No, for many years I think we often used other terms, particularly “archival value”. I think what we've done is, in collaboration with Library and Archives Canada and their need to have documents for long-term retention, and that archival retention for future generations, we realized that up the chain, those documents are really records of business value that the Archives want the subset of. I believe, by using the term “business value” they have broadened, to some extent, the definition of what is required. Then “business value” means whether it actually supported a transaction in the context of government operations--was that grant given and what was the rationale for it?--as well as documenting the policy decisions that governments make.
On November 24th, 2009. See this statement in context.