Un Eléphant Blanc For The Dead Ducks – Mais Pourquoi Pas?

But how does one build a white elephant in a post “brick and mortar” era? The Sacred Cow of Bilingualism can jump to the rescue on this. “French on the Internet: promotion through innovation” written as the final Government report answers this in response to the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages: “French on the Internet: Key to the Canadian Identity and the Knowledge Economy”. The highest-level priesthood issued last spring the equivalent of the Vatican Council II decree. A legacy monument had to be left in case the régime might change. The edicts are now rippling through Martin’s early reign. No doubt the intentions were good.

Bring in the experts and ignore the People
The experts from academia, foreign aid, government agencies, cultural monopolies and other bureaucracies know best how to spend your hard earn tax dollars in order to create value. They understand most what content will the People produce and access. Their knowledge on the subject matter is so precious that it could not be made readily available on the Internet. They know most about innovation in the real world. They are known to be politically neutral with no vested interests. There are serious business development issues afterall and many acronyms involved here. Why should these experts be ignored? Expert committees are known to solve complex problems.

The People don’t engage well, they criticize, disrupt, don’t do consensus, don’t align politically and are just not reliable. The content they produce or access may not agree with what the experts think is best for them. Their French may not be correct either. Why not simply appoint already well-subsidized spokespeople amongst a complicated contingent of stakeholders? Ensure while doing so to promote the people that have flucked up (pardonnez mon anglais!) the last quarter of century of Francophonie Hors-Québec, even if they have yet to actually use the Internet to engage their grassroot. Make sure also that the consultation procedures on needs for Internet content and its promotion are held as far away as possible from the People. Usage of independent Internet forums, blogs and chats should be strongly discouraged now that the decree has been issued.

Most critical here is to not document current and past budget allocation to the expert stakeholders since traceability may come back haunting the decision making process, perhaps with some political undertones.

Innovate when not needed and don’t innovate when needed
New jobs for export markets are at stake. Why not get the synergy of Sacred Cows working for you in parallel! And while at it, why not pull in the third Sacred Cow of Foreign policy (and Canadian identity to the world)? We will show everyone how good Canadians are at innovating under obvious duress: new designs for the roof of a massive structure or the hull of ship made with new material, or developing new tunneling and road upgrade technologies through the BC coastal mountain landscape have all been fair undertakings. So since we are recognized as a multicultural/linguistic leading country, why not develop new technologies and new “language industries”? It really does not matter if Canadian Heritage has no record developing new industries or that technology-based solutions are often known to cause more problems than they are solving. There will be follow-on contracts and job creation: a complex problem is never easily understood anyway. This will also go jive well with Industry-Canada mandate.

Since there will be plenty of money available, you do not need to innovate on the well-proven methods by which you normally get things done. You really do need this “cadre de gouvernance” to describe how complicated the effort will be so that you can manage this and have some accountability for the ten “Centres de Responsabilité”. And you do need at least three “axes stratégiques” so that there is a coherent direction. Keep delivering “brick and mortar” meetings and workshops to the Administrators so that they really understand what is going on. Stick to mega projects since small projects would not scale well nor do they make good press releases. You will definitely not need to innovate in order to involve developing countries in La Francophonie: it is already well known that needs for content by the People under hardship will be well taken care of.

If our Government is already innovating elsewhere in the matter of electoral reform on the Internet, you do not need to innovate nor follow what is going on with this People steered initiative. Don’t try reusing or promoting Internet French content that is already available from Non Government Organization (NGO) grassroot initiatives more aware of actual needs. These efforts really need to be streamlined instead. Were you not able before to “foster cultural participation, active citizenship, and participation in Canada’s civic life” or “to strengthen connections among Canadians” without having to innovate too?

Don’t ever blink and hold that course firm
You should not do post-mortem on previously failed innovation experiments, as you will not look good for securing new funding. Every lesson learnt shall be different every times. If you ever do internal post-mortems, do not ever ever publish the results externally. Reorganize when the People or political parties in the opposition are catching up so that you can keep on course. Make sure the Minister in charge is changed as often as possible in case he/she ever catches up to what is going on. They may not mind either not really knowing. And what weakling is to reassess course after a new election. There have been so many organizations involved that nobody in their right mind would ever dare to even tweak what comes across as a white elephant. These experts will surely be needed to mothball it at some point.

And the search for the Canadian identity goes on
The two reports will someday represent fascinating legacy content on how our Canadian governments and bureaucracies were operating early on the millennium. Perhaps movies as insightful as The Terminal shot within the Mirabel facilities will result from such a masterpiece of reality exceeding fiction. And this within our own border with our own Canadian content for the export markets! But I wonder why would the Americans complain that we are purposefully subsidizing our cultural industries and that our sense of humor has been somewhat warped.

The white elephant will hopefully fall apart before the ailing ducks get squished into Internet final roadkill. The ailing ducks must however still look up at that Sacred Cow, unless the Commissioner could stand better guard against the threats. Mais ça n’a donc tu pas d’allure (translation: does it not make a whole lot of sense now)?

'Gaulois' sometimes communicates with other Francophones Hors-Québec in English by publishing politically biting satires on the Canadian Internet space. He is also relearning to write in French out of his Vancouver home base after a telecom and tech sector career in Western Canada. You can provide your feedback at rbeaulieu@canada.com.

Note: “French on the Internet... “French on the Internet...