E-government is the buzzword in public administration these days, as bureaucrats try to make more and more services available on-line. Canadians can process everything from tax returns to dog licences through the Internet, and governments at all levels are trying to make their services as technologically advanced as possible. Canada has been repeatedly recognized by observers like Accenture as one of the world's most-advanced e-governments.
Mingled with talk of e-government is talk of e-democracy. Canadians can watch Question Period on-line; Paul Martin has a blog (a Web diary) on his campaign site. Even antiglobalization protesters salute e-democracy, and organize with remarkable speed by communicating through the Internet.
But e-government and e-democracy aren't the same thing. E-government is narrowly about the delivery of services -- the business of government. E-democracy is about participating in politics. Indeed, the two often seem to be working on separate tracks, without much interplay between them.
Even as bureaucrats are working hard to make services available on-line, and members of Parliament receive hundreds of e-mails daily, the two rarely meet. A recent study sponsored by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada found that most MPs rarely interact directly with public servants. Nearly half of MPs surveyed reported interacting once a week or less with public servants, and for less than 5 per cent of their working time. Furthermore, this is low-tech interaction -- face-to-face, or over the phone. They rarely e-mail each other or make use of other current technologies. And MPs' computer networks are separated from bureaucrats by security firewalls and other barriers, so that they are rarely any better connected than the rest of us.
Both groups are working hard to make the best use of the Internet and related tools, with a bewildering array of studies, pilot projects and experiments. But they're in separate silos.
There's a very good reason for this: our system of ministerial responsibility. Public servants work for their ministers, who answer to MPs in the House of Commons. If MPs talk directly to bureaucrats, they may give conflicting instructions, resulting in confusion and unclear lines of responsibility (as in the American system, where public servants must juggle the demands of both the president and powerful congressional leaders). Unfortunately, Canada's centralization of power in ministers means that much of e-democracy and e-government do not interact.
The main losers here may be MPs. Public servants are working hard to create new forms of "citizen engagement" through electronic means, with more consultation and participation of Canadians in the design and delivery of public services -- something closer to e-democracy than e-government, and sometimes called "e-governance."
Members of Parliament argue with obvious justification that they have been elected to represent the views of Canadians, and so they should be a central part of any citizen engagement. Many have created elaborate Web sites to help Canadians to either express their views on public policy or just seek assistance with government programs.
But none of these electronic solutions are directly linked to the bureaucracy itself; most opinions and requests still end up as paper printouts sitting on MPs' desks. They eventually find their way to the bureaucracy, but in low-tech fashion by phone or perhaps fax.
Should there be greater direct electronic links between legislators and bureaucrats? Such links are certainly possible, despite some technical barriers, and so many argue the two groups should be brought together as closely as possible for the benefit of Canadians. If the technology is there, why not use it?
But for others, the answer is equally clear: Electronic links must respect the principle of ministerial responsibility. While there should always be some interaction between MPs and public servants, it must be clear that bureaucrats have only one boss: the minister, who answers to MPs through Parliament. Shared data networks and mass e-mailing back and forth risk blurring this relationship, creating confusion and ultimately a lack of accountability for outcomes.
And so even in the era of e-governance, the two groups are likely to continue following separate electronic paths.
And, likely, MPs will feel even more marginalized than they already do.
The more that governments try to engage citizens by electronic (or any other) means, the more they must work with Parliament to fuse technological possibilities with old-fashioned principles of responsible government.
Jonathan Malloy is assistant professor
of political science at Carleton. His IPAC study is at: http://www.ipaciapc.ca/english
publications/NEWDIRECTION9.pdf.