberta is very strong. The Atlantic provinces work together on all kinds of educational subject areas. If you look at them on paper, there are excellent approaches and great thinking outcomes.
You want to whittle it down to determine who is doing it best in actual classroom practice. For example, in Ontario, the Ministry of Education has frozen spending on ICT for the next three years. On the one hand, you have some provinces that are making it a priority; in other provinces, they are putting it on the back burner because they feel other subject areas demand more attention.
Senator Mercer: You indicated that eight provinces have web awareness programs, which means two do not. Which two do not?
Ms. Wing: Some provinces do not purchase licences for their entire system and it is done school district by school district. It would be Quebec and British Columbia. We are in the recommended resources and in the largest school boards in those provinces; however, they do not have the province-wide mechanism in the ministry. The school boards want to do their own thing. They want to buy their own resources.
Senator Mercer: You continue to refer to the use of digital media as a citizenship thing. I am curious as to how you see that working in terms of education, using the more narrow definition of ``citizenship'' of responsibilities of citizens and participation in the democratic process. Do we talk at any point in this about the responsibility of citizens to participate in the democratic process — that is, to vote and so on?
Ms. Tallim: That is a good question. I will be on a panel at an international conference in Washington next week by the Family Online Safety Institute — FOSI. They are looking at what we will be talking about, namely, this whole notion of citizenship and electronic citizenship.
We are finding with children and youth in our school systems is that the election of President Obama in the United States is historical in how technology was used to facilitate and capture voters that otherwise might not have been engaged. In one case, it is governments becoming more savvy about how they apply technology to reach especially young voters, the youth demographic. You have to go where youth are. That, philosophically, is where our organization comes from on a number of areas. To really work with youth, you have to go to where they are.
When it comes to the whole idea of democratic citizenship and looking at the traditional electoral process, it is not quite straight forward. The research is telling us that there are a number of levels. First, you want to engage youth through technology. Technology alone will not engage youth. It will be a matter of us rethinking our education system. You want to have adult mentorship from teachers or parents or other members of the community. You want to permit youth to use technology pro-socially; to use it to be given voice about causes they believe in. In a way, you are getting them into activism. You are making them feel how important it is as citizens to be actively engaged. From that, you step up to the whole notion of the larger concept of citizenship.
It takes rethinking our civics curriculum, for example. Ms. Wing and I met with the directors of curriculum development for the Ministry of Education in Ontario last month. Ontario is currently revamping its civics curriculum, which has been that more traditional approach. We were talking about looking at how we can think more broadly about using technology to engage and facilitate youth and, also, using technology to get them more involved in the traditional electoral process. However, it will take a significant shift in how the government applies technology in that process as well.
Senator Mercer: It is encouraging that anyone is talking about a civics curriculum, because I do not see a lot of evidence of it. My son was a product of the Ontario education school system, and I do not remember civics. He got his civics education around the table, talking politics with his mother and me. I did not see anything coming from the schools. That is why he is a good Liberal today.
I did not hear you talk a lot about the issue of privacy. Everyone has various interests in capturing peoples' email addresses and electronic addresses so that we can communicate with them, whether it be a political party or someone marketing. There are some bad people who are interested in those same addresses. You have not addressed that, and I would be interested in hearing your comment on it.
You also commented that the CRTC directed licensees that they ``could support'' the Media Awareness Network. It would seem logical to me that perhaps the providers of the services not only could but must support the Media Awareness Network or something like it to provide the services that you are providing to Canadian citizens and schools.
Ms. Wing: I will address that question first. It is important that the federal government continue to support us. First, it is part of our history; and second, it matters to our stakeholders. They do not want to see a slide come up that shows only corporate Canada. They want to see the Government of Canada. That gives substance and authority to what we do. It is important to teachers, librarians and parents, in particular. It is important that we continue to look for that kind of funding. We came from the federal government and believe that it is important for that support continue.
On the matter of privacy, I will ask Ms. Tallim to respond. We have done a lot of work in two specific areas of privacy, marketing and safety; and we have the research to support the work.
Ms. Tallim: It is interesting that you raised the issue of privacy. Privacy receives a lot of attention in terms of the stranger-danger-predator area, in particular for children or youth. We have argued for years that broader privacy concerns also need to be addressed. The evidence indicates that the youth who are most at risk from the most scary connotations of young people giving away too much information on the Internet constitute a specific group who have a number of issues. We can do a better job of targeting those specific youth.
