Posted by
Tracey P. Lauriault on
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Copyright-Consultation-tp1740p1750.html
Canada Post owns the Postal Code file & share use rights with StatsCan and Elections Can. Seems like Canada Post and Statistics Canada and Elections Canada have an interoperability issue on many levels.
a) The Postal Code Vector and dbase files were designed for Canada posts business and not necessarily for sharing or aligning with other Government of Canada Files
b) Elections Canada started using the Canada Post files as it was an easy infrastructure to connect electorate with FED boundaries.
c) Statistics Canada was using the postal code file as part of its census form dissemination and etc.
For the postal code file to line up with the census files Canada Post would need a business case to do adjust its file accordingly. And the reverse is true for StatsCan and Elections Can. None can argue the business case and so we have the institutional triangle.
In addition, I discovered that GeoBase, disseminates GPS accurate framework data. For The postal code vector file and some StatsCan files to meet the cold standard of GeoBase, they would have to have their files also GPS accurate. Well, neither has a business case for doing that as the files as they are fit their particular use cases and mandates. So, we do not have these considered as framework datasets.
The StatsCan street network file on the other hand, was built in collaboration between Provinces and Territories and are GPS accurate, and therefore could be given away since you cannot sell what you built with the good will of others. So this file made its way into geobase.
I do not like this nonsense any better than you do, as it stiffles collaborative work. But how do we get these institutions to develope a business case to work together, get their data to line up and to share them? We could argue that Canada Post is a government of Canada entity - crown corporation?...
The question then is to wonder who these institutions work for? They are public but their mandates are to deliver the mail, deliver the census and deliver the elections but not to deliver the data tothe public! where does the public fit into this equation?
Cheers
t
On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Daniel Haran
<[hidden email]> wrote:
On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Russell McOrmond<
[hidden email]> wrote:
> I'm wondering if anyone has got anywhere with discussing this with
> Canada Post.
> We could derive the same data by taking electoral district maps which
> are already publicly available
>
http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/option/select.do?id=1169 , and
> correlate them with postal code maps if they were made available. I could
> immagine the PostGIS query to do this (New things to learn), but don't
> have the postal code vector file.
if I recall), so they wouldn't let you create derivatives from them.
I got shapefiles for the forward sortation areas, and it was obvious
from the results that they didn't match the Stats Can data.
This whole thing's crazy.
Cheers,
d.
PS: if anyone wants an up to date postal code => electoral district
data, let me know and I'll re-run my scripts.
--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault