Yes.
But the mine in Cobalt, Ontario, could be a mine in Siberia. In that way, it destabilizes--i.e., where does Canada fit into that universe? That's one question.
I've been seeing—certainly among students that I'm working with and community partners and so on—that it also reinforces locality and community in really interesting ways. Students are engaging with place and with their city or their nation in really creative ways, authoring in sound and image online. My students write term papers, but they also produce websites.
There was a project this past term where they were interviewing a milkman. There's a milkman in a neighbourhood in Montreal who's been delivering milk for 57 years. They interviewed him, they did a documentary film. They created a mapping of the neighbourhood of Upper Lachine Road with sound points, in terms of seeing what the customers think. It's all about community and identity and locality, but it exists in this global Internet.
I don't think it harms Canadian identity by nature. I think it's broadening horizons to all kinds of possibilities and all kinds of inspirations. I'm seeing it transform my classroom and my practice and my university and my community. If the government can foster that or contribute to that, I think it would be amazing.
There are always challenges. These structures are not.... For whom are they being created, and are they accessible to everyone? These are big questions that need to be addressed. Again, as an oral historian, for me what's important is people's life stories and their experience—to honour that and understand it. If the technology helps me to do that, I'm all for it. If it prevents me, if I'm looking at the technology instead of the person before me, then there's a problem. To me, a lot of this new media is about opportunities and horizon.