Trudeau to tout digitization of government services, programs at Paris summit

Trudeau has made using technology and data a focus during his time in office to more often provide government programs to Canadians through digital channels alongside better, more up to date information to feed federal decisions. (File Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook)

PARIS — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will look to tout his government’s work to digitize the way it delivers services on his last day in Paris before he leaves the French capital for trade focused summits in Asia.

Trudeau has made using technology and data a focus during his time in office to more often provide government programs to Canadians through digital channels alongside better, more up to date information to feed federal decisions.

He is expected to press those points during a talk at a conference Monday at Paris city hall.

In September, the federal government launched its new “digital standards” to help public servants navigate their way towards what the Liberals call an “effective digital government.”

But there have been hiccups along the way.

A pilot project from Statistics Canada to scoop up anonymized and randomized banking transactions on 500,000 Canadians has faced steep criticism from opposition parties in the House of Commons.

And internal documents obtained by The Canadian Press paint a clearer picture of detailed work underway to overcome the challenges the civil service faces in meeting the Liberals’ digital goals.

Documents obtained under the Access to Information Act suggest challenges in how to handle vast amounts of disparate data, the funding needed to acquire or generate data to fill gaps, and “legal and cultural impediments to sharing and accessing data.”

The conference Trudeau is speaking at explores ways to overcome many of the hurdles outlined in the reports to senior civil servants.

Later in the day, the prime minister will travel to Singapore for a summit organized by a 10-nation bloc that will put his government’s trade diversification plans on display.

Trudeau is on a 10-day trip across Europe and Asia that began Friday with a gathering of world leaders in France to mark a century since the end of the First World War.