Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Dr. Michael Geist]

Under the current regime, from a pure copyright perspective, there's no real difference between the crown and Margaret Atwood. It's the same. The amount that someone may use of those documents is going to depend on whether they qualify under the fair dealing exception. Fair dealing isn't a bright-line test. It's hard for me to tell you that you can use this and not that. It depends on circumstances and the like, but if you don't qualify for fair dealing, you have to ask for permission.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

You're saying The Globe and Mail, for example, could quote an Auditor General's report, but could not reprint it and feature it in their weekend magazine.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

The Auditor General took the position that they couldn't even take a chapter. I think they had a reasonable argument that they could have taken a chapter under fair dealing.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Fair enough. I'm not arguing one way or other. I'm just trying to get a sense of exactly where the line is right now, so that we can consider whether or not it needs to be moved.

I wanted to ask you about crown corporations. Some of these crown corporations are in competitive marketplaces and produce things that they would not want competitors to have in their possession. How would your proposal affect crown corporations?

[Dr. Michael Geist]

I don't think it necessarily would affect crown corporations.

If we use the U.S. model and we say we're trying to create an open licence on this, or a freer licence, then we're taking the position that anything that government itself produces, as well as works that it commissions—whether we're talking about government reports by the government or by third parties and the like—could theoretically be covered by this.

The truth of the matter is that if you're using a licence rather than making a legislative change, then there is a flexibility to decide what the licence applies to and what it doesn't. If, for example, you are concerned with the CBC, which would fall outside of this anyway, the CBC and others are not going to be subject to this standard, although there are efforts to try to make more publicly funded broadcasters' work more openly available as well, under some of the same sorts of premises.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

If, for example, Canada Post did some research on efficiencies and mail delivery and didn't want FedEx or some other mail delivery enterprise to know about that research, this would not have any impact. The change you're proposing would not impact.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

Of course not, and I'm glad you raised the question. It's important to distinguish between works that are commissioned and created internally and works that are published and made available.

The notion of putting an open licence on government works is not saying that everything you produce would now be openly licensed. It's saying that everything you make available to the public now comes with an open licence.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

You're not really even talking about what should be made public. You're saying documents that are already made public should be reproducible in their existing form without having to seek crown consent.

[Dr. Michael Geist]

I think that's right. I think there may be instances in which we'd be dealing with information that is disclosed, say, through the access to information office. That would similarly qualify as information in the public sphere, but of course there are exceptions for some of the kinds of confidentiality and business concerns you noted.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I think you have put a very interesting subject on the table for us. I hope the committee will have time to visit this in some more discussion on that point.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Poilievre.

We're now going to start with the second round of five minutes each.

We're going to start with Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, folks. I appreciate your being here and outlining your points of view.

Eric, everyone talked a fair bit about data, and I think one of the concerns we have is accuracy of data. We're finding in the world we work in that there are some facts and there's a lot of fiction. We're even seeing it in the government's decision to do away with the mandatory long-form census. It will cost more money and give less accurate information.

How do you deal with the issue of accuracy of data, which is crucial to what the end result may be?

[Eric Sauve]

Well, it would be nice if humans were perfect, but they're not.

I think the data don't have to be 100% accurate in order to be valuable. In some cases the data can be purposely distorted and still be valuable, as in the case of GPS data. You can't get accurate GPS data because you'd be able to shoot down a plane with your cellphone as a guide, right?

There are ways in which data can be released with caveats, with a certain legal basis for it. You can say that people who use these data use them at their own risk, and that kind of stuff. If businesses are using those data, they too have a role in verifying the accuracy. I think it's a matter of disclosing the nature of the data and the underlying assumptions, and those who choose to use the data can do so by being informed in that way.

The census is a good example. Of course the census is not meant to represent a 100% depiction of the Canadian persona; it's there as a guide for folks to understand certain patterns. Is it still useful? Yes, it is, for sure.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. Macmillan, you talked about how even within government they're not sharing across departments, and that's for sure. I think all of us around this committee have had some experience trying to deal with one issue that related.... In my case it would be, let's say, a wharf with DFO, Environment, and Parks Canada, and it becomes nearly impossible, because they operate in silos, especially in the federal government. They each have their little power turf within the bureaucracy.

