Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

You spoke about the United States, Great Britain and Australia, and these countries have adopted such an infrastructure. Despite the changes that came about since April, when you last appeared before the committee, in your opinion, which country's example should Canada follow?

[Suzanne Legault]

This is a very good question. We have looked at what is being done in these three countries. I said, in my presentation, that they offer interesting possibilities, because all three developed their approach in a different manner. I think that we have things to learn from these three countries.

In the United States, those in charge were much more aggressive, if I can say so. They decided to conduct trials and if they made any mistakes, to correct them afterward.

Australia has a much more measured and structured approach. Research was done by a team, a group of experts studied all the issues—this is, of course, a complicated procedure—and they made recommendations. The government is currently implementing these measures.

In Great Britain, the initiative began in 2007. There as well studies were conducted and the emphasis was put on the government's efficiency in delivering its services.

The underlying philosophies are different as is the method of implementing the systems. As far as we are concerned, I suggested that you follow a “made-in-Canada” strategy, because we have specific issues in Canada, such as intellectual property and official languages. We have our own framework for protecting personal information and national security. We must evaluate these things within the Canadian framework while learning lessons from other countries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Thi Lac.

Mr. Siksay, seven minutes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here again, Commissioner.

Commissioner, when you were here last time on this issue, you helped us to understand the differences in how the terminology is used, the basic terminology between proactive disclosure and open government. I think there was some confusion, and maybe there still is some confusion about how this committee uses the terms. Could you go through that again for us?

I know the government uses proactive disclosure, but in a very specific way. In fact, when we talk about open government, we're talking about something much broader than the way proactive disclosure is being used by the government here in Canada. Could you talk again about that?

[Suzanne Legault]

My understanding of it is that you have access to information, which is essentially a reactive mode. People make an access to information request to an institution, and then a response is made. Usually it's in a static format. It's in a document that already exists. Or now we see CDs of information. But it's essentially static information that exists in the information holdings of institutions.

Proactive disclosure is what we understand in the federal government, in terms of what's being asked by policy of institutions to disclose proactively. The Federal Accountability Act I believe also has some specific provisions for what should be disclosed proactively. Travel and hospitality, salaries of certain public servants, certain contracts, and so on are proactive disclosure, and that's published on all government websites now.

Then you have open government, which is a different concept of interaction between the institutions and its citizens. It's a collaborative and participatory type of democracy that is based on the idea that institutions disclose as a matter of fact high-value data sets for their citizens in a format they can manipulate with the new technology. For instance, if you have information about grants and contributions, it has to be in a format in which they can use the technology. I'm not a technology expert, but they can then reformat it and make their own analysis.

On the list of witnesses we've suggested, there are some people who can explain what the technology can do. Some of the websites that exist now have a search function. The Americans have a lot of examples of different types of websites where you can manipulate the data. That's my understanding of open government.

As I said, if you look at the U.K., the Australians, and the Americans, they also have different aspects to open government. The Obama administration was very much about using citizens and their knowledge, so they could use government data, public sector data, to innovate in areas where the government doesn't necessarily have the resources to do research, doesn't necessarily have the wherewithal or the knowledge to develop these innovations. In the U.K. it was very much geared toward making the government more efficient in the way it delivered its services to its citizens. When it started, it was very active at the council level, so very much at the municipal level. What we're seeing in Canada in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, and now Ottawa as well are different types of data sets.

At the federal level now, Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada produce information in open formats that is being used by researchers. If you have academics who come and speak to you, to understand what they can do with the types of data, they can have statistical data that is produced by the government. But if it's produced in open data, they can really use it and take their research to a different level. They would normally not have access to the data, because they don't have the resources to collect the data in the first place, whereas the government is collecting a lot of information and data.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you. That overview is helpful.

Is there other language that's specific to other jurisdictions? The British talk about it in a different way. Do they use the term “open government”? Is that a universal...? But then they might define it, or stress different things, such as efficiency. Is there other language we need to be looking for when we are looking at other jurisdictions, either here in Canada or in other countries?

[Suzanne Legault]

I think open government now is pretty much a term that's accepted, in terms of the vocabulary that's being used. Open government has now come to be known to mean this different type of governance. But as I said, if you go into the details--and I'm certainly not an expert in all the details, because it's moving very fast--they're taking it in different directions. They are putting emphasis on certain areas more than others.

