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Neil Malhotra, of Claridge, said company officials are excited about the opportunity to host the gallery and contribute to the city and country.

He said when the government announced a competition between private developers in nine cities to bid for the right to host the gallery, company officials realized they had an opportunity to do something of importance to the city and its citizens.

"We realized having the gallery in Ottawa is something people in this community care about, that it should happen, and that we had a piece of land that is in a perfect location for it," he said. "It's a rare opportunity to do something like this, and I think we will have a very good chance of winning the competition if we can get everything done on time."

The gallery was originally supposed to go into the former United States embassy building on Wellington Street across from the hill, but the Harper government cancelled that project last year, citing escalating costs, then announced the competition.

Ottawa is competing with Vancouver, Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary for the right to have the gallery, which is part of Library and Archives Canada.

The move to have a bidding war amongst cities and developers to host the gallery sparked outrage from people who feel it should be in Ottawa along with the rest of the Canada's national institutions. Others feel having a national collection housed in a privately owned building is distasteful and makes the country look bad on the international scene.

Digitization of books and historical records is important, but groups like the CBC and the National Film Board, who should be working to digitize thousands of hours of Canadian film, television shows and radio programs, are largely absent. By comparison, the Dutch government launched the Images for the Future digitization project in July, which plans to preserve, digitize and provide access to 137,200 hours of video, 22,510 hours of film, 123,900 hours of audio and 2.9 million photos.

Digitization is not rooted solely in history. The Man Booker Prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary awards, recently announced that it is working with publishers to offer free, digital versions of all six nominated books next year. Organizers hope that the initiative will capture new audiences – particularly in Asia and Africa – who may be unable to access the actual books.

The major Canadian literary prizes, including the Governor-General Award and the Giller Prize, could do the same thing. Rather than racing to print a few thousand additional copies, the publishers could work with the award organizers to increase the size of the prize in return for free, global access to digital versions of Canada's best writing.

The LAC strategy opens by arguing that "digital information and networked technologies are key drivers of economic growth and social well-being in the 21st century. It is clear that the nations that nurture their digital information assets and infrastructure will prosper; those that do not will fall behind."

Without vision and leadership on this issue, it is increasingly clear that Canada will slot into the latter group of countries that have fallen behind.