urging governments to make data about canada and canadians free and accessible to citizens
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Approved by Executive Council ~ May 21, 2008
Whereas connecting users with the information they need is one of the library’s most essential functions, and access to information is one of librarianship’s most cherished values, therefore CLA recommends that Canadian libraries of all types strongly support and encourage open access.
CLA encourages Canadian libraries of all types to:
Via CultureLibre.ca!
I was looking for some cross city comparison data yesterday and recalled the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Quality of Life Reporting System (QoLRS).
Conçu par la FCM, le Système de rapports sur la qualité de vie mesure, surveille et fait état de la qualité de vie dans les villes canadiennes en utilisant les données provenant de diverses sources nationales et municipales. / Developed by FCM, the Quality of Life Reporting System (QOLRS) measures, monitors and reports on the quality of life in Canadian urban municipalities using data from a variety of national and municipal sources.
Regroupant initialement 16 municipalités à ses débuts en 1999, le SRQDV compte maintenant 22 municipalités, dont certains des plus grands centres urbains du Canada et beaucoup de municipalités de banlieue qui les entourent. / Starting with 16 municipalities in 1999, the QOLRS has grown to include 22 municipalities, comprising some of Canada’s largest urban centres and many of the suburban municipalities surrounding them.
The FCM’s QoLRS site includes all the documentation, data, metadata and methodologies related to the development of their indicators and the system they have developed.
Their data are most impressive. You can download a spreadsheet of the data for each indicator for 1991, 1996, 2001 and I expect 2006 QoLRS will be coming soon.  Each variable was also adjusted to the current geographies of amalgamated cities which makes cross comparison across time and space possible (see the guide to geographies). This was not easy to do at the time. Each spreadsheet includes the data source, the variable, and a tab that provides the metadata. Which means that you can verify what was done, reuse those data or if you had some money & loads of time you could purchase & acquire the data pertaining to your city and add to the indicator system. Unfortunately the FCM had to purchase these datasets and it cost them many many thousands of dollars.
There are 11 themes and 72 indicators over 3 census periods for 20 cities (Sudbury, Regina, Winnipeg, Niagara, CMQ, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Hamilton, Halifax, Windsor, Toronto, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Vancouver, Waterloo, Halton, Calgary, Peel, York). Datasets come from:
Anielsky Management (Ecological Footprint)Putting something like this together is no small feat, so please go check out what is available, play with the data a little, and if you cannot find data for your city, call up your local councilor and ask them to become a member of the QoLRS team! Also let the FCM know they are doing a good job, as this is one way for us Canadians to see what is going on in our cities overtime.
From gasbuddy.com:
Now you can see what gas prices are around the country at a glance. Areas are color coded according to their price for the average price for regular unleaded gasoline.
Here is the US map.
[via infoesthetics]
Michael Geist has a new post about crown copyright, including all the good arguments that it should be killed. But this gem really takes the cake:
Beyond the policy reasons for abandoning crown copyright, internal government documents reveal other concerns. Financially, the federal crown copyright system costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Documents from Public Works and Government Services Canada, which administers the crown copyright system, reveal that in the 2006-7 fiscal year, crown copyright licensing generated less than $7,000 in revenue, yet the system cost over $200,000 to administer.
Not only does crown copyright mean citizens face unnecessary restrictions on use of government data and documents they paid for with their taxes, it ALSO means that they have to pay EXTRA to not have free access to the data & documents. (Though note, both 7k and 200k are drops in the bucket of federal budgets). But still, if it’s a money suck as well as everything else, what’s the point of it? Here’s one answer:
For example, an educational institution request to reproduce a photo of a Snowbird airplane was denied on the grounds that the photo was to be used for an article raising questions about the safety of the program. Similarly, a request to reproduce a screen capture of the NEXUS cross-border program with the U.S. was declined since it was to be used in an article that would not portray the program in a favourable light. Although it seems unlikely that crown copyright authorization was needed to use these images, the government’s decision to deny permission smacks of censorship and misuse of Canadian copyright law.
Does anyone have any compelling arguments in favour of crown copyright?
[thanks Sara!]