It is much more difficult to bring attention to the commercial aspects of data collection for marketing purposes. We were thrilled last year when the Office of the Privacy Commissioner supported us in updating our professional development module that looks at marketing and privacy issues. Traditionally, funding goes to privacy about personal protection from a safety perspective.
Our research has shown that young people are cognizant of privacy issues. However, there is an interesting dilemma when dealing with children and youth. When a young person has a profile on Facebook, they think their audience is their immediate friends — those they invite to join them. Therefore, two layers of privacy education need to come into play in this case. One is the understanding that they have their intended audience but that there is also an unintended audience in a global medium such as the Internet. When kids are on social networking sites, they are interacting with their intended audience. The unintended audience is the marketers. For example, a marketing gimmick — a pink cow — shows up on the social networking site of one of my daughter's friends. In social marketing, you give up something to get something. That is a primary education piece that we give to young people.
They tell us that they want to know more about protecting their privacy, which was clear from our research. At the same time, they want to make their own decisions, so we try to teach them that nothing is for free. The Internet is tons of fun but they must make conscious decisions about what they choose to give out. You have to start this education when they are young because increasingly, younger children are going online. A very young child who is playing with branded websites, for example, and filling out fun quizzes is not really thinking about the ramifications of the information. This is grooming them in such a way that they perceive the giving out of information as a normal part of interacting online.
We are trying to teach very young children that their personal information has value even at that most basic level. Then we gradually build their understanding so that they can develop more critical thinking to make informed judgments when they go online.
Senator Cochrane: Is the digital literacy program a volunteer program? I am looking at the classrooms. Does a volunteer depend on the teachers' perspective? Do they teach the kids those types of things? Is there not a program within the education system that demands this be taught?
Ms. Wing: Ms. Tallim is a former educator, so I defer to her on that question.
Ms. Tallim: It is in the curriculum, and teachers are conscious of teaching to the curriculum. There are outcomes and expectations that would have elements of critical thinking relating to media and digital media. However, the way in which teachers choose to integrate that into their classrooms varies.
We produce different levels of programs. We have professional development workshops for educators. These are to fill a gap because there is a lack of this kind of professional development in faculties of education across the country. There is limited funding for professional development opportunities for teachers who are already in service. Thus, we created self-contained modules that inform educators about the issues and provide them with strategies and resources. They connect back to our website so for all of our professional development workshops, we have supporting resources.
For a teacher, there is nothing worse than going to a conference and hearing an exciting presentation only to realize that there are no resources to implement the new material. We try to facilitate imparting background information to teachers so that they might better understand where their students are at; to help them feel more confident in their approach to the issues; and to give them the resources and tools to do so in the classroom.
We do the same for parents, which we did not show on our slide. We have a composite workshop called, ``Parenting the Net Generation,'' which takes many elements from the professional development workshops and adapts the information to parents. It could be done through a parent-teacher school council, for example. It is difficult because nothing is set in stone. It is up to the teacher, the school focus, the district focus and the ministry's focus. Many elements will determine whether a classroom teacher, even though he or she has access to this resource, implements it in the classroom.
Senator Cochrane: Yes, of course. Do you have any measurement as to how well the children have performed since this program was established?
Ms. Tallim: That is an interesting question as well. We are aiming at the teacher training level with that particular set of resources. Last year, we developed a program for students in grades 4 to 8 called, ``Passport to the Internet.'' This is a comprehensive interactive e-tutorial whereby students go into simulated environments and participate in various activities to build critical thinking. Currently, we are working with McGill University to have this evaluated. We are also working to develop a secondary version of this resource. Of course, it will be very different to deal with highly sophisticated adolescents.
This resource, which is just under way, will take one year to develop. One of its ongoing research components is our work with PREVNet to evaluate it from conception to implementation. Because these are fairly new resources, we are just starting the evaluation process because it is important.
Senator Cochrane: Children are so adept with computers and the Internet. Are there existing programs or resources to help more mature audiences? Where would one find them?
Ms. Tallim: I am glad you raised that point. In doing the preliminary research for our white paper, I alluded to the fact that the digital strategies in Australia and Britain are consciously developing programs for seniors, parents and various members in society.
