Hi All,<br>I thought that some people on this list would be interested so I am forwarding this email on the behalf of Tracey P. Lauriault. All the information is below.<br>Cheers,<br><br>Vivien Deparday<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div dir="ltr" align="left">Email from Tracey P. Lauriault:
</div><br>" I submitted the open data piece on the <b>Industry
Canada Digital Economy Consultation</b>. <br><br>Please take some time to
vote and distribute within your networks and institutions! It just takes a
few seconds. <br><br>We are at a tipping point on this issue in Canada and
your few seconds could open up our data resources.<br><br><b>Open access to
Canada's public sector information and data</b><br><br><a href="http://de-en.gc.ca/2010/06/10/open-access-to-canadas-public-sector-information-and-data/" target="_blank">http://de-en.gc.ca/2010/06/10/open-access-to-canadas-public-sector-information-and-data/</a><br>
<br>I
created it under the theme of Canada's Digital Content.<br><br>Here is the
text:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">
<p>Create a <a href="http://data.gc.ca/" target="_blank">data.gc.ca</a> for Canada’s public
sector information (PSI) and data in parallel with the excellent NRCan
GeoConnections model (e.g. GeoGratis, GeoBase, Discovery Portal).</p>
<p>These PSI & data should be shared at no cost with citizens, be in
accessible and open formats, searchable with standard metadata, wrapped in
public domain or unrestricted user licenses, delivered within an an open
architecture infrastructure based on open standards, specifications and be
interoperable. It should be governed with open government principles whereby
data & PSI are shared first and arguments to restrict are made only for
legitimate privacy and security reasons which should also be disclosed. It
should have a permanent home and include both the right combination of
multi-departmental (e.g. CIC, INAC, HRSDC, NRC, NRCan, etc.) inputs,
trans-disciplinary human resources (e.g. Librarians, archivists, scientists)
along with IT specialists & engineers. It should be built in consultation
with Canadians to ensure it is designed with user needs and useability in
mind. (This is how the GeoConnections program built the Canadian Geospatial
Data Infrastructure).</p>
<p>The Government of Canada produces administrative data for the purpose of
program delivery (e.g. Canada Student Loan, location where new Canadians land,
the number and location of homeless shelters, etc.), and it produces data for
the purpose of governing for example: the data collected by Statistics Canada
(e.g. Census & Surveys, National Accounts); Environment Canada (e.g. air
& water quality, location of brown sites); Canada Centre for Remote
Sensing (e.g. satellite and radar imagery); Industry Canada (e.g. corporate
registry); Canada Revenue Agency (e.g. Charities dbase); National Research
Council (e.g. Scientific data); SSHRC (e.g., social science research data) and
more. These data have already been paid for by Canadians via taxation, and the
cost of selling these data back to citizens on a cost recovery basis is
marginal or more expensive (e.g. Cost of government to government procurement,
management of licences, royalties, government accounting and etc.) relative to
the benefits & reduced overhead of delivering these data at no cost.
Furthermore, Canadians often pay multiple times for the same data, since each
level of government also purchases the same data, federal departments purchase
these data from each other and there are examples where municipalities
purchase the same data multiple times from Statistics Canada. This is not only
a waste of taxpayer money it goes against the principle of create once and use
many times and of avoiding the duplication of effort.</p>
<p>Data & PSI are non rivalrous goods where sharing and open access to
these does not impede other from doing so. Open access stimulates research and
IT sectors who will have the resources they need for the creation of new data
R&D products (e.g. Applications) and services (e.g., web mapping),
evidence based decision making (e.g. Population health), and informing public
policy on a number of key Canadian issues (e.g. Homelessness, housing,
education). In addition, evidence from Canadian City Open Data Initiatives
(e.g., Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, and Ottawa) have demonstrated that the
cost and time to find and access data & PSI within government have been
greatly reduced since finding these are easier and negotiating access becomes
a non issue, which in turn brings savings to citizens and greater efficiencies
within these institutions. Finally, participatory and deliberative democracies
include the active engagement and inputs from citizens, civil society
organizations, the private sector, and NGOs along with their government.
Making these data available increases the collective knowledge base of
Canadians and stimulates public engagement, improves efficiencies, and fuels
innovation. </p>
<p>These are already our (citizen’s) data & PSI, why not share share them
with us and enable citizens and the government to work together to stimulate
Canada’s economy, create innovative industries and formulate evidence based
public policy.</p></blockquote><br clear="all">I will also prepare a formal
submission. Do you have anything to add to a formal
submission.<br><br>There is under that theme a research data item that is
related that could also use some votes.<br><br>I will post the text and the urls
at <a href="http://datalibre.ca/" target="_blank">datalibre.ca</a><br><br>Cheers<br>Tracey<br>--
<br>Tracey P. Lauriault<br>613-234-2805<br><a href="https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault" target="_blank">https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault</a> "<br><br>
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