The issue of saving language is, I think, a great example. We would previously have thought that to save a language you would need a national policy, a national commitment, educators, and so on. We have many aboriginal languages disappearing, and unless we do this from the top down, these will disappear. It would seem to me, from my experience, that what's happening is that things are being saved from the bottom up.
For example, every night...I'm not telling what I do in the evening, but I go home and go on YouTube. I type in “Junior Walker guitar licks”, and someone teaches me how to play Junior Walker guitar licks. I type in “B.B. King”, and someone teaches me how to play B.B. King.
These are millions of people who are offering their skills. Some of them are terrible, but the great thing about YouTube is you can go to the next one. People are offering language skills. People are sharing skills that nobody thought had a value before, because nobody could get them.
So it comes back to the question my colleague asked earlier, about access. The democratic function and the ability of citizens to participate are going to be dictated by their ability to have access so they can take control of their stories and obscure languages that are dying out.
To add some context, four years ago I worked for a first nation that was 300 kilometres north of Ottawa. They had one telephone for the entire community. It was pretty hard to work for that community when there was only one telephone. Now they have Facebook pages.
That's not to say, though, they are entering the digital realm. As you say, the gap is going to begin to dramatically shift as the potential starts to move toward people who have full access and away from people who at best can get a Facebook page and nothing else.
I guess it goes back to an issue of policy. We can allow all kinds of creative development, but we need a vision for digital development as a nation. That includes broadband policy and access, and having government support this creative agenda. I'm still not sure if we as legislators have a clue about how to go about that.