I'd actually argue that right now it's the inverse, that ordinary Canadians are subsidizing corporations. The only reason StatsCan is able to collect this data is that it has access to the citizens' tax base and it can use that to finance the collection of the census and larger data statistics. Then it turns around and sells those to those who can afford it. So right now we have your and my tax dollars paying to collect data that then gets sold and that you and I may not actually be able to afford to be able to buy.
So there are two things here. One, it means that any citizen who has an interesting new business idea now has a barrier to entry that their larger competitors can afford; they simply pay and keep them out. More importantly, it's....
Sorry, did someone just say it's not that expensive?
I think if you're a start-up, every cost is an expensive cost. If you're a non-profit, any dollar that you're spending on StatsCan data is a dollar that you're not spending on housing someone or on figuring out how to deliver a service more efficiently. If you're a city, every dollar you're spending on StatsCan data is money that you're not spending on helping citizens' lives get better.
We can debate whether the cost is relevant or not, but the really disturbing thing about the cost is that almost all academic research data out there shows that the amount of money you raise by charging for data.... The only thing it pays for is the system for charging for data. There's almost no money to be made in charging for data.
So what we really have is a system that simply feeds itself. We're charging for data to pay for people who can charge people for paying for data. We're not actually making a huge amount of money off of this. What we really have is citizens who are subsidizing the wealthier actors in our economy.