Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the question you asked goes to the core of the open data initiative. Here is what we need to decide: will we be the institution that gathers all the data or the institution that makes this data available? I would like to come back to a question asked earlier about the

Government Operations committee  Your question fits into the broader context of information management, which is a real challenge for the government and the private sector. The question is whether we can organize the data in such a way that it can be manipulated mechanically and automatically, without the need

Government Operations committee  The real challenge lies in how the information is organized, stored and produced. Once that aspect is resolved, resources will, by extension, pose much less of a challenge.

Government Operations committee  Precisely.

Government Operations committee  It's a matter of how the data is organized.

Government Operations committee  First of all, it serves the principle of transparency. Ensuring a certain degree of transparency is important, especially when it comes to the mining and extraction sector. It's important to inform Canadians about extraction activities across the country. Now, as for forestry.

Government Operations committee  For us, as I said earlier, it's essentially an additional channel for publication. So it's better access for people.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to the committee members and my colleagues from the department. My name is Pierre Ferland, and I am the chief information officer at NRCan. I am accompanied by Prashant Shukle, director general of the Earth Sciences Sector. This is my firs