Canada is doing quite a lot, but it's just not coordinated in any way right now. If the chief information officer comes to testify and is able to indicate what's happening at the federal level in more detail, we might then be in a better position to compare where we're at in Canada, compare it to where the other jurisdictions are at. They might be catching up to a certain extent in terms of proactive disclosure. I think Canada is probably quite active in terms of what we already produce proactively.

The point is now that because of that, Canada has a great opportunity to establish itself as a leader. But I think we have to catch up.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Often when you talk about the kinds of information that would be available if we went to a system of open government, the language comes up “high-value data sets” or “data sets”. Can you talk about how we describe the information that would be available, the kind of language, and exactly what it means?

I haven't done that kind of research. I don't know what a “high-value data set” actually looks like, what kind of information it might contain, or which departments would have that kind of information to be made available.

[Suzanne Legault]

I'm looking at my notes for one of the things the CIO is producing, because they have a list of what they would consider a first step in the types of information. That would be a good way to start.

If I remember correctly, they talk about statistical data. Statistical data, free of charge, would be a good first step in Canada. Statistics Canada collects a very widespread set of data that would be useful. They also talk about geospatial data, weather data, economic data, and immigration data. These are the types of data that are very valuable for academics and researchers in reuse.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

You talked about the replacement of the CAIR system with a listing of the kind of information that's already been requested. Is that another piece of what you see should be disclosed, or another kind of data?

[Suzanne Legault]

I do think that should be disclosed. If you look at new pieces of legislation, Mexico discloses their access to information requests online. The U.K. has disclosure logs containing that. Quebec, as part of their regulations that came into effect in December 2009, has regulations mandating the disclosure of access to information requests. This is very much what is happening in other jurisdictions, and I think we have the ability to do that in Canada and we should.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Siksay.

Ms. Davidson is up next.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Commissioner, for being with us once again. It's always a pleasure. Certainly this is a topic we're all extremely interested in. I think there's a huge commitment, certainly on the government side, to have open and accessible government. We're interested in seeing how we can do that.

I was interested in your response to Mr. Siksay. The first question I was going to ask you was to explain the difference for us, once again, between open government and proactive disclosure. As you know, we've gone back and forth on this committee renaming our study. Right now we're talking about open government, when we started out talking about proactive disclosures. So I was interested to hear your response to him.

In your opening remarks you said that the chief information officer presented a five-point plan on open data that includes a prototype for a government portal from which raw data can be searched and extracted for re-use. Then when you were talking to Mr. Siksay you elaborated on that a little more and talked about data that could be reformatted and manipulated.

What protects the integrity of that data if it can be reformatted and manipulated? I don't understand how its integrity is protected and why we would want to put data out there that people can manipulate to show different things that perhaps would not be anywhere near what the data are portraying.

[Suzanne Legault]

This is an area where you would really benefit from hearing from experts in the field of open government. Policy experts can explain it to you much better than I can.

Essentially, when you publish data it comes with conditions. In Canada we have crown copyright. It's very different from the U.S., where the information does not belong to the crown. When they decided to publish their data sets it was a very different environment. The U.K. and Australia are very interesting jurisdictions to look at for that purpose.

When information is being disclosed in other jurisdictions, they provide provisos on it. You can use it for this purpose, but it's no longer the property of the government. You have a certain licence to use it, and various conditions apply to it.

These have to be developed. This is part of the complexity of moving in that direction. That's why I'm saying it's not just a question of publishing information. It requires looking at these types of issues--copyright, official languages, privacy concerns, national security concerns--and how we protect the integrity of the data.

I urge the committee to speak to public policy experts like David Eaves, who can explain all of that much better than I ever could, because I'm not an expert in the actual manipulation of the data itself. You really need a technology expert and an expert in open government who uses these types of formats.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

You spoke a bit about Statistics Canada data that would be of benefit if it were available at no cost, when right now there is a cost, of course, for that information. Do you know whether there is anything in place to protect the integrity of that data once it's purchased? Or if it is free, can they can do with it what they want?