OTTAWA–The federal Conservatives have quietly killed a giant information registry that was used by lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens to hold government accountable.The registry, created in 1989, is an electronic list of every request filed to all federal departments and agencies under the Access to Information Act.Known as CAIRS, for Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System, the database allowed ordinary citizens to identify millions of pages of once-secret documents that became public through individual freedom-of-information requests over many years…
Alasdair Roberts, a political scientist at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York, built a version of the database by requesting the CAIRS electronic records through an Access to Information Act request, and updated the site monthly. CBC journalist David McKie took over the work in 2006 using another publicly accessible website (http://www.onlinedemocracy.ca).
Articles & Posts about this issue:
From the economist, with the emphasis added:
IN THESE times of high petrol prices and worries about climate change, you might think that any country would be proud to enjoy a lead in manufacturing electric cars. Not Canada, it seems. Two Canadian companies, ZENN Motor Company and Dynasty Electric Car, make small electric cars designed for city use; a third, which will use new battery technology developed by Exxon Mobil, plans to launch a model later this year.
But almost all these “low-speed vehicles†(or LSVs) are exported to the United States because Canada refuses to allow their use on public roads. Transport Canada, the regulatory agency, questions their safety. It doubts they would stand up in a collision with a delivery truck or a sport utility vehicle. Officials say they crash-tested one which didn’t fare well, though they refuse to release the data. The agency wants LSVs confined to “controlled areasâ€, such as university campuses, military bases, parks and Canada’s few gated communities. Its advice has carried weight with the provinces, which make the rules of the road
[more…]
I was reading some of the web accessible INDU submissions by Canadian groups and individuals posted on Michael Geist’s Blog, and a common theme is open & free access to data and scientific research! Very Niiiiice!
You can access them and M. Geist’s here: Industry Committee on Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy
I submitted a brief to the Study on Canadian Science and Technology of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.
I include items on data access, preservation, dissemination, the lack of a data and information infrastructure or vision, the lack of a Science Foundation for Canada and a small mention of community wireless networks. I also briefly discuss the importance of public participation on these issues.
ParlVu is apparently bringing Parliament to your desktop! Well then! It seems like you can access live feeds of meetings in progress while access to
archived audio files are only accessible to those within the parliamentary Intranet (members, senators, press gallery, and staff within the parliamentary precinct).  I am told eventually they will be made accessible to the public, but no idea when.  If you`re willing to contact someone with access to ParlVu archives you could hear it.  Otherwise, ParlVu is a tool for a live feed. (email correspondence from a helpful clerk)
I discovered a very nice 4 pager primer on access to satellite and radar data prepared by Athena Global. The paper explains that EO data (satellite and radar) policy is the set of public decisions and guidelines about:
• what data will be produced or purchased;
• how it will be managed and by whom;
• who will have access to it (availability, confidentiality);
• how the costs of data will be paid;
• the price charged to users;
• who makes these decisions and through what processes.
The paper also discusses how Canadian EO data is determined by the type of sensor, whether it is framework data or specialized data, by who is asking for or wanting to purchase those data and that data policy has an impact
on data usage, and consequently on the integration of EO information into applications, products and services. In this way data policy shapes the potential promise of space programs in EO.
This is the direct link to the innovation rhetoric we are constantly bombarded with and to the argument that the private sector will flourish in interesting ways if data are made available to it and most importantly the direction of an entire industry. The paper also includes the following which is an excellent way to think about data pricing and its effects:
- A direct association exists between pricing and its effects on public access and commercialisation of government agency information. Current pricing problems are having a deleterious effect on the affordability of spatial data in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom;
- A direct association exists between the application of intellectual property rights and the degree of public access and commercialisation of government agency information. The greater the restrictions on access, the less successful dissemination programs will be;
- Reducing prices and relaxing intellectual property restrictions on government datasets are significant factors improving opportunities for access and commercialization for stakeholders in the geographic information community.
The organization also prepared a brief on ways to think about EO users, and it may be a nice way for CivicAccess.ca to think about when framing debates around citizens and who and what their interests are. EO users are viewed from the perspective of consumers, patrons and partners while recognizing there are different types of users:
scientific, commercial and operational (government, IOs NGOs, universities, research institutions, companies) that have different characteristics and technical skills, different data needs (long term – short term, information – data) and use data for different types of applications.
The paper explains the EO data use obstacles related to how the data are delivered, cost, lack of knowledge, and so on. In essence the paper argues to match data supply with data needs.
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