I'm not sure how to answer that question, Mr. Chairman.
I'm not the right person to ask whether we should go slowly in anything. It's not in my grain. That being said, there needs to be reflection, that's for sure, and experts need to be consulted. If you look at the Australians, they set up a task force in June, which reported in December, and the government responded in May. Their information commissioner was appointed formally, I think, on November 1. So in the course of about one year, they've basically done their analysis, their study, and recommendations, and the government has taken a position. That seems to be fair.
I think Canada probably has an advantage in some respects, because we do have departments that are doing it. They know how to do it. We also have one of the most connected countries in the world. One of the challenges in Australia is that they need to have an ICT broadband strategy at the same time. We are doing well in that respect. We've lost a bit of ground, but we're doing well. So we have some good advantages.
Really, if you look back to the 1990s, when we put forward government online initiatives, we were the leaders in the world. I think it's time to reclaim that, and I think we can. Certainly the possibilities are there. As I said earlier, we're exporting our experts to advise other jurisdictions.
Because some of the other jurisdictions have done some of the thinking in some of the models, I think we should bank on that and should use their experts now to help us move forward at a more rapid pace, while paying due consideration to all of these concerns.