Canadian Grain Commission: Open Government Implementation Plan

Table of Contents

• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. Approvals
• 3. Purpose
• 4. Context
• 5. Outcomes
• 6. Governance Structures and Decision Processes
  • 6.1 Roles and Responsibilities – Deputy Head and Information Management Senior Official
  • 6.2 Roles and Responsibilities – Key Stakeholders
  • 6.3 Communication, Awareness, and Engagement
• 7. Deliverables / Milestones related to the Directive on Open Government Requirements
• Annex 1: Executive Summary of Canadian Grain Commission’s Action Plan

1. Executive Summary

Canada has a longstanding commitment to openness and accountability as a cornerstone of a strong, modern democracy. From the passing of access to information legislation over 30 years ago to current open government and proactive disclosure activities, the Government of Canada has worked to ensure transparency on federal operations to enable Canadians to hold their government accountable. The commitments included in Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government 2014-16 will further progress on the delivery of transparent and accountable programs and services focused on the needs of Canadians.

The proactive release of data and information is the starting point for all other open government activity. Accordingly, the Government of Canada has firmly established an “open by default” position in its mandatory policy framework by issuing the Directive on Open Government.

The Canadian Grain Commission operates through the authority of the Canada Grain Act, and regulates licensed grain handlers according to the Canada Grain Regulations. The Canadian Grain Commission’s core activities are:

• Providing grain quality assurance programs and overseeing quantity assurance at export
• Conducting scientific research pertinent to grain quality and grain safety, and to support the grain grading system
• Protecting the rights of Canadian grain producers when they deliver their grain to licensed grain handling companies and grain dealers.

From these activities the Canadian Grain Commission collects a wide range of data including: grain supply and disposition, grain quality (visual and biochemical), grain exports, and quality of Canadian grain harvests. We regularly disseminate numerous statistical reports on the quality of grain harvests and exports, including long-running publications that industry stakeholders have come to rely on. Grain statistical information is the most accessed resource on the Canadian Grain Commission’s web site. Publications released include weekly, monthly and annual reports with a history dating back to 1933. Proactive work by the Canadian Grain Commission to preserve one-of-a-kind historical publications by creating digitized copies would facilitate the preservation and dissemination of content with enduring value.

We are already developing alternative delivery of our publications in the form of machine-friendly datasets. We have given priority to long-running statistical publications that are of the highest visibility and impact to users in the industry and worldwide. The following will be released to the Open Data portal within the current fiscal year (2015-16), and refreshed annually:

1. Grain Statistics Weekly
2. Grain Deliveries at Prairie Points
3. Canadian Grain Exports
4. Exports of Canadian Grain and Wheat Flour

2. Approvals

3. Purpose

This document describes the Canadian Grain Commission’s plan to complete activities and deliverables aligned to the requirements of the Directive on Open Government, in order to achieve full compliance by the October 2019 implementation deadline.

The objective of the Directive is to maximize the release of government information and data of business value to support transparency, accountability, citizen engagement, and socio-economic benefits through reuse, subject to applicable restrictions associated with privacy, confidentiality, and security (Directive on Open Government, Section 5.1).

The expected results of the Directive on Open Government (Section 5.2) are that Canadians are able to find and use Government of Canada information and data to:

• support accountability;
• facilitate value-added analysis;
• drive socio-economic benefits through reuse; and,
• support meaningful engagement with their government.

4. Context

Under the Canada Grain Act, the Canadian Grain Commission regulates the handling of 20 grains to ensure Canada’s grain is safe, reliable and marketable, and that Canadian grain producers are properly compensated for grain deliveries to licensed grain companies. The Canadian Grain Commission is a third party agency in Canada’s grain sector and is the official certifier of Canadian grain shipments. Through our activities, the Canadian Grain Commission supports a competitive, efficient grain sector and upholds Canada’s international reputation for consistent and reliable grain quality and grain safety. To achieve our mandate, the Canadian Grain Commission:

• Regulates grain handling in Canada through grain quality and quantity assurance programs,
• Carries out scientific research to understand all aspects of grain quality and grain safety and to support the grain grading system, and
• Implements a number of producer protection programs and safeguards to ensure producers are properly compensated for the quality and quantity of grain delivered to licensed grain elevators and grain dealers. This includes the licensing and security program, the producer car allocation program, and the producer support program.

The Canadian Grain Commission’s population of 434 full-time employees is located primarily at the Winnipeg headquarters, with 67 full-time employees in the Canadian Grain Commission’s Eastern region and 116 full-time employees in the Western region.

The Canadian Grain Commission has internal resources for the management of Communications, Information Management/Information Technology and Statistics and Business Information. We complement our services by leveraging common or shared information technology services provided by Shared Services Canada and other government departments. These resources are responsible for the maintenance and dissemination of data and information to our clients.

Data and information are internally generated, as well as collected from a variety of grain industry sources. These are collected and stored in a variety of formats that range from commercially-available products to applications developed by us in-house and used by the grain industry to support our mandate. Data and information are released on our web site, http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca as well as directly to our clients in multiple formats. Data and information used in existing publications are provided to our Statistics and Business Information unit for analysis and verification before being published by our Communications unit. The Canadian grain industry uses these publications as our data is sound and trustworthy because of our impartiality.as a grain industry regulator. By moving to an Open Government platform, we expect to further facilitate access to information and enhance the reputation of Canadian grain as a dependable commodity for domestic and export markets.

