Canadian businesses must develop more strategies like these to add value to jobs affected by technology, not just information technology. Government decisions related to technology require the evaluation of complex issues. The public may have compelling interests in the evaluation of technology related to food, drugs, disease, defense, energy, waste management, workplace safety, transportation safety, telecommunications, environmental quality and many other areas. Government is both a consumer and regulator of technology and therefore, may from time to time have a conflict of interest with respect to technology regulation and its procurement or budgetary needs. Government technology evaluations are made by technicians, technologists, engineers and scientists.
Specialists make recommendations to civil servants, who in turn advise publicly elected officials.
As technology issues become more complex, government must entrust more and more discretionary power to technology specialists from both inside and outside of government. Natural social opportunities to form commercial relationships of preference have always been a concern for government, however, the ability to practice oversight in this area may be rapidly diminishing due to budgetary pressure and the sheer quantity and complexity of emerging technology. Our society has a tradition of placing trust in military and scientific leaders to transfer power and knowledge to civilian authority. It is a widely held assumption that people exposed to democracy naturally embrace it. This assumes that democracy empowers people.