That's a great question. The question of what citizens even want in this space has come up a number of times. I don't think we have very strong data on that question right now.
To speak directly to your point—“Do people want this?”—there are two things. On the one hand, sometimes people don't know what they want until they are.... They're not even aware how good things could be. Your constituents may not be asking for this, but if they were shown how easy it could be to apply for a service and see their information already populated, or how the organization of services around what we call life events could make their interactions with the state much more seamless, they might be much more supportive of the kinds of transformations we're talking about in data governance.
What do I mean by "organized around life events"? This is something the Government of Canada has led on for quite a while. It might have come up in your discussions that we used to be kind of the darling of e-government. That was because of early work we did, following the same principles that Estonia follows right now, which is to say that when citizens interact with the state, they don't care which department does what. They're not very interested in navigating a whole bunch of siloed websites. They're going because they just had a baby and they need to figure out all the things they have to do when that happens.
They also don't care about levels of government, and often don't understand who's responsible for what, which can create a lot of inefficiencies in our interactions with the state. I think the model of horizontal, platform government begins with an appreciation of user needs. That's the driving force behind this, when you look at the jurisdictions that have really led on it.
I think that's the endgame we could be going for, to make it a purely time-and-resource question, so that when you go to transact with the state, it's fast. I think that, on a bigger level, this has democratic implications, because when I interact with the state and it doesn't work well, I question where my taxes are going. I wonder what is going on in all those bureaucracies. It fuels narratives of the gravy train, and it allows governments to say they're going to show up and clean up all the inefficiencies.
Those narratives rest, in many cases, on people's very personal stories of bad transactions with the state. I've heard Canadians say to me a number of times, “Phoenix is such a disaster. If they can't even run a pay system, how can we trust them to solve climate change, administer a carbon tax, handle child welfare benefits or run the school system?” The list goes on, and I think we have to be really thoughtful about the larger stakes at play here.
I take Mr. Angus's point that there is some blurring here of jurisdiction and mandate between what you're focused on, which is privacy and ethics, and what other committees would look at around government operations. I think this reflects exactly what we're talking about, which is that policy issues are porous. There are problematic silos between parliamentary committees, in many ways. The decisions you make and the recommendations you put forth on privacy will have deep implications for how well we can structure government services and how well governments can operate. The endgame that unites the work of, say, the government operations committee and your committee is delivering government services that citizens have faith in and that underpin a strong trust in the state.
Yes, I definitely think that even if people aren't asking for this, it could do a lot to make your constituents happy.