OTTAWA -- Finance Minister Paul Martin presented a federal budget to parliament Tuesday aimed at making Canada the most connected nation on earth.
Martin earmarked C$1.8 billion over the next four years to promote "the creation, dissemination, and commercialization of knowledge." He said the spending would ensure that all Canadians have a chance to learn and profit from the Internet.
The new budget includes a three-year $60 million "Smart Community" initiative that provides for technology-demonstration projects in each of Canada's 10 provinces, plus one each in the Arctic and in a Native American community.
One government official said the experimental projects would allow police departments to electronically notify parents of a missing child, for example, or enable social workers to use digital voicemail to stay in touch with homeless clients.
"Ultimately, the community would work with their own proposals on what they think constitutes a smart community," the official said.
The budget promises another $60 million over five years to build a sophisticated Internet database -- called GeoConnections -- on Canada's geography, environment, people, and resources.
"In addition to keeping Canada at the forefront of mapping, GeoConnections will have applications in areas ranging from climate-change monitoring to business development," the budget documents stated.
Canada will spend $200 million over the next three years to expand its Internet-based community access program and SchoolNet, which aims to wire the nation's schools to one other and the world.
In related spending, the government will dole out an additional $430 million to the Canadian Space Agency over the next three years, stabilizing funding for the agency at $300 million a year. It also announced $55 million over three years for biotechnology research and development.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
