Posted by
Carmen Kazakoff Lane on
May 17, 2006; 8:37pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Re-Census-2006-available-for-Linux-tp609p615.html
Hello:
I would like to say that I like the business analogy:
1. The Conservative Party of Canada talks about taxes all the time and about
government waste. What a waste to spend all that taxpayer money on a product
that few see unless they walk into a depository library.
2. They talk about transparency. Well making the information available for
free online is good for transparency.
3. They talk about competition, growth and innovation (which is made more
difficult when existing companies can afford to buy government information
but small enrepreneurs cannot.)
4. They talk about rural needs - but again - how well are they serving
rural Canada if a rural voter has to go into a city where there is a
depository library? How hard is it for a rural business to start up when
they do not have access to information or have to pay for it?
Having said all that, I do not think we should throw the "Public Good"
argument out the window. Governments need to be seen as leaders with a
vision for the future. While I am not naive enough to assume they are not
equally interested in the latest opinion polls, some still do aspire to
working towards what is good long-term (as few as they may be). We may even
have a leader who is less interested in looking good for the media (much to
the media's consternation), and more interested in acting after he has
examined the long-term implications of an action (being both a policy person
and an introvert - who tend to like to work ideas out first.) But taken
from a purely pragmatic approach to politics, I do think that Open Access
(1) could be a policy issue that does a lot of the things the party talks
about, and gives them the opportunity to look like leaders, and (2) is an
issue that would be favored by young voters who like to download music, mash
up videos, etc. The party is trying to appeal to these young voters and by
redoing copyright and opening access up to information (both Government and
Academic), they are given the chance to look like they are in touch with the
new world occuring in Web 2.0.
Pragmatic politics and Public Good are two issues that can be linked if you
let politicians know they can lead and win at the same time. But the issues
must be presented in a coherent, well documented, fashion. In particular we
need to have a means of demonstrating (1) how increasingly people - i.e. the
voters - are moving towards favoring open access and the opponents to it
are old school, and (2) econmic indicators that demonstrate the value of
information to innovation and prosperity (getting back to the types of
things we might want to document). This might be the type of information
that economists and sociologists should be brought in to supply.
It might be a hard sell, but it is not impossible.
Sincerely,
Carmen Kazakoff-Lane
-----Original Message-----
From:
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Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:12 PM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Census 2006 available for Linux
>
> To me, this is one of the many sub-issues within the broad heading of
> "civic access" but I hardly know what we can do as a group to sensitize a
> federal government which routinely places business interests above the
> public interest. Any ideas of where we could start?
>
I agree that the problem of placing "interests" above principles is at the
heart of the problem of open access. And the interests that are the least
controversial are economic interests. If a government can be seen to be
placating economic interests, it can sweep divisive issues under the
carpet.
Governments have to be convinced that their role isn't merely that of
mediator between interest groups, but rather that of supporting the Good
and not being afraid to act in its service. The language that I'm using to
express these things is so archaic and foreign to a modern politician that
I'd be surprised if they didn't find it offensive. The Good is offensive
because it's not inclusive. How funny is that?
Anyhow, as others have already pointed out, until things change, the best
way to present these things is as a business case.
- Maybe you could use the argument that any money paid to a government
institution constitutes a dead weight loss to the economy just like a tax,
since StatsCan is not truly profit and market driven. Every dollar that
industry gives to StatsCan is a dollar that private industry cannot use
for something productive.
- Car and road analogies are often useful, since that is the technological
era in which our reasoning is stuck: cost recovery policies would probably
make road maintenance easier, but would it help or harm the businesses
that use the roads?
- Isn't the ideal of a perfectly competitive market dependent upon
citizens *and* industries having perfect knowledge of market signals? I'm
sure some of StatsCanada's stuff would help make us informed (and
therefore market-efficient) consumers.
Disclaimer: i am making all this economics stuff up as I go, so make of it
what you will.
Is that a start?
Regards,
Syd
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