Canada

Canada plans to have its government become the most electronically linked to its 

citizens around the world by 2004. Canadians will be able to access federal information

and services online at the time and place of their choosing. 

The Accenture report lists Canada as the most advanced country in relation to 

e government

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. Canada secured its leading position as a result of the government's

adoption of a cross agency approach to e government. This approach was intended to

enable citizens and businesses to interact electronically with government. Canada also

scored high in the area of Delivery Maturity (60 percent), more than twice the country

average of 30 percent, surpassing Singapore and the United States. This score is largely a

reflection of the e government's recently launched portal, http://www.canada.gc.ca. This

single entry point provides a gateway for Canadian citizens, business and non Canadians

to access major services. 

The Canadian federal government wants to ensure broadband access for all Canadian

communities by 2004 to ensure Canada's competitiveness in a global economy. It feels

that countries, which develop and use broadband networks, increase their productivity

in all sectors of the economy, and drive exports and investment. To this purpose they

have established the National Broadband Task Force, which is tasked with mapping a

strategy and advising the e government on best approaches to making high speed broad 

band Internet services available to businesses and residents in all Canadian communities

by the year 2004. 

One of the main purposes of the taskforce is to address the digital divide problem. In

Canada the most obvious digital divide separates urban from rural, remote communities.

Small communities, which stand to benefit the most from high speed broadband 

services, may be the last to have these services available to them without government

involvement. 

Finland

The Accenture report describes Finland as a  Visionary Follower . It highlights in

particular the postal service of Finland ranking it highly in the provision of electronic

services. At the International symposium `From telework to new forms of work in the

information society' Quebec, 15 16 May 2001, Paula Tiihonen described Finland's

National Administration as being composed of three functional elements:

  Administrative functions based on the classic values of good administration and

politically steered management;

  Public business functions carried out according to business values with management

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