Industry Committee on April 12th, 2016

[Wayne Smith]

I'm just saying that part of the problem is definitional.

The data that you're referring to is from our labour force survey, and our labour force survey is a sample survey. It's a very large one at the national level, but this total sample in Ottawa in the sense that it's a metropolitan area is relatively small, and the number of cases in that.... When you start estimating by industry, we're talking about very small numbers.

Those numbers are subject to extraordinary sampling variability. We usually caution people. We urge them to use the three-month moving average, but nonetheless, you can expect significant changes in these numbers that have nothing to do with anything that really happened on the ground.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Will it make sense for you to collaborate with the agencies, for example in Ottawa, that are also investing huge amounts of money in conducting a detailed survey for the local economy?

[Wayne Smith]

The issue would be funding, and every municipality across the country wants that.

I mentioned that we've been developing some new techniques that might allow us to estimate more accurately for small areas, using combinations of administrative data and survey data. We also have another information source, the survey of employment, payrolls and hours. It is an enterprise-based survey, not a household-based survey that has the potential to get down to smaller areas. The better thing for Statistics Canada to look at would be trying to deal with this to generate more reliable small area numbers using this alternative dataset for at least larger municipalities across Canada than to try to solve it locally.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

What about formal protection in law for the statistics office?

[Wayne Smith]

If you look at legislation of other countries, you'll see specific provisions that include things, for example, like the method of selection of the chief statistician, that there should be a selection committee, what the criteria for selection are, as opposed to the situation in Canada where the chief statistician is appointed indefinitely, but at pleasure. The chief statisticians in other countries are appointed for fixed terms, on good behaviour, which gives them greater protection.

The distribution of the powers under the act tend to be based on how and what, so the “what authorities” appropriately belong to the government, the minister to the political level deciding what statistics are required. But on the how—the statistical methods, the analysis, the dissemination—in order for the data to be credible, there shouldn't be political intervention in those matters, and therefore ideally those powers should be—

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Do you have political intervention in these matters now in Canada?

[Wayne Smith]

No. There are some points where some people might want to debate me, but in general, Statistics Canada has had a strong convention in Canada of political independence, of independence for the statistical office, and successive governments, generally speaking, have respected that very thoroughly. But it is an anomaly that Canada is one of the few countries that hasn't dealt with this formally in legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We go to Mr. Masse. You have five minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I'd like to go to Mr. Pinto for this round to make sure that we get a couple of questions in with regard to innovation and movement of some of the research chairs and centres of excellence.

AUTO21 was discontinued. Do you have any comments about that? I'd like to hear them and go from there.

[Dr. B. Mario Pinto]

First of all, networks have a finite lifetime at the moment under our rules, so there's a 15-year run, and they were extremely successful, but came to the end of the program. Now, we can discuss, of course, whether one should be looking at a different architecture for the program, but they were extremely successful.

Now, there was another program that came on board through Automotive Partnership Canada, of course, and that also was well-subscribed.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It just seems bizarre that one of the weaknesses we've had is actually moving patents and other types of research and technology to market. AUTO21, for those not familiar, had 2,400 students go through. It was one of the first unique ventures with the university and the private sector, being the automotive companies. The students were doing everything, such as environmental research on new technologies for solar and other things. They even built buggies and so forth, and competed successfully with them. It was fun. It got a lot of people into engineering. Approximately $2.6 billion of their work went to the market for services; there were some 320 patents and licences, and 8,600 publications. At the end of the day we have a facility and all this research. We have a footprint where people know they can go and get that type of an education and be successful when they exit it, and you're saying to me that it was worthwhile, but we just kind of said “see you later” to our policy of 15 years. With building private sector contributions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Sorry, Mr. Masse, I hate to cut you off—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that, and thank you for giving my witness time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

We've finished the first round. We have a little bit of time, so we're going to do a second round of four minutes, four minutes, four minutes. Mr. Masse, you'll have two minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

This will take us to where we can finish off and then go in camera for 15 minutes. Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Dreeshen or Mr. Lobb.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Lobb can finish off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have four minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Smith, I have another question for you.

Earlier in your comments you said the data on studies is available for all. I'm curious more on the actual raw data and the data that is stored at the research data centres in universities and other places around the country. That is not free for all and available for all, and you do have to pay for it. I've had a number of constituents in my riding complain about that. They feel, as taxpayers, they've had to pay twice. They've had to pay their taxes for the department and so forth to conduct them, and then when they want to access it, it's several thousands of dollars to actually get the data in its raw form to be able to run their own models.

I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. Should there be a fee? I know there are different rates, but it seems that for a large corporation, like an oil company or what have you, $5,000 or $10,000 wouldn't be much, but for a small community organization that, say, wants to study a Health Canada report, $5,000 is a lot of money.

[Wayne Smith]

Perhaps I could talk about the Canadian Research Data Centre Network. There are about 26 centres at the moment. They're established in universities across Canada. It's a partnership we're quite proud of. The funding is a combination from Statistics Canada, from the research and granting councils, particularly SSHRC and CIHR, and from the universities themselves. The offices themselves are Statistics Canada premises—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Sorry, but we are tight for time. I mean specifically on these fees that are charged.

[Wayne Smith]

That's where I was going to. Statistics Canada isn't levying charges. Most of the researchers in those research data centres are not paying for access. If somebody came along who was not affiliated with that particular university and said they wanted to have access, then it would be the funding partners. The universities, among others, are trying to avoid free riders, so they're basically saying they need them to contribute money for that purpose.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Right. If you work at a university, it's a different price. But if you're an individual who wants to gain that data and then conduct your own analysis of the raw data, you pay a different price. This is the issue, that universities have one price, public institutions have another price, corporations have a price, and a private individual has another price. The issue with many groups is that it seems unfair that a university would have a much lower rate, albeit they are the host, but a community group, with limited means, has to pay quite an exorbitant rate.

[Wayne Smith]

I'm not aware of a case where this has arisen. The kind of data that we have in the research data centres require analytical skills and capacity that are not commonly available outside the universities.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The one issue that I can cite is the Health Canada study on industrial wind turbines. It was done by Health Canada in collaboration with Stats Canada. When Wind Concerns Ontario went to retrieve this data and information, this was the price they were told. That's the specific case I would cite.