The ombudsman and e-government in Canada

Abstract: In a 1966 issue of this journal, Sir Guy Powles drew on John Milton's 1644 book Areopagitica to remind us of the importance to democracy of the right to seek redress of grievances. Based on this premise, Powles introduced, described and justified the office of the ombudsman as a specialized institution for handling the public's administrative grievances that had become so commonplace in the modern administrative state of the mid-twentieth century. By logical extension, this article examines how the ten provincial and territorial ombudsman offices have adopted electronic communication technology in the early years of the twenty-first century to settle more effectively administrative grievances. Specific focus is on the contrast and analysis of the web sites of the ten provincial ombudsman offices to see if they fulfil the potential of this new technology.