The implementation of Open Government at the Canadian Grain Commission, however, is not without its challenges. The program and policy branches must validate existing and future data assets. Additionally, the Canadian Grain Commission is in the midst of the Government of Canada’s Web Renewal Initiative. We are actively converting content to use the Web Experience Toolkit 4.0 and moving it to http://www.canada.ca. We must maximize the release of Open Data and Open Information in accessible and reusable formats through existing and future Government of Canada web sites to contribute to government-wide Information Management/Information Technology initiatives while ensuring that departmental services are timely, robust and effective. As Open Government directives are implemented in all areas of the Canadian Grain Commission that generate information and data, program managers will need to consider how to incorporate this requirement into their activities. As a part of this consideration, resource requirements for some areas of responsibility will need to be assessed. We must also ensure that future design changes to programs or new programs support the “open by default” goal.

5. Outcomes

The Canadian Grain Commission has already begun sharing information through proactive disclosures (e.g. posting of completed access to information requests and expense-related reports). These initial efforts support accountability by increasing the transparency of the Canadian Grain Commission’s decisions and decision-making process.

Future releases to the Open Government Portal will include an Open Data format version of our statistics and reports that are currently published online (Appendix 1). Alternative delivery of statistics in granular dataset form will add to the body of Open Data contributed by other government departments, and provide users with a new resource for grain industry analysis, thereby optimizing the value and reusability of the Canadian Grain Commission’s data and information. Through its participation in open government activities, the Canadian Grain Commission would improve grain industry awareness of the services we provide, and the quality of products provided by the Canadian grain industry as a whole. It is anticipated that as users engage in using Open Data, their feedback – positive or negative - will need to be effectively addressed to maximize utility of content.

Implementation of the Canadian Grain Commission’s Open Government Implementation Plan will maintain the organization’s compliance with enhanced security and management of information and data, as they benefit from thorough review and classification. The release of information and data will optimize the value and reusability of the Canadian Grain Commission’s assets and enhance the protection of the institution’s data and information through increased awareness of ownership, privacy, confidentiality, classification and security considerations.

Increased awareness of Open Government within the Canadian Grain Commission will indirectly facilitate the implementation of other Government of Canada priorities, such as Destination 2020 and the Canada.ca web site. Additionally, policy instruments such as Web Standards for the Government of Canada will be adhered to as information and data are moved to the Open Government Portal.

6. Governance Structures and Decision Processes

The following sub-sections describe the governance structures and decision processes that support open government and how those responsibilities are delegated and fulfilled within the institution.

7. Deliverables / Milestones related to the Directive on Open Government Requirements

Annex 1: Executive Summary of Canadian Grain Commission’s Action Plan

Year 1:

1. Creation of an Open Government working group to address:
   1. Open Information – such as financial information (expense reports), access to information requests, published reports
   2. Open Data – encompassing data-bases and statistical reports

      Membership would include representation from all divisions

2. Develop inventories of information and dataholdings – Executive Division to prioritize
   1. Conduct environmental scan of Canadian Grain Commission program activities to identify information and datagenerated, received, and maintained
   2. Work with owners to develop metadata to accompany all holdings – this activity may span more than 1 year
3. Operational Planning
   1. Establish governance structure
      1. Determine and communicate roles and responsibilities, resource requirements, timeframes and schedules, approvals and dependencies. Document simplified process flows, create template for meta-data standardization and consolidation. Result: publish plan

Year 2:

1. Conduct internal review of holdings to assess their classification, security & sensitivity
   1. Identify linkages between program activities and holdings
   2. Prioritize items for release
   3. Identify content (at the most granular level) for release, including formats and layouts
2. Operational Planning
   1. Review governance structure
      1. Assess the effectiveness of the developed plan. Seek opportunities to leverage activities by planning for the inclusion of data at source to be open by default. Review membership of the Open Government Working Group and adjust as required.
   2. Control and monitoring activities
      1. Determine success factors, reporting requirements
      2. Maintain alignment of our plan with developments in Treasury Board Secretariat requirements.
      3. Establish relevant linkages – such as to RIM, PASS, DPR
      4. Establish cycles for update of content on Open Government portal and Treasury Board Secretariat reporting requirements

Year 3: Operationalization of our Open Government Plan

1. Establish cycle for frequency of release of each holding & implementation requirements
2. Engage with stakeholders/public – communicate the Canadian Grain Commission’s achievements towards Open Government
3. Monitor user-feedback
   1. Canvas data-generators/providers and social-media for user-feedback
   2. User-engagement towards optimization of releases for content & ease of consumption

Year 4: Expansion and Optimization of the Canadian Grain Commission’s Open Government activities

1. Continue to expand on release of holdings
2. Continue to optimize release of content by
   1. Establishing linkages with government departments – such as CFIA, AAFC, TC and StatCan
   2. Develop collaborative strategy towards optimization for Open Government Canada
      1. Linkage of information and datasets to increase consistency of information and sources

Year 5: Establish foundational activities for on-going deliverables to Open Government

1. Demonstrate that we have identified Information Resources of Business Value as stated in the Record Keeping requirement 6.1.1
2. Completed an inventory of repositories with accompanying documentation
3. Consistent application of classification of information and data as stated in the RK requirement 6.1.3
4. Established process for keeping inventory of all information and data holdings current.
5. Ability to coordinate changes in Open Government activities as required by Treasury Board Secretariat