[Suzanne Legault]

I don't know what conditions are applied. I think use is restricted. However, open government advocates would tell you that they want the data to be out there and then they can show you what they can do with it once they have the ability to manipulate the data and reuse it and re-mash it and make different applications with it. But I don't know the conditions Statistics Canada applies to it.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

When you were here in April we talked about open government, proactive disclosure, and things that were already happening here, and you've done a couple of reports since then and there has been some follow-up. Have any additional government departments entered into more open disclosure since you were here last?

[Suzanne Legault]

One initiative I'm aware of is that Immigration Canada started proactively publishing information online. I had actually sent a letter of congratulations to the minister at the time because I thought that was a very good initiative. We get a lot of access requests. Citizenship and Immigration Canada gets a lot of access to information requests. I think by doing that there is actually a saving to the government, because the disclosure of information is proactive, as opposed to being a reaction to an access to information request.

As I said, the Treasury Board Secretariat is now posting its access to information requests online, which I think is great. Since we were last here we have also been doing that, and I think that is great too.

Aside from that, Natural Resources Canada is really at the forefront. They and Environment Canada, as I mentioned, are the ones that are often put forward and mentioned as departments that have high-value data sets that are being reused, and they are produced in open format. They are on the list of potential witnesses. They would be good people to have here before the committee to explain how they protect the integrity of their data or whether they have concerns about that or how it's being reused or what conditions apply to the reuse. I think they would be the best people to describe those things.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

We've also talked about international initiatives and what's happening in other countries, such as the United States, Great Britain, or Australia. Have there been changes since you were last here in April to things that are happening in the United States or Great Britain?

[Suzanne Legault]

We read about the United States every day in our newspaper clippings. There are all sorts of initiatives. During our “Right to Know” week, we had people from the government, the national archivist, and he talked about the new data sets, Register 2.0, which basically allow people to view online all the legislation and regulations that are being discussed and presented before Congress. People can actually submit comments on the legislation directly online using Register 2.0, and that's open to the public. That is new. It has come online since I was here last time.

The main change in Australia is that the government has responded to Taskforce 2.0. They agreed with most of the recommendations, some with modifications, and they made a declaration in favour of open government, which was the first and foremost recommendation of the task force.

In the U.K. as well, Prime Minister Cameron made an open government declaration in support of the initiatives, and I read about the new transparency board, which is now going to be mandated to look at open government and how it is implemented in the U.K. government. That is new since I was here last spring.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That concludes the first round.

There is one area I want you to address, Madame Legault. Back in April, when you were here before the committee talking about open government, your department also filed a report on how various departments handled the ATIP applications, and for five or six of these departments it was extremely negative. Of course, for Foreign Affairs and Environment it was beyond negative. This is reactive disclosure, and they're having great difficulty in following the law. That basically comes from your report.

Do you see a correlation here between the commitment to the ATIP process, which in some departments is there but in a lot of departments is not there, and moving from a reactive disclosure to a proactive disclosure? Is there a correlation there, or can you tie the bow here?

[Suzanne Legault]

It's part of a spectrum. When I was here last, one thing I did say was that the way our legislation is structured, if you look at the purpose clause of the Access to Information Act, it basically says that the default mode is to make an access to information request, in essence. Otherwise, it says it doesn't mean that it detracts from the obligation of the government to disclose information proactively and from what should normally be disclosed to the citizens.

The question we have to ask ourselves in 2010 is what is the information that governments should normally disclose as a matter of course? And that's what is changing. The requests from citizens in terms of what access they have to information readily available has increased because of the use of the web and social media and so on, and the expectations in terms of how long people expect....

Access to information perhaps in a utopian world, in my view, would be the exception to the rule, where you would have access to information requests where you're really trying to access information that is more subject to being protected, either because of national security reasons or because of personal confidential information, and then it would be more restricted. The bulk of the information would be disclosed proactively and then access to information would be the exception to the rule, as it was really meant to be. And then my office would be spending most of its time on these complex cases of access to information, where we have to strike the right balance between public trust and disclosure and the protection of very sensitive information. And we wouldn't be spending our time, as we still are quite a bit, on dealing with administrative matters of delays, extensions, and so on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to go to the second round, for five minutes.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Ms. Legault.

Ms. Davidson was on this subject, as well as Ms. Bennett, and that was the areas where there is transparency, more open government. You named four in here, and I think at the end of her remarks Carolyn mentioned that four out of 250 agencies had moved in that direction. What is the right number?