It was a surprise to see the Prime Minister making an announcement on e-business on Thursday, since his government and most others around the world are properly preoccupied with events in Ukraine. Surprising but encouraging. Wanting to work on more than one thing at a time is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged, as Lincoln almost said. And in fact, Thursday’s announcement has been a long time coming. Let’s peek under the hood.
The Canada Digital Adoption Program announced Thursday, as the Globe reports, is designed to help Canadian businesses succeed in the fascinating and mysterious world of the internet. And when it was originally announced 11 months ago, it was depicted as a bit of a big deal.
The 2021 federal budget was a bit of a momentous document, following the previous federal budget by two years and, at over 700 pages, the largest budget book ever. It also marked the first appearance in new roles by the finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, and by the department’s star recruit deputy minister, Michael Sabia. And obviously it was released in an atmosphere of lingering pandemic crisis.
In a budget-day conference call with journalists, a senior finance department official we weren’t allowed to identify by name devoted most of his or her remarks to highlighting post-pandemic economic recovery measures. One of the first few things the senior-finance-department-official-we-weren’t-allowed-to-identify-by-name talked about was a program to send young tech-savvy Canadians into small businesses to help convert them to the digital economy. The senior-finance-department-official-we-weren’t-allowed-to-identify-by-name was tremendously excited by this plan.
Much of this excitement was reflected in the language of the budget document. The 2021 budget promised “unprecedented and historic investments” in small business, to give them “a shot at becoming the Canadian-headquartered global champions of tomorrow.” Indeed, the government would put $4 billion toward a “game-changing new effort” to help up to 160,000 small and medium-sized businesses “buy the new technologies they need to grow.”
At the heart of this effort was the Canada Digital Adoption Program, which would “train… 28,000 young Canadians—a Canadian technology corps—and send them out to work with our small and medium sized businesses.”
This program—not only unprecedented, historic and game-changing, but also, per the budget document, “groundbreaking” — would “help Canadian small businesses become more efficient, go digital, take advantage of e-commerce, and become more competitive in Canada and abroad.”
I was skeptical from the outset. Twenty-eight thousand digital advisors is a lot of people. What’s the demand for their youthful energy?
I guess that’ll depend how many businesses are, simultaneously:
(a) not yet online, 30 years into this “internet” thing;
(b) interested in going online;
(c) unable to figure out for themselves how to get online; and
(d) likely to ask the government of Canada for help.
This feels like a smallish Venn intersection. In particular, I’d be damned curious to know how many businesses are in both groups (c) and (d). I know we’re angry at the web giants this year, but if I type “take my business online” into the popular internet website “Google,” I get a little north of 9 billion results, including this and this and this and this and this. I was a little surprised Shopify wasn’t one of the top hits, because I think if you asked 40 strangers how to take your business online, 38 of them would tell you to try Shopify.
I worried the feds might be creating an army of Maytag repairmen, but inspired by the excitement of nameless officials I decided to wait and see how the new program evolved. In July Mary Ng, a minister of assorted things, announced a call for applications for part of this “Canada Digital Adoption Program.” This wasn’t yet a chance for businesses that wanted to go online to line up some youthful digital advice. No, first the Trudeau government was just looking for “not-for-profit organizations” to run the program. The winning organization(s) would be responsible for “recruiting, mentoring and training students” who would then take businesses online. Interested non-profits had until early August to apply.
Ng’s news release was of course loaded up with adjectives about how important all this was. Small businesses would be “crucial” to the economic recovery; expanding digital adoption was “critical” to Canada’s competitiveness.
I began a correspondence with ISED, the department formerly known as Industry, about the program’s evolution. Ng’s call had been for the “Grow Your Business Online” component of the Canada Digital Adoption Program, the department told me on Aug. 3. This first component of the strategy would employ “up to 11,200 young digital advisors.” A second component, “Boost Your Business Tech,” would hire 16,800 more young people and would be announced “soon.”
There followed, very soon after, a wholly unnecessary federal election. Nobody should expect files like this to go anywhere during a campaign. But in mid-December I checked in with ISED for an update. Who’d been selected to run the program? Were businesses now being launched into the future?
