OTTAWA - The federal information commissioner says government departments should routinely post more data — especially raw statistics — on their websites.
Suzanne Legault told a Commons committee Tuesday there's a demand from Canadians for information about subjects as diverse as the weather, the economy and immigration.
Canada is actually doing quite a bit on this front, but not in a co-ordinated way, she said during a meeting of the information and privacy committee.
Legault applauded agencies including Natural Resources for making efforts to put data online, but stressed that more could be done in the short term.
Each federal institution could identify "data sets or types of information that are of interest and can be quickly made available to the public," Legault told MPs.
She said disclosing more information helps people make informed decisions, promotes their sense of engagement, instils trust in government, and stimulates innovation and economic activity.
"These are all fundamental to the development of our democratic institutions."
She argued Canada must adapt to new communication technologies people are rapidly embracing or risk being left behind, because the public is now used to getting information instantaneously. "And we must move in that direction."
Liberal MP Shawn Murphy asked how much it would cost to make more data available.
Legault did not have figures but noted the United States prioritized which sets of information to release by consulting the public, and she suggested Canada adopt the same approach.
Legault is the parliamentary ombudsman for users of the Access to Information Act, the law that allows people who pay $5 to request federal files — from expense reports to internal correspondence.
She said possible changes to the access law — a statute that has barely been amended in more than a quarter-century — should be studied in the context of the movement toward more open government.
Legault recently urged government departments to post online the access-to-information requests they receive, something only a handful of agencies now do.
"The public in general would benefit from having this information available from all federal institutions," she said Tuesday.
Legault has also called on the federal Treasury Board to create a central search feature to allow the public to easily sift through requests.
In addition, she wants the government to consult people who make access requests, as well as the public, on the usefulness of such tools.
Over the long term, an open government policy cannot fully succeed without "a fundamental cultural change" within public sector institutions, Legault told the committee.