[CivicAccess-discuss] Open Access In Canada

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

Hey Gang;

I just posted the following comment on David Eaves' Blog re-
http://eaves.ca/2009/10/08/open-data-us-vs-canada/ which is a really
interesting post well worth the read.  I would love to find a way to have
the open data folks work with scientists, geomaticists, bureacrats, and
librarians.  There seems to live different information ecologies with not
much overlap but all discussing the same issue!

David;

There are lots of open data available at the Federal Level you just have to
know what you are looking for.  Natural Resources Canada, GeoConnections
programs also known as the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure, the
equivalent to the FGDC in the US has a very amazing open data policy that we
need to be bragging about.  Please look at Geobase (http://www.geobase.ca/)
for framework data (e.g. canadian road network data, Electoral boundaries,
political boundaries, etc.), Geogratis (http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/) for a
number of other datasets (e.g. Topographic Maps, Canada Land Inventory,
etc.) and the Discovery portal (http://geodiscover.cgdi.ca/gdp/) with is
very similar to Gov.org.  For the first two refer to the Unrestricted User
Licenses (
http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/licence.jsp;jsessionid=F15D6495B46D656AD5862DE2B3424474)
which are the best crown copyright work around I have yet to see anywhere in
Canada.  The Discovery Portal is a location where many government, non
government and private sector organizations register their datasets.
Portals are not the end all and be all, but they are analogous to a large
well catalogued library of data.  In geomatics and many of the sciences
portals are used.  In the portal you will find data from Environment Canada
etc.  GeoConnections also develops is infrastructure using open
architectures, open specifications and standards and adhere to the open
geospatial consortium interoperability standards and has been using open
source geomatics for over a decade (
http://www.geoconnexions.org/publications/Technical_Manual/2007/CGDI_devguide_2007.pdf).
The Atlas of Canada (http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index.html) was
the first national Atlas to use open source web mapping technologies.
GeoConnections also developed a second version of their data dissemination
guidelines (
http://www.geoconnections.org/publications/Best_practices_guide/Guide_to_Best_Practices_Summer_2008_Final_EN.pdf)
which I urge you to read and promote since there is much sound knowledge in
that report that can be translated to any government data initiative at any
scale in Canada.

Elections Canada also has quite a bit of free data )
http://www.elections.ca/intro.asp?section=pas&document=index&lang=e) but not
the Canada Post Postal Code Look up file.  Digital Copyright Canada has
written extensively about that one (
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/edid/postal).  The Elections Canada Federal
Electoral District File is over at Geobase.

Where things get terrible is Statistics Canada where our census and survey
data are resold to us at exorbitant prices.  Cost recovery is practised with
a vengeance, where it, a government institution behaves like a data
monopoly.  We can thank the Tories in 1986 for cancelling the Census until
the private sector protested.  The Tories then said if you want the data so
badly you can pay for it, then slashed StatCan's budget by 100 000 000
turning the institution to a marketing and sales machine in order to recoup
those costs.  This is where democracy is most tested, since only the state
and wealthy organizations have access to these data, then it is only their
point of view we get to hear.  Further, StatCan sells those same data to all
levels of government and its own federal departments, so who knows how many
times tax payers pay for those data.  The costs are way to high for citizens
and not for profit groups making their ability to generate evidence based
information making nearly impossible (i.e. poverty, homelessness, population
health).  In terms of the private sector, this restrictive cost and
regressive licensing regime stifles business innovation, particularly for
small to medium sized businesses.  Also, it is hard to develop a business
plan and understand a niche if you do not have access to the data to do so.

Environment Canada's record is spotty, they have quite a bit of data, and
quite a bit is shared, however, they were recently taken to court for not
releasing mining pollutant data (
http://datalibre.ca/2009/04/27/canadian-federal-court-orders-the-release-of-mine-pollutant-data/).
We forget how powerful the voice of industry is here in Canada.  Also, the
weather data is from Environment Canada and they seem to like to sell it to
news agencies.

Citizenship and Immigration, Health Canada, HRSDC, Heritage and Industry
Canada are not coordinated at all regarding access to public data.  I
recently tried to get city scale personal and business bankruptcy data, and
I was told that if I had all the postal codes for each city then I could
possible get those data.  I was dumbfounded that during a recession, these
data are not even used at the City scale by the Feds., particularly since
Cities are a big driver of the Economy.  It is the same when you are trying
to get any data about Canada Student Loans and student debt data.  The
Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) is a huge cost recovery
shop, and of course so is StatCan when it comes to Health data, to the point
that if you actually wanted to move forward on a population health project
for the nation, well, you cannot afford it.  That is a big stumbling block
for our nation and for health prevention.  Vital statistics for instance are
provincial and territorial data, and these are also cost recovery shops.

Canada and the US are the same when it comes to provincial and territorial
(PT) data and city data.  There are no uniform access and discovery
policies, these are ad hoc at best if they exist at all.  They are terribly
internally disorganised and in the case of PTs they seem further away from
citizens while being the closest in terms of program delivery.  Manitoba has
made its geomatics information free (https://mli2.gov.mb.ca/weblinks/3.html).
But that does not mean all their data are free.

I would say that we are very similar to the US in many respects, but alas,
differ in that we have a Westminster system that has citizens as subjects to
the crown as does the UK of course, New Zealand and Australia who all have
crown copyright issues.  We do not have a "we the people" type of system.
We do have an awful lot of free data, and some great organizations like the
Data Liberation Initiative (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/dli-idd-eng.htm)
who at least got Canadian universities access to Census data, we have
awesome data librarians in most universities, we have a great geospatial
data infrastructure pushing the boundaries, but we also have a disconnect
from the open data people and geomaticist and scientists, since they do not
know what each other is up to.  It would be great to bridge that gap.

CivicAccess.ca and datalibre.ca discuss these issues and you may want to
register to the list, look at the archives as many of the issues have been
discussed there or rss the datalibre.ca blog for updates on many things
data.  There are many other great data access initiatives, but alas, I do
need to get on with the day.

-- 
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
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