Government Operations Committee on March 4th, 2014

[Gordon O'Connor]

Okay. You talk about how this open data is going to create a larger economy, etc. What proof do you have that this will contribute to improving our economy?

[Corinne Charette]

We don't have direct proof, but we do have, if you will, indirect confirmation. There was a report by one institute yesterday about the apps economy and certainly in the U.S. and in the U.K. there are multiple media references to this.

We're not tracking the economic result of open data. It's very difficult for us to do that. We're still wrestling with performance indicators that we would use to consistently measure the success for our program, as are the provinces and the municipalities. It is very difficult to make the link. However, the easiest link is the whole notion of GPS, which has made quite an economic impact, and the whole industry of technology based on government data.

[Gordon O'Connor]

If you can't prove there's any economic benefit, I don't think you should be touting an economic benefit until it can be proven.

[Stephen Walker]

For Canada it's a little more of an extrapolation. We can certainly point to the 15 different companies that are using open data to make money on their bottom line.

In the States and in the U.K. that information, that analysis, has gone a lot farther because they've been at it for a longer period than we have.

A list is about to come out south of the border, much like the Forbes list of the top 500 companies involved in open data. We're interested in getting a chance to look at that, so that we might be able to extract that same type of approach in Canada.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. O'Connor.

Ms. Day, you now have the floor. You have five minutes.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions to ask.

In my opinion, and going back to what Mr. O'Connor was saying, a good example is cartography in the High Arctic. I believe that the cartography for that region is on the website in question and that it would be enormously useful to companies that wish to do business, move forward, or develop something in that area. This makes it possible, among other things, to know where deposits are and where local population groups live. This also makes it possible to know the environment, the ground plan and the whole area, which means that if someone wants to invest, thanks to this open data, they have a great deal of information at their disposal. That is one of the goals of this study, to highlight the impact of information on economic growth.

Now, in terms of accountability, how do you check this? Is it done annually or biannually? How do you know if you are heading in the right direction, that you are respecting the five initial goals and the eight others that will be added in the context of the G8? What do you analyze to determine if you have the right goal relative to what you should meet and if you are on the right track to meet the goals set by the G8?

[Stephen Walker]

We have two. We have mandatory reporting requirements associated with the OGP and with the G-8. In the OGP it's an annual reporting process to define exactly what progress we've made on our specific commitments. That reporting process is templated. It's standardized internationally around the globe and requires specific public consultations to be able to feed into the development of the report. Then the report is subject to third-party review.

The G-8 is a little less mature at this point because just this past summer the G-8 Open Data Charter was established, but there was a commitment made by all G-8 countries to involve themselves in annual reporting so that later on this year the expectation would be that individual G-8 countries would have to update on what commitments within their G-8 action plan have been met, and the same thing again for 2015 but the reporting template has not been determined yet.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Page 29 of your document refers to Canada's Action Plan for on Open Government. It refers to an open dialogue with Canadians, which means that there will be consultations with Canadians and open regulation. How will this dialogue be organized? Earlier, you said that people can criticize, make suggestions, ask questions and you will read and follow up on those messages with the goal of improving the site. I imagine that you are not receiving a large number of messages because if you were, it would be too much.

Will you hold other kinds of consultations? Those who do not know that the site exists will not consult it. They will not send you potential questions. How are you proceeding?

[Corinne Charette]

Last year we used various means to solicit feedback on the site from Canadians. They were invited to participate in online consultations and were asked questions over a certain period of time. We asked them to answer by submitting their comments and their questions.

As well, the minister used TweetChat. He established a dialogue on Twitter during several hosted sessions which were announced on our website to encourage participation. The minister then participated in a series of open discussions throughout Canada, in several municipalities, to promote open data in various regions. I believe that he continues to do so.

Finally, we are currently developing our consultation plan for the second phase of our action plan for the Partnership for a Transparent Government. We hope to finalize it over the next few weeks. Our plan will determine when we will continue to encourage Canadians to participate and the means that we hope to use for that.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Ms. Day, your time is up.

Mr. Aspin, you have the floor.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madame Charette, you mentioned quite a number of times that it's all about leveraging assets. Both of you mentioned and referred to the U.S. and particularly the U.K. as being leaders in this field.

Are there any other countries that are off the mark on this and doing well, and could you name and describe them?

[Stephen Walker]

Sure. There are a number of other countries, perhaps not quite as close to us, so that we don't work with them quite as frequently. Brazil is significant. All of the Scandinavian countries are very advanced in terms of open data. Australia and New Zealand are also active in open data, and in open government in general.

As Corinne mentioned, there are almost 70 countries now that are formal members of the Open Government Partnership. Most of those countries would have specific open data initiatives as part of their open government action plans.

I should also mention that some of the really advanced open data work is at the subnational level, so in the United States, for example, at the state level, and here at the provincial level. That holds true within some other jurisdictions as well, such as Australia.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Where would you rank us, generally? Would it be in the top echelon, the middle?

[Stephen Walker]

We're at the top echelon.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

We are?

[Stephen Walker]

Yes.

We weren't. The U.K. and the U.S., and other countries had definitely hit the ground running a little bit faster than we did, but we've caught up.

In many instances that's helped to bind the relationship we have with those two countries. The work that we continue to advance is now work that we're doing with them, and that has helped us to close the gap. Internationally, other countries—and not necessarily the U.S. and the U.K. as they think of themselves as being in the upper echelon—will be coming to us for advice.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Is there much data set interchange among the countries?

[Stephen Walker]

The G-8 Open Data Charter is specifically designed to support more comparison of data across the G-8 jurisdictions in very specific subdata domains, such as budget, procurement, and legislation. They want to be able to look at the data sets from different countries across the G-8 in order to compare and contrast.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Byrne, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

You reference, with some vigour, the notion that privacy must be protected, which I think is reassuring to us all. But at the same course, a lot of data sets will indeed include elements of personal privacy. There will be a reference to an individual, whether it be my example of fisheries or the registrar of Indians or any of a countless number. That which government measures often includes the measurement of people, so there will be a reference to personal information. Do you take the decision to just simply not include that entire data set into open data, or do you redact, as Mr. Martin had alluded to?

[Stephen Walker]

One of the most interesting and sort of revolutionary parts of open data going forward with our colleagues in the U.S. and the U.K. is around new technologies that allow for the anonymization of data. I can say without hesitation that there's no personal data of any kind in any of the data sets that have been made available. Right now, when we're going out to individual departments to look for data, there can't be any personal data of any kind, not even a blip. But in the future, as we try to expand the amount of data being made available by a single department, we hope to be able to work with them to anonymize it so that it can still be made available.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Right.

Just to expand on that a little bit, under what parameters would that be the case? Just clarify that for me, you want to expand on it so that...?

[Stephen Walker]

Within the government, we define personal data very specifically. It's a long list. None of those data elements can be contained in any of the data sets that we currently make available.