Statscan’s budget should be increased by $100-million - and ALL their data should be FREE- June 20 (The Globe and Mail)

[Ted Hildebrandt]

Statscan’s budget should be increased by $100-million - and ALL their data should be FREE- June 20 (The Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/stephen-gordon/statscans-budget-should-be-increased-by-100-million/article2067405/

By Stephen Gordon
June 20, 2011
The federal government is going to spend the year doing a program
review, with an eye to identifying places where spending can be cut. And
it may well be that many of the services provided by the federal
governments should be left to the private sector. But there is one
agency where a thoughtful program review would recommend increasing
funding: Statistics Canada.
(...)
A trip to the [U.S. Government] websites of the Bureau of Economic
Analysis or the Bureau of Labor Statistics will get you a wealth of data
at the price of a couple of mouse clicks. And over at the Census Bureau,
fees only seem to be incurred by those whose projects require working at
their offices in Washington. Things are different in Canada. If you go
looking for data at the Statistics Canada website, you end up looking at
a price list. (...)
One of the core competencies of any government is to provide public
goods, and that includes publicly-produced databases.

Access to those data should be free, and Statistics Canada’s budget
should be increased by the $100-million it would cost to take down its
paywall.

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Ted Hildebrandt
Director of Social Planning
Community Development Halton
860 Harrington Court
Burlington, Ontario  L7N 3N4 Canada
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [hidden email]
Web: www.cdhalton.ca
           www.volunteerhalton.ca

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