Government Websites

I surfed over to the Government of Canada website the other day (I linked to it in a previous Feast) and was quite surprised by what I saw. There has been a transformation - and not a good one. It has become more an advertisement of what the government is doing for us than a dry website one suffers through to order tax forms. And what's with all the Blue hues? It looks like the Conservative website. Hmmm...

My purpose of going there was to find the lyrics to O Canada! I dare you to try and find the link to information on Canada on the site. The link is there, just impossible to find. Perhaps people don't go to the Canada website to find out about Canada. Perhaps they go there to see what their government is doing.

I don't know.

I share with you a comparison of government websites, in which I researched the voting age. I used my own intuition to follow links, without using a search function.

On the Canada Website, it took 18 clicks to find this: "In 1970, a newly revised Canada Elections Act lowered the voting age and the minimum age to be a candidate from 21 years to 18."

United States - a sharp portal without government advertising. You can find that at the White House site. Eleven clicks, including one dead link got me this off a kids page: "Any citizen of the United States over the age of 18, and who meets certain state requirements, may vote in Federal elections"

United Kingdom - this portal looks like it shouldn't have survived Y2K. It is as easy to find info as it is bland. No advertising here, either. Four clicks for this: "To vote in parliamentary elections in the UK you must be a British citizen, a citizen of another Commonwealth country or of the Irish Republic, as well as being resident in the UK, aged 18 or over, included in the register of electors for the constituency and not subject to any legal incapacity to vote."

Australia - Another sharp, information and services only site. In 6 clicks I found this: "Yes, voting is compulsory for every Australian citizen aged 18 years or older. If you do not vote and do not have a valid and sufficient reason for failing to vote, a penalty is imposed."

Take from all of this what you will - I mean other than pondering the amount of idle time I appear to have. At the end of the day, this seems to be a Canadian thing that Canadians have decided to put up with. Just you wait until it's 47 clicks to order your tax forms.

I noticed the Ontario website went this way some time ago. Interestingly enough, it still has not been updated with the new Trillium Logo that caused some flapping earlier this year. It looks like the Trillium on the Ontario Liberal Logo some say. Three in a hot tub, others muse. Who gives a shit? even more say. There's even a website to save the old logo. Too bad that's brought to you by the Ontario PCs.




Categories: Canada, Politics, Links