Today, readers are responding to a six-month Globe investigation into key gaps in Canada’s public data. When it comes to basic data about its own citizens – from divorce rates to driving patterns to labour trends – Canada simply doesn’t have the answers.
Illustration by Rob Dobi
Fascinating. The health care and drug topic is top of the list for me. It affects everyone personally. Our health case system is so stretched I am convinced people are dying needlessly. All of our hard earned tax dollars flow into the government and without statistics we can’t know how that money is really being used, and more importantly, how effectively. Great work. - Financial Gal60
The less people know about your personal information, the better. Being the fish in a fishbowl is not where you want to be - too many cats out there. - sanctimonious
Great article. I couldn't agree more. Data is power these days. I support any and all efforts to increase our data, even if it means giving up small amounts of privacy. - Exedus
Are governments interested in data? Both left and right rule by ideology. All governments would rather tout success stories than look at data that show successes are rare and on average their programs may not work. - Andrew from Toronto
Excellent and important. Let’s make Canada a leader in evidence-based policy. I will be thinking about this for a long time. And thank you for the social collaboration component. Next time I hope you can allow discussions of the individual items. - Steven Forth
After Trudeau and Statistics Canada's attempt to seize Canadian's private and personal banking records without consent or without even bothering to inform anyone, I am done with Statistics Canada and any government information collection attempts. The simple fact is the government of Canada and its agencies cannot be trusted anymore. They are not acting in the public good, they are acting in their own narrow self interest. - bavius
Thank you for this very interesting article. In a nutshell, the confluence of weak federalism and a propensity to obfuscate the facts in order to further political agendas or hide ministerial incompetence is at the root of our data malaise. Interesting and highly intuitive.
I always believed that we lived in a complex world where people want simple sound bite solutions. Such a world is no place for data. Look no further than the backlash on the new Food Guide as an example of the outcry by special interests when data and facts are allowed to drive policy. - GIP Main
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Making the data anonymous is what Statscan said of the information it collects. Only it turns out Statscan can recreate the data anytime they want to determine who the data belongs to. We can protect ourselves from the Facebooks and Googles of the world, if we choose to do so. But we can’t protect ourselves from our own government and especially the political parties and special interests who gain access to all that data and use it for their own benefit!
I agree we should be collecting and compiling mountains of data on Canadians and Canadian life. But who do you trust to do this? Statscan has already lied to us. Everyone involved in data collection is in it for profit in one form or another, including Statscan. Then, as you pointed out we have the silo’s, governments and their departments who refuse to share data. The mini-empires within our country who are power crazy. Regarding how far people drive, try the license offices in each Province, they collect the odometer reading when you renew your plate sticker. - kbaumgart
More data comes with both direct and indirect costs. It is somewhat deceptive to have an article with potential users moaning about a particular series of data not being freely available without any estimates of the costs required to collect this data. - George O.
What went wrong at Statscan? A history of secrecy, small-time thinking and statistics
The fact that we give our information away to Google and resist to giving it to our government indicates a sea change in the trust we have in our institutions. Harper’s trifling with the census by making it voluntary indicates that undermining data collection fits into a conservative agenda.
In the information age were data helps funds social programs, health and safety, and services, not to have this information means that policies are debated and developed in the dark. This is really, really bad for informed debate and democracy. - Daysofmiracle
Some of the posted comments undoubtedly demonstrate part of the challenge - people tend not to understand nor care. As someone who’s tried to access Canadian data to support business planning its frustrating when it’s not available or priced too high. For businesses (and governments) to make good decisions they need good data. People who say it’s no big deal probably don’t understand how good (or bad) data can impact the quality and quantity of services they receive from their various levels of government. They don’t recognize that they may be underserved by businesses. The US statistics may not be the best in the world but in terms of quantity and accessibility it is superb. Canada should be similarly served. Hey Trudeau since you seem to be willing to throw money around how about some for Statscan. - timley
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