Natural Resources committee  I think what you've described is in essence the future of official statistics. I think that as an organization, we've come to the realization that we don't have to collect everything, we don't have to own everything, we don't have to be the custodian of everything, but if we can

Natural Resources committee  We've had advisory bodies that have worked really well in the case of the agriculture statistics committee, for instance. We draw constituents from industry associations, from academia. We have a separate table for provinces—they're not at that table but a separate table—and we a

Natural Resources committee  We're willing to do any work that's consistent with our mandate and doesn't threaten the credibility of the organization. For instance, we'd feel uncomfortable if there was a risk of being perceived to influence our current estimates based on forecasts that we make of the data. W

Natural Resources committee  A small question.... Let me try to answer. I'm most qualified to answer that question from the perspective of the environment that I'm working in. In the environment that I'm working in, we already have a legislated ability to share information—to have both incoming and outgoing

Natural Resources committee  Do you mean in terms of quality of the website?

Natural Resources committee  My understanding, from the witnesses I've been following, is that the benefit of the EIA is accessibility to a range of information through a single point of access. We don't have that single point of access. We have various players that are producing very specific information.

Natural Resources committee  I think that is the direction in which official statistics have to go, period. If you talk to anybody from a national statistical office around the world, I think they would give you the same answer. For instance, if I wanted the most timely available information on the U.S. st

Natural Resources committee  We tend to work co-operatively with our respondents. To my knowledge, on the energy side, we've never had to exercise the stick.

Natural Resources committee  I really appreciate that comment. That reflects the direction in which I think official statistics have to go, such that doing surveys becomes an instrument of last resort. At our very first crack, we have to take a look at the existing administrative and other data that exist ou

Natural Resources committee  If I can pile on that comment for a second, this again goes to the importance of taking advantage of every player within an information ecosystem. In the telecommunications space, we work closely with the CRTC so that only a single instrument goes out to broadcasters and telecomm

Natural Resources committee  Maybe I can unparcel that question into a few components. To provide some context, I know from previous testimony that the recommendation has been to create an EIA type of institution here in Canada. Just to be clear, my understanding is that the budget for the EIA in its 2017

Natural Resources committee  Accessibility is a good point. We already make our estimates really available through CANSIM. We are making moves to make microdata more accessible. We already have a series of research data centres across the country that house social data, and we're working on making business d

Natural Resources committee  The issues concerning timeliness are really good ones. In many ways, if we take a traditional survey-based approach, we're really constrained by the ability of our respondents to provide us with the information in a timely manner. For instance, if I take a look at our sub-annual

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to return to the committee. I've been following with interest the testimony that has been given so far. I'd like to give a few very brief opening remarks. I'd like to focus on the role that Statistics Canada, which is currently

Natural Resources committee  That's a complex question. There are many factors that will affect the accuracy of the data that....