First I would hope that any data our government officials produce to inform their business practices would be reliable, accurate, and authentic. I presume, from the start, that the data are of a high enough quality that they already use these data to inform their practices.
When I'm talking about administrative data, how many people receive student loans? I would presume that number is fairly well discussed.
With regard to the crime data, it was one not-quite-centre type of organization that did that analysis, and it was only one institution of the many hundreds and hundreds of institutions to whom Statistics Canada already sells such data. If the data are good enough to sell, the data must also be good enough to share.
While I don't like Statistics Canada's regressive cost-recovery policies or its restrictive licensing practices, Statistics Canada is one of the best statistical agencies in the world. I know that their data are accurate, reliable, very rigorously and methodically collected, wrapped in fantastic privacy practices to ensure that no private information is revealed, and good. I'm not asking you to share data that government officials would not already be using in their work.
I know that my government officials are professionals, so I expect their data to already have gone through quality checks.
Thank you.