Open Data - RE: Contact Us

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

My correspondence data.gc.ca

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <[hidden email]>
Date: Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:48 AM
Subject: Open Data - RE: Contact Us
To: [hidden email]


Hello,

The Open Data Portal pilot is a recent initiative of Treasury Board Secretariat to facilitate greater access to a variety of data stored in government databases on a free basis in order to conduct research for the benefit of Canadians. This portal provides access to more than 260,000 datasets from various departments including Statistics Canada.

Individual departments decide if it is appropriate to charge for a service or a good and determine the price. User fees are charged to clients to recover a fair share of the cost of providing goods and services from those who receive a direct benefit from them. User fees increase the equity of the revenue system by shifting some of the burden away from general taxation borne by the taxpayer to those individuals who derive a clear benefit from the activity.

Statistics Canada charges clients to conduct online searches of the CANSIM database, Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System, and for statistical publications.

Data on Consumer Price Index (by province) and gross domestic product at basic prices (by industry) from Statistics Canada can be downloaded free of charge as part of the Open Data Portal pilot.

The Open Data Pilot Project of the Government of Canada was developed and is operating using existing resources. Departments participating in the project are also doing so at existing resource levels.

The datasets published through the Portal were by and large already available on websites of the participating departments, with the exception of Citizenship and Immigration, which decided to post online datasets originally published on CD.


Open Data
Government of Canada



-----Original Message-----

Government of Canada Open Data Initiative - Contact Us


Email: [hidden email] has submitted the following :
Earlier I sent a question about access to StatCan data and was advised that I should ask StatCan. However, this open data initiative is at the Treasury Board, and it is TB that decides how to fund government, and it is TB that is underfunding StatCan which in turn has to sell its data. So my question is for you at TB, will TB be reconsidering cost recovery policies, funding StatCan properly so that it does not have to sell its data, and make our data publicly accessible? I would not want to have StatCan data opened up and TB not refunds its lost revenue as we will simply see more surveys cut over and above what we have already lost. Is revising the cost recovery of data part of the open data project?

I consent to the sharing of my personal information between Government of Canada departments for the purpose of responding to my inquiry.

Answer : Yes, I consent

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Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

http://traceyplauriault.ca/