“More than 50” not-for-profits had applied to run Grow Your Business Online, the department told me, “and we are currently finalizing our selection process.” Indeed, the process of selecting an organization to run the second component, Boost Your Business Tech, was also “nearing completion.”
This was exciting, so I waited two more months and then asked, in mid-February, whether the department had an update on the process they had been finalizing two months earlier, or on the one that had been nearing completion. The department replied that “as of currently there has been no update to our previous response.”
This delay must have been frustrating to you, if you are the owner of a small business with no access to Google or a smartphone. Ten months after announcing a historic and game-changing plan to provide critical and crucial help to the many businesses that have not yet progressed beyond 8-track tape, the government hadn’t decided who’s going to run the thing.
Anyway, now we have an announcement! The details remain sketchy. ISED has laid on a technical briefing for journalists for Friday, at which officials will answer detail questions. I couldn’t help noticing that Friday is after Thursday, which was the day journalists had a chance to ask the PM about the program. Back when the Harper Conservatives were in power, and the government started explaining programs after ministers had already taken questions about them, we naively assumed this backward arrangement was a reflection of Stephen Harper’s unique disdain for questions and the people who ask them. Turns out it wasn’t unique! Turns out it’s pretty generic.
Anyway. A few answers are coming to light. Who’ll run the Grow Your Business Online component? This page suggests it’ll be various organizations, depending on location. Coverage seems spotty: If you live in Atlantic Canada, you’re to apply to the New Brunswick Association of Community Business Development Corporations.
Do the 13 service providers each have an average of 861 young digital concierges ready to head out and show businesses how to turn on their laptops? Uh, maybe? This page sure makes it sound like the young web gurus are not yet actually standing by. “E-commerce advisors will have the opportunity to work with local small businesses,” it says. “Advisors will receive training from their service provider.” Soon, perhaps.
I’m actually trying to imagine a company that, in 2022, isn’t online yet; wants to get online; and figures the quick way to do that is to apply to a government program that began accepting applications 11 months after it was announced. It’s an open question whether such companies, if they exist, should be encouraged to keep acting that way. And I keep coming back to how, on the day of the big budget, this was the first thing the government wanted to brag about.
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TORONTO – Will Taylor Swift bring chaos or do we all need to calm down?
It’s a question many Torontonians are asking this week as the city braces for the arrival of Swifties, the massive fan base of one of the world’s biggest pop stars.
Hundreds of thousands are expected to descend on the downtown core for the singer’s six concerts which kick off Thursday at the Rogers Centre and run until Nov. 23.
And while their arrival will be a boon to tourism dollars — the city estimates more than $282 million in economic impact — some worry it could worsen Toronto’s gridlock by clogging streets that already come to a standstill during rush hour.
Swift’s shows are set to collide with sports events at the nearby Scotiabank Arena, including a Raptors game on Friday and a Leafs game on Saturday.
Some residents and local businesses have already adjusted their plans to avoid the area and its planned road closures.
Aahil Dayani says he and some friends intended to throw a birthday bash for one of their pals until they realized it would overlap with the concerts.
“Something as simple as getting together and having dinner is now thrown out the window,” he said.
Dayani says the group rescheduled the gathering for after Swift leaves town. In the meantime, he plans to hunker down at his Toronto residence.
“Her coming into town has kind of changed up my social life,” he added.
“We’re pretty much just not doing anything.”
Max Sinclair, chief executive and founder of A.I. technology firm Ecomtent, suggested his employees avoid the company’s downtown offices on concert days, saying he doesn’t see the point in forcing people to endure potential traffic jams.
“It’s going to be less productive for us, and it’s going to be just a pain for everyone, so it’s easier to avoid it,” Sinclair said.
“We’re a hybrid company, so we can be flexible. It just makes sense.”
Swift’s concerts are the latest pop culture moment to draw attention to Toronto’s notoriously disastrous daily commute.
In June, One Direction singer Niall Horan uploaded a social media video of himself walking through traffic to reach the venue for his concert.
“Traffic’s too bad in Toronto, so we’re walking to the venue,” he wrote in the post.
Toronto Transit Commission spokesperson Stuart Green says the public agency has been working for more than a year on plans to ease the pressure of so many Swifties in one confined area.
“We are preparing for something that would be akin to maybe the Beatles coming in the ‘60s,” he said.
