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Transport Canada has already switched its website to the government's new design standards.

Ottawa is overhauling all federal department websites in an effort to make social-networking services such as Twitter a bigger part of how Canadians interact with the federal government.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement, one of the most active politicians on Twitter, is leading the effort to standardize the websites of Canada's various federal agencies.

One of the redesign's goals, according to Mr. Clement, is greater integration with social media. The new design features large icons linking to each department's Twitter, YouTube and RSS news feeds, among other services. Mr. Clement, who has almost 20,000 followers on Twitter, says many of his constituents have largely switched from traditional means of contacting his office to social networks over the past 18 months.

Currently, many federal government sites follow a consistent design scheme, with the name of the department at the top left corner of the site and the government of Canada logo at the top right. However, the Conservative government is looking to make the individual agencies less visually prominent at the top of the sites, leaving more room for federal government branding.

For example, the new design includes black bars at the bottom and top of the page with links to the federal government's main website, and the federal government logo. The black bar that runs along the bottom of the page includes links to sites such as Service Canada and the government's economic action plan. There will also be a Maple Leaf icon atop each main page – similar to the one currently in place on many government sites, but significantly larger.

The deadline for all departments to switch to the new design scheme is July of next year. However, some departments, such as Transport Canada, have already made the switch.

In addition to the website overhaul, Mr. Clement's office is also pushing for more tabling of documents in electronic, rather than paper, format. Earlier this month, Mr. Clement tabled the 2011 federal departmental performance reports largely in electronic format for the first time. The minister said the switch saved more than $100,000, and about three million pages

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