Lisa Williams

Minister of Industry Jim Prentice has urged greater competition and increased innovation in the wireless sector. His comments were made during Industry Canada's release last week of details on how the auction for Advanced Wireless Services spectrum, set for May 27 2008, will be conducted.

Shelly Jamieson will take the reigns from Tony Dean as head of the Ontario Public Service on January 7, 2008. In addition to being named head of the OPS by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Jamieson will also be the next secretary of the Cabinet and clerk of the Executive Council, according to a released statement from the Premier's office.

Privacy officials have welcomed a proposed legislation that would give law enforcement a better arsenal of tools to go after fraudsters and identity thieves, but cautioned the statute alone will not eradicate the increasing problem of identity theft.

Passport Canada's Web application system, Passport Online, has been added to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's audit list, following recent reports that an Ontario man was able to access personal information of another passport applicant. Passport Canada maintains its database is intact and previous users of the online tool are not at risk.

A recently announced "action plan" from Quebec Premier Jean Charest will help boost the productivity of Montreal's information and communications technology sector, according to Pierre Root, director general of ICT group, TechnoMontreal.

Service Canada has opened a new service centre in Kuujjuaq, located in northern Quebec, to better serve the needs of the Inuit population in Nunavik, Quebec, according to a statement issued by the federal agency.

In an effort to improve health care services to citizens in rural and remote areas, the Alberta government is providing more than $2.4 million in funding towards the expansion of its telehealth network. Fourteen projects will be added over the next year-and-a-half, including real-time pharmacist verification and a "TeleWomen's health" project.

A public sector technology forum held in Toronto this week looks at the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to take government to the next level of service delivery. Service transformation, according to forum participants, needs to be driven by the information age and next generation of users.