Open data: two little words with huge implications for Canada's environmental assessment process | National Observer

"Evidence-based decision making relies on data, and while knowledge is power, open data is empowering. Enabling anyone - members of the public, industry, government, scientists - to consider how evidence informs the decision-making process is not only in the public interest, it is also democratically and morally right. Canadians deserve to have the best available description of their country easily available to them.

In August 2016, in keeping with its stated support for evidence-based decision making, the federal government asked an expert panel to review Canada's environmental assessment processes by engaging broadly with Canadians. The goal of the review is to restore public confidence in how large industrial projects are assessed, and to introduce new, fair and transparent processes. Scientists across the country engaged with the review, suggesting a number of key ways to strengthen the scientific basis of environmental assessment processes, including open data.

The panel released its report in early April, and as scientists who emphasize the importance of open data we were pleased to see a recommendation for legislation requiring all data collected for environmental assessments be consolidated in a central, publicly accessible, database. The panel concludes that this will reduce uncertainty and increase transparency in the process, rebuilding public trust in environmental assessments. We strongly support the expert panel’s recommendation to open up access to scientific data underpinning environmental assessments.

Making all baseline and monitoring data from large development projects publicly available also makes sense given the federal government’s commitment to making its data open by 2020. And the technologies available today for data collection, compilation, and distribution continue to evolve, making open data ever easier to achieve."