Evidence of meeting #20 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sets.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Lyne Da Sylva  Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, Université de Montréal
Richard Stirling  International Director, Open Data Institute
Barbara-Chiara Ubaldi  E-Government Project Manager, Reform of the Public Sector Division, Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Joanne Bates  Lecturer in Information Politics and Policy, Information School, University of Sheffield
Gordon O'Connor  Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Ms. Bates, are you finding that this sort of refining of the initiative is bearing some fruit? Is that starting to draw in more end users in a practical way, or does more research need to be done at this point?

10:40 a.m.

Lecturer in Information Politics and Policy, Information School, University of Sheffield

Dr. Joanne Bates

I think more research would need to be done to ascertain whether that approach was drawing in more users.

I think in the U.K. the approach seems to have been to develop a business case and the higher economic impact scores that you've seen in the open data barometer compared to the example of social impact scores perhaps indicate that the approach is leading to impacting the economic sector.

I would also just point out that in the U.K. the approach has been towards people developing business cases for opening up government data, so it's very economically driven.

Although there is a data unlocking service, civil society accessors have found it quite difficult to access the data sets they need through that service, so the triaging that is going on seems to be directed towards certain ends at the minute.

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

How much time do I have?

10:40 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

You have 35 seconds.

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Thirty-five seconds....

Ms. Da Sylva, from the point of view of an end user, then, do you see greater focus starting to occur, and is it something that is useful to you?

10:40 a.m.

Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, Université de Montréal

Lyne Da Sylva

To focus on...?

10:40 a.m.

Conservative

Diane Ablonczy Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

To focus on what types of information is spread out on a priority basis.

10:40 a.m.

Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Science, Université de Montréal

Lyne Da Sylva

I think we're still at a discovery stage. A lot of users are just finding out that this is available and are having fun sorting through it, but I'm not sure we're at that point.

10:40 a.m.

NDP

The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault

Thank you.

I would like to thank the witnesses and all of the committee members.

This brings our meeting to an end. I am sure that the expertise of the witnesses will assist our committee in its study on open data. It will certainly assist in the drafting of its report.

Once again, thank you for appearing before us.

A reminder to committee members that we will meet again in two weeks. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.