Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2011

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you again, Mr. Chair.

On page 13, Mr. Wallace, you outline some of the different data sets that are requested and the frequency with which they're requested.

I know, Mr. Hume, you've had experience with federal governments, especially in New Zealand. Would you have any idea as to what data sets are most frequently requested from the federal government? Would there be possibly some similarities we could expect? Obviously we're going to get input from Canadians, but are there some commonalities that you might forecast that we could expect in terms of what data sets would be most frequently requested at a federal level?

[David Hume]

New Zealand is a national government, so certainly things like expenses, as well as.... In New Zealand, deputy ministers are called chief executives, so chief executives' expenses are requested. Statistical information is requested, locations, road information, trail information, things that relate to recreation....

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

So national parks, that sort of thing?

[David Hume]

Yes, some of that, absolutely. If you go to data.govt.nz, you'll see the data catalogue for New Zealand, so that can give you some understanding of what it is they've made available and some of the more popular sets there.

[David Wallace]

If I could just add to that, one of the things—and it's noted, actually, on the slide a little bit earlier than that—is around who's voting on what. That is becoming a very important thing.

Now, if you're a member of Parliament, what they're voting on, that would be pretty easy to track. There are thousands of bills that go through a given term of government, but people are paying attention now. People are saying, what is happening with that issue? So in that way you get better—and we talk about that third purpose, which is better government itself through this. Then there are always things like expenses and so on that certainly are very popular.

But I think voting, information on large projects, stimulus, what's going on, what the status is of the deliverables on those different projects.... That's another thing, to say are they doing what they said they would do and are they completing things? So those are very popular things that I think any level of government should be releasing.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'll change direction, just for the last minute here.

At different times today, and with previous witnesses, there's been this term used that we have to provide the information in a format that the person can manipulate, and I understand that. PDFs are pretty rigid.

Is there not a concern, a potential, that someone could take that material, that information, and possibly change some of the data, especially if you're dealing with financial or statistical data, and give an impression of a particular issue that may be totally opposite to what the actual government data has?

And if that would happen, what kinds of checks and balances would there be in place for an average citizen who goes on a particular website and gets this picture and assumes it's accurate but may be misled? Or has that never been a problem in your experience?

[David Hume]

My view is that I think the thing to recognize is that the web as a tool really operates in a culture of scrutiny, and if you are presenting data that isn't the same as the government, which has the high-fidelity authoritative data set—

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

It'll be obvious.

[David Hume]

—it's going to be obvious.

I think you have, certainly, from a question of reputation and especially if you're media and you decide that this is a.... For governments, things don't get bad until the media picks it up, right? If the media picks it up, they have their own processes of scrutiny, and they will check, I would expect—not being a member of the media—to be able to look at that and say is what they're saying legit or are they not. Is the person credible? There's going to be a big difference between somebody who has no training in statistics, for example, versus somebody who is a university professor or a chief statistician or so-and-so and the authority they get from their credentials.

So all that becomes part of the conversation around the data. That's not to say the government shouldn't be active if they see things that are misleading people and opening up that conversation and doing that check and being part of that cultural scrutiny. This is why this idea of engagement and setting norms around how data gets used is really important.

For the most part, I haven't seen anything yet. I'm not terribly worried about it, just because I know about this culture of scrutiny.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Albrecht.

We're now going to Madam Freeman for two or three minutes. That will be it.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

For the federal government, I know that there are some restrictions on providing information in the legislation on protecting personal information and in the Copyright Act.

Do you have an opinion on how that could be managed at federal level? Have you had to deal with issues of that kind?

We only have two minutes. For copyright, I know that Mr. Gogolek has already…

[Vincent Gogolek]

The question of Crown copyright has caused problems for us. You heard Professor Geist talk about it too. The program does not let the federal government recover a lot of money. It is not really very useful for the government as a source of revenue, but there is a good deal of risk in trying to use it as a way to restrict protected information. The legislation on copyright is difficult and specialized. It is very difficult to defend oneself against a complaint, a request to recover money.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Do you have any thoughts about the personal information contained in requested data?

[Vincent Gogolek]

It should be done according to the Access to Information Act; it is protected. You have the right to ask for your own information…

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Wallace, how do you handle it when you have to provide data? Is it complicated for you to block access to personal informations in the data you have to make available? How do you handle that?

[David Wallace]

We have developed a toolset, what we call a quality checklist, that the divisions have and go through. It gets very clearly down to what is personal information, what can be released, and what cannot. We could supply that to the committee. You could take a look at it, and if you have further questions on what the toolkit is all about, we'd be more than happy to answer them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. That concludes the time we have allocated for this meeting, colleagues.

On behalf of everyone, I want to thank you for your attendance here today. This has been very informative, very interesting. But before we adjourn, I will allow you half a minute each, if you have any closing comments or remarks you want to address to the committee.

We will start with Mr. Gogolek.

[Vincent Gogolek]

What we've heard here today from our various perspectives is that when we're talking about open government, we're talking about information. It's more than raw data; it's information. We also recognize that in addition to receiving more information in a useful form from government, we have to be able to get information that we're not able to find.

[David Wallace]

I'd like to thank you also for the opportunity to come today. I have enjoyed the discussion.

The main point I'd like to leave you with, again, builds on the comment Vincent is speaking to, which is that opening up government is a two-way street. Look at the processes, simplify the processes, and engage the public in a collaborative spirit to help change. If you go through the deputations and the unconference and open it up, you'll actually improve the kind of data and the actual workings of the government itself.

There are a lot of good lessons learned across the various jurisdictions, and I encourage you to keep that going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Hume.

[David Hume]

I just want to say how delighted I am to have been part of the conversation today, and thank you very much for your attention.

I'd say that this is something that should be taken seriously, because the question of open government and the sharing of data and making government collaborative has a real imperative around how we will do government in Canada in the future. Our finances and our demographics tell us that we need to do things very differently, radically differently. And this is one piece of the puzzle that I hope we can embrace.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Again, on behalf of everyone here, I do want to thank you all for your attendance and for the effort and time and energy you put into these presentations.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is now adjourned.