The U.K. has just launched a tremendous website called Internet 101. They put considerable funds towards promoting this resource and making it accessible to people all across the country. It is to do exactly what you said. If is for people who might say, ``Okay, I am not a parent with young children, so I am not necessarily dealing with it on that daily basis because my kids are dealing with it. I am a person who might not otherwise have the opportunity for this education.'' Australia is doing the same and that is a critical part.
Our organization has a dual mandate. We do both formal education and public awareness. We strongly believe that the public awareness piece is essential to a digital strategy as well.
Senator Merchant: I apologize for my late arrival; it was a train from Montreal.
What can you tell us about how to deal with the marginalized people in our society? Our current education programs — and I was an educator, too — have failed to engage a certain group of people, the marginalized people, particularly in the province from where I come from, Saskatchewan. We have a very large, young population of First Nations people. In regard to the regular literacy that we talk about on a daily basis, our young people in that category seem to be falling behind.
As we have failed to educate them in the way that has worked for others, have you some suggestions? Are you developing some programs that are specifically targeted to deal with this? Otherwise, we will have a great inequality.
Ms. Tallim: I agree that this is a significant problem — not just in Canada, but in other nations around the world. For me to sit here and say, ``Here is a great strategy,'' I think this really stresses the importance of dialogue, of discussion.
There are many First Nations people, Aboriginal and Inuit people, who have a better understanding of how culturally to foster education among their youth. This is what we mean when we talk about bringing stakeholders to the table and having all voices there.
I have seen, in the child and youth mental health sector, the importance of having north-south dialogue and coming up with strategies to better help young people in the area of mental health. It is really effective when people work together, but you need to have the people you are talking about at the table in order to respectfully build an approach that might have success. It is a huge issue.
One example I would like to give about how marginalized youth can be engaged is in the child and youth mental health sector. One of the significant changes generally in approaching youth and fostering engagement and citizenship has to be rethinking how we approach youth in the first place. There is a lot we can learn from the youth engagement sector, as opposed to the education sector, in that regard.
There is a website based in London, Ontario; it is called mindyourmind.ca. To me, that is a wonderful example of how, with adult mentorship and support and technology, marginalized youth cannot only have voice but make change.
This website was developed by two therapists who live in the London region. They have a street youth team so they have that real world. They are based in a shopping small somewhere in London, and they have street youth that work with youth who have mental health difficulties. They guide the youth, but creating this world-class website is youth-led and youth-driven. On the website, youth experiencing mental health difficulties can share their stories, find voice, build community and get good information, which is important when you are looking at mental health issues.
They have taken it one step further, which is why I think this is a commendable initiative. From the information that they have learned from the youth, the youth themselves have developed what they call a ``pro-portal.'' That means that if I am a mental health practitioner anywhere in Canada, I can now go to mindyourmind.ca and their pro-portal and hear what the youth are telling me about how I can make my practice more welcoming and engaging. It is a unique model; it is not a classroom model, but there is so much we could learn in working with youth — as opposed to at youth — in helping them to find the best ways to use technology to augment their lives.
Senator Merchant: You also have to help the parents. In your own home, you are a sophisticated person when it comes to this area. For the people that I am talking about, we have failed the parents. The parents are not literate. It would be more difficult for young people growing up in that circumstance to engage.
What are you doing for the parents? You spoke about the children, but what about the parent resources? How do we engage them?
Ms. Wing: We have a number of parent resources, and they are all free on the site. We worked with Family Service Canada on a program called FAST to support families within schools in high needs' neighbourhoods in Canada. They did computer training with the parents. As far as I know, that program is no longer funded; it was funded through HRSDC.
Those types of programs are important, to train the parents as well as the youth. The best way to reach the youth is through the education sector, as long as they are still involved and engaged with the education sector.
Our organization has only nine people, so it is difficult for us to develop programs that are targeted at specific high- risk communities in Canada. Yet, we recognize that is critically important. The digital revolution is an opportunity for First Nations youth. They are comparing it to the Industrial Revolution. We have to ensure that everyone has a role to play and everyone has an opportunity in this new revolution that we are all involved in.
Senator Merchant: Last, you said that there are other countries that are dealing with the same problems. For instance, you spoke about Australia; they have a high Aboriginal population. Are they dealing with it in some way that is exemplary and a way that we could look at in Canada?
