Government Operations Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

And the efficacy and response rate of these surveys, and the data collections that are done by the regional supervisors, would you say are sound? There's a good representative sample and you're getting adequate information?

[Ted Mallett]

Yes. We check very closely to what degree we can, with external datasets about the representativeness of the information. You might have seen our business barometer survey, which is sent out to a different group of members every month, and we get very consistent results back. So in terms of the statistical variance we get in these samples, they tend to be within the bounds of the private sector market research industry in that respect.

We do publish those kinds of bounds of confidence as well, and we take it very seriously to make sure our information is as representative as possible.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

I know you do. I know you do a very good job at it, too.

So in essence you're kind of like a data broker for all of your members. Is that data available to your membership, or is some held back?

[Ted Mallett]

Yes. They can access that information. We push that survey data back out to them to the degree they want. We make this available freely. We have never put a price on this information. It's always available to those free of charge. We have made datasets available to other analysts, whether it's the academic community.... The Bank of Canada looks at our information in specific raw form as well. We have shared it with lots of government departments at all levels in the past.

This is really what we're supposed to be doing. We want to promote the understanding of the small-business sector and how it operates to policy-makers, and information is one of the ways we do that.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Yes, I know. Certainly, as I said earlier, you do a very good job at it too, and you're able to present to policy-makers very sound information that we certainly use in the development of good, sound public policy.

Mr. Pineau, I would ask you pretty much the same question. How many members in your group?

[John Pineau]

We have about 2,800 individual members, and then there are probably about 50 or 60 what we call sustaining corporate members.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

How do you go about reaching out to your membership to collect data?

[John Pineau]

In essence for our membership, it's their personal information: who they work for, what university or college they graduated from, what forestry program, and where they are currently employed, that sort of thing. It's whatever is important to us in terms of tracking.

Then for the sustaining membership, it's the same sort of thing but on a corporate level. That's all private and proprietary, though. We don't share it generally.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Of course not. No one would expect that you would.

In terms of the specific sort of business data, do you go about collecting that from the membership too, or is this something you just do separately as an industry association?

[John Pineau]

Yes. We're separate as an association. Our business isn't business per se, but it's the business our members engage in that we're interested in, the data they use, and that's really what I've been talking about today: them as individuals working in government, industry, academia, or another non-profit, and the sustaining memberships, and they are often government, industry, or academia as well.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

You mentioned earlier that we have a good forestry product to offer the world. We certainly do.

When the world comes to us as a customer and you're offering that product—which is certainly world-class, one of the best in the world—you mentioned earlier that customers need to know that sound research was behind the development of that product.

How do you go about obtaining that sound research to offer that superior product and be able to make that claim, which is true because I'm not doubting the claim.

[John Pineau]

It's whoever wants to do the science and research.

That's the beauty of Canada, in that we do have very strong academic institutions that are doing the non-applied sort of science and research. Then you've got companies that get involved and engaged and will actually put some money on the table to help get more applied research done, answer the specific questions they need to do business better, and then the government regulators... It's hit and miss.

Some provinces have curtailed their research and science programs. I think it's to the detriment of the situation. Again, they have their unique perspective as regulators on managing forests for all values, for all Canadians. You get that mix and it's pretty powerful. It can answer those questions, produce the data that we need to inspire pride and confidence in Canadian forestry. That's what we want our customers around the world to know, that we're sustainable and it's all based on that science from all different sources. That's where our members are spread out.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Byrne now.

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

Thank you, Chair.

We've spoken about this in the committee with other witnesses who've made the case that this has potential to go beyond the realm of just governments supplying data. It could also go to civil society to be able to input and add to the collection, the wealth of information that could be on open data portals. We've also discussed at length some of the privacy concerns that could flow from micro-data. Mr. Mallet, you raised those as well.

There is an element to this that may be inconvenient but perhaps should be out in the public domain.

For example, with the food service industry, health inspections become of paramount importance. It could either lead to very good or very bad publicity. It is an analysis that's done in a very transparent and a very process-based way that leads to a conclusion.

The CFIB posts a lot of information and harvest data from its own membership.

Do you suspect, or would you suggest to us, that there may be some concerns that could flow from that kind of information also being exposed on the portal?

[Ted Mallett]

No matter what the information is, if you're naming a particular individual or a particular business, there's a challenge. One has to look very carefully in terms of how that information is put up and perhaps interpreted, particularly if you're talking about inspections or failed inspections or penalties imposed. That can have a big impact on businesses and that in itself, publishing names, has a proactive effect on future behaviour.

I think it's important to tread very carefully in that particular area. From our standpoint, most of my discussion notes have really talked about broad-based information that's available on essentially an anonymous basis, that you can get information that's based on an agglomeration of a particular number of businesses or consumers.

If you wanted to get more specific then I think you'd have to look very carefully, and probably involve the industry-specific associations, and so on, in dealing with it that way.

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

Do you have anything to add to that, or was it more directed from a business, an entrepreneurial point of view?

[John Pineau]

I won't add anything.

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

Mr. Chair, I think that concludes my questions.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Trottier, the floor is yours.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just had some follow-up questions for Mr. Pineau about relevant data that the government could provide. I'm not sure if government is the right player.

I think about your industry, where you're always chasing demand and it's always a challenge in terms of managing capacity and things like housing starts or newsprint exports to the United States or other kinds of things that would give your members an indication of what the demand is looking like and help them to be able to plan their businesses.

Are there things that you can think of where the government would have that data and then should be providing that data to your members?

[John Pineau]

I admit to not knowing a lot about that aspect of things. But certainly long-term trends in something like the purchase of pulp and paper, or certainly trends in terms of, say, the biofuel and the bioeconomy, where you can see the growing demand of the European markets, for instance.... I think that's something our industry members and the government members are very cognizant of. Any data along those lines can certainly help to gear the business up or to identify new possible products.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm not even sure how “micro” the Government of Canada might get. For example, would it look at sales of two-by-four-by-eight studs to the United States and be able to provide that information to its members so that they could see the swings in demand? Or is it more getting information directly from the source of demand, from the United States or from Europe, and providing that information to your members?

[John Pineau]

It's a good example. I think the softwood lumber dispute, or agreement, depending on how you look at it, and what you want to call it, helped us to really understand what the volume of sales was to the U.S., for instance. Again, those sorts of statistics, if provided by the government.... I know an individual company can certainly determine what its sales are, and its volumes, and that sort of thing—the capacity—but if it could be rolled up again into something that generally gives them an idea of the trends over the long term and the overall sales of Canadian forest products, of all companies, that can help with business decisions, for sure.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

Those are all my questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

This brings us to the end of our testimony today.

I wish to thank our two witnesses, Mr. Pineau and Mr. Mallett.