I have a couple of thoughts. First, around open information and the division between the two, I think what the British have done is incredibly interesting. The British are now contemplating setting up a public data corporation that will house the regularly collected data that the government uses. It's a very interesting model. Basically, they're going to try to centralize the actual data they collect. I think it's a model this government should be looking at. It's certainly the model that's used by the city of Washington, D.C., and it's the reason they've been able to move so quickly.
That's where I would define “data”. It's the information that this government chooses to regularly collect about the country. There might be data that on the offhand, every once in a while, someone commissions--you know, a report, when they want to know something. I think we should share that as well. But I actually think that at the heart of it there's a core set of data that we regularly collect. That is a public asset. Frankly, our tax dollars paid for it, and I'd like to know why you're not sharing it with me.
On the second piece, around information, I want to be really clear with the committee. I recognize the importance of the government's need to have a certain degree of privacy when developing policies and ideas. I do not think that under all circumstances it is wise for every idea to be shared with the public as it's being formulated. There are ideas that are controversial, there are ideas that need to be explored, there are ideas that need to be nurtured, and they deserve to have the privacy of a government in order to do that. If I were going to make some recommendations, one recommendation I might make is that I would radically reduce the length of time between when a document is made versus when it's made public. The second is I would insist that any document now that is being released, where it exists in a digital form, be released in that digital form. So if you happen to have it in a Word document, please release it in a Word document. Don't print it out and send it to me.
One of the most powerful things about digital media is that they're searchable. When you dump 3,000 printed-out documents onto me, you are effectively not releasing those documents to me. Am I really going to go through 3,000 different pieces of paper and find the relevant piece of information? When a citizen asks for a piece of information and you send them printouts, you're effectively telling them, “We are denying your access to information”, and I think you are actually disrespecting them in a really profound way. So I would want to make that recommendation.
I would also love for this committee to rethink the rules under which information is released, and even how parliamentary privilege works. Right now, for example, when the video of this committee is released, no one's going to be allowed to use that video to do anything they want. People can rebroadcast that video, but for example if somebody wants to make fun of me and take this video and match it up with a song, my understanding is that right now their rights are actually quite limited in doing that. They certainly can't do it with any of you. In the United States there's The Daily Show, and they regularly show the House of Representatives and the Senate and make fun of them, but it's a way of educating people. That's the satire that's so important. You can't do any of that in Canada. So there are these restrictions on how data can be used.
And then, finally, when it comes to processes, there I actually have less to say. I think a lot of the thinking around what open processes look like today is built around the current way we share information. If we shared a lot more information and a lot more data with the public, the types of processes we'd want would also change dramatically.
For example, if this government chose to make its budget open, and simply released the Excel spreadsheet of the budget and said “Everybody in the world, go and analyze it and you tell us where the problems are”, I think you'd have the people who came and talked to you much better informed. This committee would work in a very different way, because rather than re-educating the people who are coming to present to you, or having them tell you things that are incorrect because they didn't understand the 3,000 pieces of paper they had to go through, the system would be much faster and the way you'd want to engage people would begin to change.
So I'm hesitant to go into that place, because I think that world's going to evolve, depending on what we do in the other two places.