The abstract to "Canadian Federal Government Policy and Canada's
Electronic Information Industry" by Bruce Morton conjures an image of a
history of information policy formulation and implementation in Canada.
In its place is a detailed look at the issues at play in information
policy development in Canada.
There is a tremendous amount of detail in this article, making reading
difficult at times. It is more like a working paper or a treatise. With
235 footnotes, the reader has difficulty knowing whether the footnote
indicates the source of the information or whether there is additional
information to be found in the footnote. This leads to much flipping back
and forth when reading the article.
The issues raised by Bruce Morton are complex and reflect the difficulties
government has dealing with information policy. While I agree with the issues
he has identified, I do not necessarily agree with the conclusions he has
reached.
There is the issue of cultural nationalism. Much of Canadian culture
is currently protected from foreign ownership. It is feared that Canadian
culture would be overrun by culture from the United States. In part,
cultural nationalism can be attributed to protecting our culture from that
of a foreign country. We see rulings from the Canadian
Radio-Telecommunications Commission on the amount of Canadian content on
radio and television. However, there is also an element of protecting an
industry which might not be able to operate effectively and profitably
without such built-in protection.
A second issue surrounds the use of Crown copyright. Contrary to the
situation in the United States where government information is in the
public domain, Canada has taken the route where government owns the
copyright to the information. This stems partly from a government
perspective of maintaining control (in a positive sense) and therefore
integrity in the product. Of late, though, there have been
increasing decisions to use Crown copyright to generate revenue. (As a
side note, the United States government has recently begun to charge for
information that was previously made available free of charge.)
There is a great philosophical debate over this issue. On one hand,
should information generated at taxpayer's expense be subject to
additional access fees? On the other hand, what is the purpose of
gathering the information? If the purpose is to make informed decisions,
then the information is for internal use only. A decision to recoup the
costs of producing data (in a print or electronic format) would be
acceptable.
The difficult issue of cost-recovery was not fully explored in the
article. Bruce Morton discussed the astronomical jump in the cost of
Statistics Canada publications. At one time, Statistics Canada
publications were priced, but not to the cost-recovery level. When the
agency was mandated to recoup costs, the subscription rates soared. Given
that Statistics Canada is funded from tax dollars, the debate on
cost-recovery should determine which costs are to be recovered. Should costs
be recovered only for printing and distribution or should cost-recovery
include data collection, production, printing and distribution?
Bruce Morton has highlighted the tensions between government and the
information industry. Partially this tension is a result of government
not understanding the industry. This is not new in the realm of
government-industry relations. There are often misunderstandings of
industry (any industry) and its role in the economy. What exacerbates
this situation is the new technology which is not only unknown, but also
constantly changing. There also appears to be some degree of ignorance on
the part of government that there is enough value to information that
there could be an industry to provide information.
The information industry is also divided. There is no cohesive voice.
Although there is much merit in the argument that government policies and
regulations are inconsistent and potentially unfair in making information
available to the electronic industry, the industry argument seems to be
that industry should make its profit on "free" information.
The private sector does not want the government as a competitor. This
is rightly so since the government has far greater resources and does not
have a profit motive. On the other hand, the Canadian Institute for
Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) started the CAN/OLE on-line
system in 1974. At that time, there were no Canadian commercial database
services. These systems needed large mainframe computing power to maintain
the information. The systems also needed more customers than were
available in Canada in 1974. As the industry has grown and government
finances have faltered, the government has rethought its role and has
ceased to provide this service.
There are two great influences on the government's role in information
policy. The first is that information policy crossed too many department
lines -- communications, culture, industry, treasury board (internal
management) -- so it was difficult to develop a comprehensive policy. The
second is the rapid change in the industry and its various subsectors. A
policy would need to take into account the two components of the
information -- the content and the delivery mechanism. The government has
some control over the information it gathers and can make available to the
industry. There is little, if any, control over the massive technological
changes over the last twenty years.
Bruce Morton exhaustively examined the Canadian government's role in
electronic information policy. This undertaking alone is worthy of
praise. Any criticisms I may have are mainly as a result of highly
compact written work. I may disagree with some of the conclusions, but
definitely not with the issues raised.
All opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect my employer's.
Helen Katz, "Response to Bruce Morton," Government Information
in Canada/Information gouvernementale au Canada, Vol. 2, no. 3.7
(winter/hiver 1996)
Review of Bruce Morton, "Canadian Federal Government Policy and Canada's
Electronic Information Industry"
Notes
[1] May be cited as/On peut citer comme suit:
Helen Katz
Coordinator
Library Services
Ontario Ministry of Finance