WC131 JulyAugust 2023 - Magazine - Page 37
selection). We are convinced that, in order for these benefits to
be realized, a series of deliberate investments and policies must
be created to support an objective, Indigenous community of
practice that participates in technological development for its own
direct benefit, with indirect benefit to all of Canada.
Scaling Community Circle to a national ecosystem for innovation will increase the capacity of small businesses to enhance
their operating processes and services, as well as their ‘innovativeness’ to participate and compete in the rural water-health
market across Canada and globally. The age of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us, and it could play a crucial role in the
scale-up process. But, the current community of practice that
leads AI advancement suffers, intentionally or unintentionally,
from a not-insignificant non-objectivity problem—increasing
the risk of bias, inaccurate outputs, job displacement, and
concentration of power that could undermine progress in the
type of innovation with which we are preoccupied. In other
words, for the first time in history, we have a tool that can learn
to understand the world better, and generate new knowledge,
but we are training it to think like us with all the blind spots
inherited.
We need to accelerate our capabilities, leveraging AI to
generate new knowledge in and around the Indigenous water-health space, while addressing the risks and ethical concerns
around AI and data that need to be addressed. Our viewpoint
is that sorting out these concerns ought not to hamper innovation and development, but provide new opportunities while
stimulating objective, inclusive research, and innovation. To
be truly objective and useful, AI must be in the hands of an
Indigenous Community of Practice.
The value proposition of scaling up Community Circle for
small businesses includes capturing contextual data and an
empathetic and granular view of the rural community relationship. Rural communities and societal ecosystems will become
magnets for innovative companies, specifically Indigenous-led
start-ups. We will reduce engagement-intensive challenges
while accelerating product development and service delivery
(augmenting and enhancing decision making to drive better
outcomes). The net benefit of the program will be to increase
the capacity of small businesses to enhance their operating
processes and services, as well as ‘innovativeness’ to participate
and compete in the rural water-health market across Canada
and globally.
In a post-pandemic world, the need to optimize and
modernize government processes and services remains as great
as ever. However, the constraints imposed by a portfolio of
legacy IT infrastructure and applications now threaten to slow
the accelerated pace of pandemic-driven digital innovation.
We understand federal, provincial, and local governments
are expected to deliver value to recovery and rebuild agendas
of public officials in a very short time frame. As priority is
given to technology investments that can be directly linked to
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
recovery goals, the business case for modernization and transformation programs, with long-term return on investments,
becomes harder to make. Scaling the new value creation model
will enable the optimization of quality, service, costs, assets
and operating models, while instilling effective governance
(decision-making) mechanisms to maintain momentum and
business support for government modernization initiatives, and
improving Indigenous peoples’ experiences.
While aspirations to achieve the Truth and Reconciliation
Commision’s Calls to Action and other goals have initiated much discussion, situations on the ground in rural and
Indigenous communities are not improving as rapidly as our
aspirations for them are growing. Case in point:
While the words ‘Indigenous’ and ‘First Nations’ are more
prominent in the 38 mandate letters for federal ministries
in 2021, contrasting that hopeful tone with the terms more
commonly appearing in community experiences with drinking
water infrastructure upgrades (as expressed at RESEAU/Water
Canada joint workshops) are exhausting, complicated, frustrating, and disappointing.
Clearly, we still have a long way to go.
The 2022 National Indigenous Economic Strategy outlines
107 Calls to Prosperity along four key strategic pathways: People, Lands, Infrastructure, and Finance. The Strategy captures
deep divides in all four pathways between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people in Canada, and notes that “a significant
trust deficit exists between federal organizations and Indigenous Peoples, their communities, and businesses that needs
to be rectified.” The authors note that four out of five First
Nations reserves experience median incomes below the poverty
line, and that Indigenous children are at more than twice the
risk for living in poverty compared with non-Indigenous kids
in Canada. They also note that economic reconciliation for
Indigenous communities—a key component of full reconciliation, as the National Indigenous Economic Development
Board (NIEDB) Interim Chair Dawn Madahbee Leach noted
in 2016—has tremendous upsides for all of Canada, adding
nearly $30 billion to our GDP.
Canada’s aspirations, however, must focus on deliverables
that can comfortably and credibly be delivered upon. Our
experience tells us this will require demonstrating our understanding through action, relations with and recognition by
rural and Indigenous communities.
The question we asked at the beginning of this article covers
a single problem, but a multifaceted one involving evolving
moving parts. The difficulty of reconciling the viewpoints
of rural/Indigenous communities with the rest of the nation
when it comes to water, the economy and community health
may represent the most fundamental struggle over knowledge,
freedom, ethics, and the self that Canada has ever seen.
We couldn’t see all of this, sitting in that room together back
in 2008. We see it now.
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