(March 29 – 17:50 ET) – In a speech to the Crossing Boundaries National Conference in Ottawa, Finance Minister Paul Martin announced the relaunch of the Finance Canada Web site (www.fin.gc.ca) and discussed the department’s success so far in using the Internet to communicate.

Martin said Finance launched its first Web site seven years ago as an experiment, but the Web has now become its most important communication vehicle.

Martin noted that for the February 2000 budget the Finance Web site received almost 2 million hits on budget day and 500,000 site visits over the following two weeks, compared to just 5,004 calls to its 1-800 number.

In two weeks following Budget 2000, the video messages were accessed by 37,000 people. “Our Web site clips reached more Canadians to tell them about the budget’s key features than could possibly have ever been realized through the budget documents,” said Martin.

The redesigned Web site will soon include an application that makes economic jargon stand up and explain itself for easier understanding — by automatically creating hyperlinks between specialized words or acronyms in every single bit of text on the Web site, and a Finance glossary.

It also allows surfers to participate in budget consultation initiatives. “For me, this is crucial,” said Martin. “A budget’s success depends on the quality of consultations conducted with Canadians. We must take advantage of all the possibilities that the Internet and new communications technologies offer to improve dialogue as much as possible.”