Sometimes, it is funding, too, that is the problem. That is the problem as far as the First Nations education system is concerned. We are not spending the same number of dollars to educate a First Nations child as we do for a non-First Nations person.
Can you give us the country or the countries that are champions of this kind of thing that you are promoting? Can you also speak to the funding issue?
Ms. Tallim: I can tell you the countries that are implementing it as part of their plan, but I cannot give you specific details on whether they are exemplary. Again, these digital strategies are quite new and they are in the implementation process. I know for a fact that both Australia and New Zealand have national strategies that focus on their Aboriginal peoples as well.
I can forward you any further information that comes across my desk. We are hoping that in our white paper, we will have a section that looks at international precedent and best practice in dealing with marginal groups in society. I will certainly forward you any documentation that comes our way.
However, it does come down to funding. The thing that strikes you when you read through these digital plans is the money that is being put to the education side of the equation, as opposed to the infrastructure, research and development side of the equation. I think we all know that without sufficient funding, these are nothing but pipe dreams.
Senator Merchant: Good luck to you.
Senator Plett: I am sure that Senator Johnson and Senator Zimmer will agree with me that we want to thank you for saying that Manitoba was on top of this. You then became political and included every other province in Canada after that.
As I was raising my hand, Senator Cochrane asked the question I was going to ask.
I will make more of a comment. You can elaborate on it if you wish, but do not feel obligated to do so. I want to echo what I see as part of the problem. I am a parent and a grandparent. It is not that many years ago that I learned how to use a computer and the Internet. We were speaking about that at a party this weekend where my wife shared that, just a few years ago, my secretary had to type out all emails to me and bring them in to me because I did not know how to get them myself. That is not that many years ago.
When I have my children and my grandchildren over, I ask one of my sons, who I think is tremendously computer literate, to help me with an issue that I have on the computer. When he gets into trouble, he says, ``Let us ask Amy Lynn,'' — who is 11 years old — ``to come and help us.'' That is a concern to me. We talk about issues that we want to protect our children from, yet we really do not know how to protect our children from this because they have a far better way of getting into the computer than I do. We all know that since the beginning of time, with Adam and Eve eating the apple, we have a tendency to want to do something that we are not supposed to do. If we tell children not to go on a certain site or not to do a certain thing, they will go there to find out why they should not be on that site.
I want to encourage you to try to educate us and to try to educate parents, because I think that is tremendously important. As much regard as I have for our educators and our teachers, and so on, it is important that we raise our children, not the educators. You are there to teach, but please continue to develop strategies — and you have already alluded to them — to ensure that parents have almost as good a handle on how to do these things as the children. I would encourage you to do that.
Ms. Wing: With parents, we stress that the technological skills are not that important. When you are working with your kids, you have all these life skills that you bring to their experience of the Internet. They do not have good judgment. They have not learned the things we have learned from our life experience. Those are what they need to apply to the Internet.
The main thing is to be involved in what they are doing — that is, to know the sites they are going to visit. If they come across information on a site that is biased, hateful or racist, we would recognize that. In a lot of cases, it is subtle content that a young person would not recognize. We have a lot of critical thinking skills. Those are the things we have to impart to our children if we want them to be wise users of the technology. We encourage parents not to feel that they are at a disadvantage. In fact, they have a huge advantage that they can help their children with.
Ms. Tallim: We also try to instil in parents not to freak out if their children do come across anything that is offensive or that shocks us. The research shows that if parents overreact when a child does encounter a negative situation online, then it is highly unlikely that any constructive dialogue will take place. We also encourage parents to maintain that ongoing dialogue. When, and if, something negative happens, we want them not to overreact so that their child will feel comfortable talking to them, for example, if they are being cyber-bullied or if something is happening. The biggest threat you can give a child is to take away his or her technology. There are many kids who will put up with being cyber- bullied because they do not want to lose their technology. If they know that mom or dad will not overreact, then they feel more comfortable talking about it.
The Chair: If there are no other questions, I remind you that tomorrow night we have two more witnesses: representatives from MTS Austrian, and I am sure that we will have a Manitoba contingent present; and DragonWave, a hardware supplier to most of the groups that do Internet services in Canada.
(The committee adjourned.)