Theme 2:   Breaking Down Barriers

We've discovered that Canadians don't really care whether it's the provincial or the federal government providing the service, they want to know that a service is there when they need it.

It's very important to build those partnerships across government, between levels of government. If we don't do it then I don't think we'll live up to the expectations that we have set ourselves.

Geoconnections

Geoconnections is about building the geographic information part of the information highway.

It's been built pretty much from the ground up as a grassroots thing. So what we've done is we've gotten together in a consortium arrangement with the provinces. We've decided to share information with each other. We've decided to cost share the actual collection and maintenance of this information. Something that Canadians might not realize is that this kind of geographic information is used extensively in 911 operations. The thing that guides the ambulance to your house and lets the people driving the ambulance know where the street location is is generally a digital map.

Geoconnections is about serving people through a single window. Government has information assets and Geoconnections is about making those assets accessible for all Canadians.

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