Before 1970, if you asked for a passport, the government just believed you. But after 9/11, Passport Canada—a small, self-funding department that printed little blue booklets—found itself at the forefront of international security. After multiple failed attempts at modernization, and two entirely predictable backlogs that delayed hundreds of thousands of passports, Canada is finally launching a limited trial of online passport renewals.Passports are a perfect lens through which to analyze a country's digital readiness: 70% of Canadians has one, they involve security and personal information, and we can analyze their cost and delivery cleanly. To kick off our three-part series on passport modernization, we dive into the tangled history of Passport Canada, and what it says about our country's ability to deliver modern government services.
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Breaking our own rules with Senator Colin Deacon
In Canada, there are 134 ways to apply for federal grants and loans. They aren't connected, so a Canadian has to try them all, like whack-a-mole. If you don't qualify for one, you have no idea why another might be perfect. Using a service like this isn't easy, either. The Federal government has 270 separate online services, which you sign into with 60 unique usernames and passwords you have to keep track of, administered by 33 federal departments. When we decided to launch Functional, there was one person we knew we needed to speak with. He's an independent Senator from Nova Scotia. When he was appointed, he was given a simple mandate: Challenge government. He's a sensible, plainspoken, advocate for simplifying the government. He has a background as an entrepreneur, and a good understanding of technology. He's driven by data, and he's not afraid to ask questions—often publicly. On this week's episode Alistair sits down with Senator Colin Deacon 🇨🇦🇺🇦 to talk about breaking our own rules!
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We can have nice things: Coding Canada's Services with Dorothy Eng
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire—Code for Canada? Launched in 2017, this nonprofit works alongside government to build better services. We sit down with CEO Dorothy Eng to understand the structural and cultural challenges that stop government from delivering. Despite antiquated systems, "that's not how we do it" attitudes, and the challenges of hiring and retaining talent, Dorothy still believes that we can have nice things. All it takes is political will, an understanding of technology, and senior managers who take the risk of doing things differently.
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How the rest of the world does its taxes with Dr. Fabrizio Santoro
After learning about Canada's attempts to modernize the tax system, it was time to see how the rest of the world does it. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Fabrizio Santoro, an expert on taxation who helps countries around the world design and implement taxation. We dive into a number of countries' systems, including Uganda's complete overhaul of registration, data collection, and filing. The conclusion? Nobody would do it the way Canada does.You can learn more about Fabrizio’s work at: https://www.ids.ac.uk/
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Why Canadian Income Tax is complicated with Alex MacEachern and Paul Craig
There's no government service that touches every citizen the way taxes do. Every April, millions of Canadians lose a weekend preparing their taxes, often with the help of paid software tools. Yet elsewhere in the world, there's no tax season—or you simply approve the pre-filled return the government sends you.There are plenty of reasons why it is this way. Taxes are the easiest way for the government to turn policy into outcomes through credits and fees. The tax code is complex, and confederation means citizens file taxes with the province and the nation. And for many independent-minded Canadians, telling the government what you earn, rather than having it tell you, is a rebuke of tyranny. But the current tax system is also broken. It's not just expensive and time-consuming: The CBC estimates that because of a difficult filing system, between $1.3 and $1.6B of the most vulnerable Canadians don't claim the benefits to which they're entitled. And it's the one part of government where, if you're accused of breaking the law, you're presumed guilty and must pay to defend yourself.The Federal government has tried to fix this on multiple occasions. It's even built free-to-file software tools. But none of them has seen the light of day. Since taxation is such a broad, ubiquitous topic, it's going to take more than one episode to understand the issues, so we started by inviting Alexandra MacEachern and Paul Craig to discuss their work trying to tackle these problems from within government.
Government doesn’t have to suck.Most Canadians have no idea how the rest of the world interacts with government. So we decided to find out. Join us as we learn why so many government services are slow, outdated, or just plain broken—and then travel the world talking to countries have made them awesome.Let’s make government functional againIn a modern society, citizens use digital technology to complete everyday tasks like paying taxes, renewing passports, and claiming benefits. This is called Digital Government. In 2010, Canada was building these services pretty well—in fact, the U.N. ranked us third in the world. But in fifteen years, we’ve fallen to number 47.The Canadian Federal government alone has over 270 different digital services. You need 60 different usernames and passwords to access them all. There are more than 130 ways to claim benefits and grants, but none of them are connected. We sign into government services with banks, and send information to foreign-owned companies to file our taxes.Canada’s digital government is way behind. But it doesn’t have to be this way.Around the world, governments are letting citizens do things online quickly, easily, and securely. Join host Alistair Croll as he learns why building modern digital services is hard, how other countries have solved these problems, and what it will take to make Canada functional again.
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