[Advisors] Report of meeting -- InCan - Dec. 8

[Work]

That is great news indeed
Now for the champion
It only takes one or two backbenchers

In Ontario we used the women caucus to save Childcare a few years ago...?
Does harper have caucuses? =20

Meeting with glen Murray on Friday (liberal - sigh) but will seek his advice=


Paf

Sent from my iPad

On 2011-12-12, at 8:16 PM, Marita Moll <mmoll@ca.inter.net> wrote:

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> Report of the meeting at Industry Canada, December 8, 2011.
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> Participants:
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> Bruce Winchester, head policy advisor to the Minister of Industry
> Marita Moll, Telecommunities Canada
> Darlene Thompson, Telecommunities Canada and the Government of Nunavut
> Monique Chartrand, Communautique
> Patrick Dub=C3=A9, Communautique & Living Labs
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> This meeting was scheduled to last about 45 minutes.  In fact, it lasted a=
lmost two hours =E2=80=93 a huge amount of one-on-one time with someone at t=
hat level. We are not sure what it was in our letter that piqued his curiosi=
ty.  He did indicate that he usually only met with the big players =E2=80=93=
 Bell, Rogers, etc.
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> Mr. Winchester was extraordinarily candid with us.  This was certainly not=
 a session in which we were listened to politely, patted on the head and sen=
t on our way. =46rom the beginning, he engaged with us constantly at the ver=
y practical level =E2=80=93 sometimes even trying to draw us into conversati=
ons about other current online issues we were not there to talk about =E2=80=
=93 e.g.  broadband in rural communities, the value of satellite connections=
, the economy in northern areas, etc.  But we had assumed correctly that pre=
senting well documented projects with proven economic value would be the onl=
y way to hold the attention of someone in this government.
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> On the negative side, he was quite clear about how the department felt abo=
ut this program =E2=80=93 it didn=E2=80=99t belong there, it was outside of t=
he mandate, etc. etc.  He volunteered that the department had tried to get t=
he regional development agencies to take it over =E2=80=93 but that these ag=
encies had declined to take on what they called an =E2=80=9Cunfunded mandate=
.=E2=80=9D One of the first things he said was =E2=80=9CYou=E2=80=99ve got t=
o lose that name, for starters!=E2=80=9D  There were some suggestions that t=
he lingering perception of this program was that it was more of a social ser=
vice than an economic driver.  We said that we were there to change that =E2=
=80=93 to tell some of the stories that rarely made it to his level.  Darlen=
e Thompson and Patrick Dub=C3=A9, who spoke about northern projects and the =E2=
=80=9Cliving labs=E2=80=9D experiments in Montreal respectively were right o=
n their game. And Mr. Winchester became more and interested in the possibili=
ties that were presented.
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> One of the lasting comments, for me, was =E2=80=9CYou folks need a champio=
n.=E2=80=9D  Of course, he wasn=E2=80=99t volunteering to take that on.  It w=
as pretty clear to us that the department had no intention of renewing this p=
rogram.  So that leaves the question, why did he meet with us at all?
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> Perhaps our good news stories are getting out there.  Even this government=
 needs good news stories =E2=80=93 small, innovative, creative, locally gene=
rated projects.
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> The meeting ended on a positive note.  Darlene had brought pre-print copie=
s of the book of exemplary projects she has been working on with Clarice for=
 the last few years.  I also had a copy of a booklet of short (one pager) CA=
P stories.  So we left him with some tangible evidence.
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> Final comments:  We do think a spark may have been ignited =E2=80=93 we ar=
e not sure how to keep it going.
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> Marita, Darlene, Monique and Patrick.
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