Over the decades, the Government of Canada has published authoritative information on a wide variety of topics. These publications provide a substantial base for any study of public policy and give the context and background to current issues. As such they would be helpful to new public servants, students and to the broad public seeking information about Canada. Most of these official publications are well preserved on shelves but now need to be made easily accessible. This would be a capital project supporting the knowledge economy.
I suggest the creation of an online GoC library. This might include:
1. every publication issued by the GoC, Parliament and agencies for the past 30 years (for Canada 150, it
would be a special gift to ourselves to make available everything since 1867)
2. the full gc.ca web site from the 1990s onward, plus agency web sites to be kept live online with periodic updates but identified as the historic web site
3. all 'near print' publications and research reports in departmental libraries.
4. all consultant studies and reports commissioned by the GoC which would be open if requested under access to information law. Establish a protocol for routinely posting all reports received within a few months.
5. summaries or full contents of all documents released in response to access
to Information requests.
This would require a powerful user friendly search engine to assist search. There would be no security or copyright issues and many publications are available in both languages.
And let's encourage the provinces to do the same.