You made some points about unlocking government in your paper here. How do you see open government breaking down those silos so that it's easier for the public to deal with governments in a more holistic way on issues?

[Paul Macmillan]

When you move to looking at data as a public asset, you change the philosophy completely around how organizations view, control, and manage that asset. At the moment, in most large organizations the individual who controls the database has power and tends to control a lot of decision-making. It's very hard, culturally, to change that philosophy.

Private organizations would look at data as an enterprise asset, as enterprise-wide information that could be shared and leveraged for decision-making. Most government organizations are not at that point, but this really offers an opportunity to almost leapfrog that whole cultural transformation. Rather than having to work program by program to get individual program areas to free up information, once you've taken a specific policy position or stated a principle, the releasing of that information to the public will enable governments to cooperate better internally.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You go through this to some extent on page 30 in the chapter called, “Three ways data analytics can foster smarter government”, and you talk about combatting fraud.

One of the other areas this committee deals with is privacy, and certainly one of the problem areas, I would think, is the conflict between openness and crossing the line into privacy. How do you see safeguarding that side?

[Paul Macmillan]

In think there are different standards and different conditions that would be applied to different types of data. Clearly, personal information data, which could be used for looking for fraud, are not the kind of data we're talking about displaying publicly. Those operating principles are now getting more defined across government. More maturity is developing around how to make those decisions. There are certainly different applications, if you like, of data analytics for different data sets.

When we get to things such as drug programs, workers' compensation payments, or any of the large-scale transactions that governments would be doing--and claims management, claims processing, and these sorts of things that are individual payments--and talk about analytics and reducing fraud either on the individual side or the corporate side, we're talking about governments applying tools to try to understand that in better ways. This is already happening in areas such as revenue and taxation, but it could be applied in other parts of government as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Easter.

Mrs. Davidson, you have five minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

Mr. Sauve, one of the questions mentioned the difference between open data and open government. I think you indicated that you felt there was a difference between them. You made the statement that perhaps we could separate them and start with open data, and that there might be more costs involved with open government, as you defined it. I think it was in relation to the translation costs with the bilingual issue.

Could you elaborate on that? First of all, what do you see as being the difference between open data and open government?

[Eric Sauve]

For me, the benefit of separating open data and open government is to leverage some of the value of the open government movement without getting it bogged down in more complex issues. It's just a way of making a differentiation.

To me, these definitions are very fluid, so it's difficult to know exactly what they actually mean, except in common parlance. When people talk about open government, it's in relation to people wanting to know what government is doing and how they can get involved in that. That is infinitely more problematic than releasing data that government has collected, data that could be used for commercial value but that has absolutely no privacy implication at all.

I think it's a useful differentiation because it allows us to make progress on certain fronts without getting bogged down on the ones that are more difficult.

I talked about businesses that can be created using open data, but there's also another metric of looking at it. Maybe in austere government times there might be an opportunity to provide a little bit less government service, so that instead of government being the only utilizer of that data in providing service to citizens, the private sector perhaps could do some of that work.

Value can be created there in government efficiency by not thinking of government solely as the collectors of data and as the only ones that can use it, and thinking that this is the service that government will provide. Instead, they could collect the data and give it to somebody else. Someone else can provide that service so that they don't have to do it. They won't do it unless it's a service that's not being done effectively or efficiently by someone in the private sector.

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

You're saying the government could provide the raw data and private enterprise could analyze it. Is that correct?

[Eric Sauve]

Yes, absolutely. There's nothing political about GPS data, and not to release it is just not thinking about it from an economic growth perspective.

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

Mr. Geist, when we were talking about the crown copyright issue, you suggested that Australia's model would be a good model to follow. Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Dr. Michael Geist]

Yes, sure. Australia and, increasingly, the U.K. are examples of countries that have crown copyright and have not amended the law to eliminate crown copyright. Instead they are moving toward a licensed approach whereby they would use an open licence associated with crown copyright documents.

Government would retain crown copyright in those works, but would ensure that the public has the ability to use and reuse those works freely and without the need for prior permission, because that would come attached as part of the licence.

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

You said that 95% of requests under copyright were approved.