Dozens of buses and streetcars have been added to transit routes around the stadium, and the TTC has consulted the city on potential emergency scenarios.
Green will be part of a command centre operated by the City of Toronto and staffed by Toronto police leaders, emergency services and others who have handled massive gatherings including the Raptors’ NBA championship parade in 2019.
“There may be some who will say we’re over-preparing, and that’s fair,” Green said.
“But we know based on what’s happened in other places, better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.”
Metrolinx, the agency for Ontario’s GO Transit system, has also added extra trips and extended hours in some regions to accommodate fans looking to travel home.
A day before Swift’s first performance, the city began clearing out tents belonging to homeless people near the venue. The city said two people were offered space in a shelter.
“As the area around Rogers Centre is expected to receive a high volume of foot traffic in the coming days, this area has been prioritized for outreach work to ensure the safety of individuals in encampments, other residents, businesses and visitors — as is standard for large-scale events,” city spokesperson Russell Baker said in a statement.
Homeless advocate Diana Chan McNally questioned whether money and optics were behind the measure.
“People (in the area) are already in close proximity to concerts, sports games, and other events that generate massive amounts of traffic — that’s nothing new,” she said in a statement.
“If people were offered and willingly accepted a shelter space, free of coercion, I support that fully — that’s how it should happen.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Hundreds of Taylor Swift fans lined up outside the gates of Toronto’s Rogers Centre Wednesday, with hopes of snagging some of the pop star’s merchandise on the eve of the first of her six sold-out shows in the city.
Swift is slated to perform at the venue from Thursday to Saturday, and the following week from Nov. 21 to Nov. 23, with concert merchandise available for sale on some non-show days.
Swifties were all smiles as they left the merch shop, their arms full of sweaters and posters bearing pictures of the star and her Eras Tour logo.
Among them was Zoe Haronitis, 22, who said she waited in line for about two hours to get $300 worth of merchandise, including some apparel for her friends.
Haronitis endured the autumn cold and the hefty price tag even though she hasn’t secured a concert ticket. She said she’s hunting down a resale ticket and plans to spend up to $600.
“I haven’t really budgeted anything,” Haronitis said. “I don’t care how much money I spent. That was kind of my mindset.”
The megastar’s merchandise costs up to $115 for a sweater, and $30 for tote bags and other accessories.
Rachel Renwick, 28, also waited a couple of hours in line for merchandise, but only spent about $70 after learning that a coveted blue sweater and a crewneck had been snatched up by other eager fans before she got to the shop. She had been prepared to spend much more, she said.
“The two prized items sold out. I think a lot more damage would have been done,” Renwick said, adding she’s still determined to buy a sweater at a later date.
Renwick estimated she’s spent about $500 in total on “all-things Eras Tour,” including her concert outfit and merchandise.
The long queue for Swift merch is just a snapshot of what the city will see in the coming days. It’s estimated that up to 500,000 visitors from outside Toronto will be in town during the concert period.
Tens of thousands more are also expected to attend Taylgate’24, an unofficial Swiftie fan event scheduled to be held at the nearby Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Meanwhile, Destination Toronto has said it anticipates the economic impact of the Eras Tour could grow to $282 million as the money continues to circulate.
But for fans like Haronitis, the experience in Toronto comes down to the Swiftie community. Knowing that Swift is going to be in the city for six shows and seeing hundreds gather just for merchandise is “awesome,” she said.
Even though Haronitis hasn’t officially bought her ticket yet, she said she’s excited to see the megastar.
“It’s literally incredible.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Via Rail is asking for a judicial review on the reasons why Canadian National Railway Co. has imposed speed restrictions on its new passenger trains.
The Crown corporation says it is seeking the review from the Federal Court after many attempts at dialogue with the company did not yield valid reasoning for the change.
It says the restrictions imposed last month are causing daily delays on Via Rail’s Québec City-Windsor corridor, affecting thousands of passengers and damaging Via Rail’s reputation with travellers.
CN says in a statement that it imposed the restrictions at rail crossings given the industry’s experience and known risks associated with similar trains.
The company says Via has asked the courts to weigh in even though Via has agreed to buy the equipment needed to permanently fix the issues.
Via said in October that no incidents at level crossings have been reported in the two years since it put 16 Siemens Venture trains into operation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
