The following statement was issued today by Dianne Whalen, Minister of Government Services. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

I would like to take this opportunity to inform my colleagues of the first provincial-territorial conference on e-government which I attended earlier this month in Quebec City.

This conference was an important step in determining how each region of the country is approaching the use of the Internet and information technology. As more and more people have access to the Internet, many want the convenience and accessibility of obtaining government services online. The Department of Government Services already provides a number of services online including driver�s licence and vehicle registration renewal. This fall, we established our Registry of Lobbyists with a focus on making it a user-friendly online service whereby people can register themselves as lobbyists or seek information on who is lobbying government. Last year, we introduced the Registry of Companies and Deeds Online, or CADO, and provided more online features to the system this year.

Providing services online is an important initiative for this government. We have a widely dispersed population over a large geographic area. With the advent of e-government, many of our rural residents can now access services right from their own homes instead of traveling to larger centres. It is a goal for this government to bring even more services online.

This goal is ambitious and is one of the reasons our government established the Office of the Chief Information Officer. In coordination with that office, the Department of Government Services is working on a number of initiatives. We are developing a new Mechanics Lien system to enable online searching of liens against real property. We will convert our paper deeds documents dating back to 1800 into digital format and post them online. We have a number of other initiatives as well which are still in the early planning stages and will be brought forward in due course.

While in Quebec City for this conference I also had the opportunity to participate in the Crossing Boundaries forum called Service, Economy and Democracy: Leading Government into the Information Age. Representatives from government and the IT sector attended this forum to discuss the development of Canada as an information society and I had the pleasure to be one of three people on a panel which discussed service improvement and citizen-centred service delivery.

E-government is the way of the future. At the conclusion of the e-government conference, my counterparts and I committed to work together to ensure that e-government initiatives and services are based on citizens� expectations while at the same time respecting the social and cultural values of Canadians.

Finally, I would like to thank the Office of the Chief Information Officer for the support they provided to me for this meeting.

2005 11 21                                  2:00 p.m.