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Re: MPs by postal code

Posted by Russell McOrmond-2 on Mar 27, 2007; 8:30pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/MPs-by-postal-code-tp959p986.html


Robin Millette wrote:
> Oh, I support 100% the notion that laws should be changed, etc.
> Scraping is just a stopgap measure. I really think we need to do both,
> that is, to get the word out why it's important we have legitimate
> access to this data. That's the main mission of COACID, no?

   Some of us are not in the position to make use of stopgap measures
that possibly push the legal envelope.  For instance, I think I would
have a hard time going to the coalition members of Make Poverty History
with a proposal to use data that might (or might not) infringe Crown
Copyright.  Given many of their members receiving government funding,
they wouldn't be interested in participating in pushing that envelope.


   In the case of Elections Canada releasing their version of the postal
code-->EDID mapping, no laws need to change.  This is a simple policy
decision on their part to make this database consistent with the public
releasing that they are already doing for things like detailed election
results (after elections) and candidate lists (during elections).

   Note that I believe that the PCFRF product from Statistics Canada may
be a distraction for our goal.  Whether Statistics Canada has this data
or not as part of a larger data product shouldn't discourage Elections
Canada from freely releasing this information.



BTW: Those who wanted to investigate possible inconsistencies in the
data between government agencies may want to look at the additional
PCFRF query results I added to
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1607#comment-1667

I provide examples of postal codes that map to multiple electoral
district.  There are 2 of these that have 6 matches, 11 that have 5
matches, and I provide a sample of 10 that have between 2 and 4 matches.

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  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
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