The Governance of Integrated Service Delivery in Canada: An Examination of Service Canada's New Business Model

Electronic Service Delivery And The New Governance Imperative1

A useful point of departure is to conceptually define e-government as - the continuous innovation in the delivery of services, citizen participation, and governance through the transformation of external and internal relationships by the use of information technology, especially the Internet.²Within this wide lens three images of e-government – in terms of the underlying objectives, have been well summarized by Remmen (2004) in the following manner: i) efficiency - cost reductions; ii) public service - better quality, easier access (i.e. 24/7), new services; and iii) democracy - participation and interactive dialogue. Since for most public sector leaders the initial impetus for thinking about online dimensions to government operations came from the ‘service’ dimension, this chapter situates the nature of e-government’s evolution primarily within and between the first two of these images – efficiency and public service reform. Nonetheless, the relevance of democracy remains as key contextual dimension of any public sector restructuring.