Governments worldwide are improving their digital services at breakneck speed. Meanwhile, Canada’s municipal, provincial, territorial and federal governments added 202,000 public servants last year alone, and the number of federal employees per 1,000 Canadians is now at its highest level in 30 years.

Thirty years ago, cameras were clumsy, expensive and held only 36 photos. Today’s camera is a smartphone that takes, stores and shares thousands of images effortlessly. Canadians have also changed a lot in 30 years. We spend more than six hours of our day online. Digital tools plan our routes, deliver our food, schedule our days and connect us to everyone.

Digital is the default — in everything except the delivery of government services across Canada.

Digital systems cost less and do more. Citizens prefer them. While fewer than 25% of federal services were available online in 2021, 81% chose the digital option when it was available. And if you’re worried about the digital divide, consider that with more people using a virtual option, public servants have more time to help those who don’t use online tools.

Canadians don’t know how bad they have it. Ukraine delivered a nationwide digital platform called Diia that’s so useful it’s now being licensed to other countries. It did this while fighting an existential war. Canada’s Budget 2024 announced a single sign-in for government services and an additional $3 billion to “modernize” the Employment Insurance and Old Age Security systems, just as these systems themselves hit Canada’s retirement age.

This will not reverse our slide in the United Nations’ digital government rankings; we’ve dropped from third to 32^nd, not because we went backwards, but because the rest of the world is racing ahead.

Neglecting public sector IT is also a security risk. Digital adversaries sow disinformation to divide neighbours, hack outdated critical infrastructure, scam our most vulnerable and erode confidence in our financial systems. Generative artificial intelligence only makes this worse.

Yes, it will take significant investment to catch up to other G20 nations. But hiring historically high numbers of public servants comes at a massive recurring cost. To change course, we must commit to:

• Make digital skills a requirement for advancement in government. How will we progress if our leaders lack the skills, experience and confidence necessary to own successful service delivery?
• Deliver useful and simple wins quickly. Large projects are far more likely to fail than small ones. Let’s prove we can deliver value fast to restore confidence. The rapid delivery of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit proved that we can achieve wins when we must.
• Create a single government interface. Design services around citizen needs rather than around department responsibilities. Thirty-one countries have figured this out.
• Change both citizen and government behaviour. All Canadians will have to relearn how they interact with their government using the new tools we build. The rewards will be significant: In Estonia, one simple rule — the government may not ask for a piece of information twice — slashed bureaucracy throughout the public sector.
• Spending, schedules and performance must be transparent. We’re clearly spending too much on transformation and not getting enough in return. Yet nobody has a good handle on costs. From now on, every initiative must start with a clear definition of success and then make simple metrics public throughout the delivery process.
• Let leaders do the hard work. There should be no responsibility without authority. If we task someone with making hard — even unpopular — changes, we need to give them the power, resources and flexibility necessary to deliver citizen-centric services. It’s the only way we’ll attract serious digital talent to public service.
• Create and reuse standard modules. Create software “building blocks” that make building services faster, easier and more secure — and then insist that every department uses them. Freeze the budgets of departments who refuse.

In his 1993 resignation address, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney said: “Whether one agrees with our solutions or not, none will accuse us of having chosen to evade our responsibilities by side-stepping the most controversial issues of our time.”

We have been side-stepping the biggest shift in government of our lifetimes. Digital power will define the best countries of the coming century. If we want to remain among them, we must become a digital-first nation.

Let’s get started.

Senator Colin Deacon represents Nova Scotia in the Senate.

This article was published in The Hill Times on May 6, 2024.