Have the Feds at Your Fingertips: An Afternoon of Canadian Government Resources (and

especially statistics!)

Amanda Wakaruk (amanda.wakaruk@ualberta.ca)and Anna Bombak (anna.bombak@ualberta.ca)

University of Alberta LibrariesMarch 15, 2010

Outline• Overview of Canadian Government Structure

(Amanda)• Accessing Canadian Government Information

(Amanda)• Exercise

Break 2:15-2:45pm• Statistics Canada Resources (Anna)• Exercise• Wrap-Up (Amanda)

What is information?

Anything published by or for a governmental body as part of the operation of governing.

Laws & Legislative Materials (e.g., Canadian Environmental Protection Act) Patents (e.g., CA 2382464, High-Affinity Choline Transporter) Reports (e.g., Building on Values, Royal Commission on the Future of Health

Care in Canada aka Romanow Report) Data & Statistics (e.g., Census of Canada and related PUMF) Maps (e.g., National Topographic System (NTS) maps) Ephemera (e.g., posters, pamphlets, etc.)

Federal Government Structure

Legislative Branch main deliberative body Parliament of Canada

http://www.parl.gc.ca/ LegisInfo

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LEGISINFO/index.asp?Language=E

Federal Government Structure

Judicial Branch administers court system Supreme Court of Canadahttp://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/

Federal Government Structure

Executive Branchinterprets and implements legislation

departmental web siteshttp://www.gc.ca/

White Papers (policy) Green Papers (discussion) Google search with site limit

(e.g., site=gc.ca) library catalogues and

other databases

Intellectual Access to Canadian Government Information

NEOS Catalogue / UA WorldCat Local• Author = Canada (use stable elements of the agency name;

e.g., Canada Finance NOT Canada Department of Finance)• Subject Headings to Know:

– government policy– *** policy (e.g., environmental policy, fiscal policy, housing policy, industrial policy, labor

policy, language policy, military policy, social policy, urban policy, etc.)– Canada (especially to broaden to non-governmental pubs about government policy)

• WorldCat Local topic facet: “government documents”

Free Intellectual Access to Canadian Government Information

• Depository Services Program Cataloguehttp://publications.gc.ca/

• AMICUS (Library and Archives Canada) Federal Publications Locatorhttp://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/7/5/index-e.html

• Internet Archive (mostly historical)http://www.archive.org

• UofA Government Information LibGuidehttp://guides.library.ualberta.ca/govtinfo

Fee-Based Intellectual Access to Canadian Government Information

• Canadian Research Index (Microlog) $$http://www.library.ualberta.ca/databases_help/cri/index.cfm

• Early Canadiana Online (CIHM) $$/some freehttp://www.canadiana.org/ECO

Exercise

Find resources to help answer the following question posed by an undergraduate student taking a first year environmental studies course:

What is Canada doing about climate change?

Note: all demonstrated resources linked from http://www.library.ualberta.ca/ - Browse by Type – All Types - Government Information – Canada - Federal

Other Resources to Know (all linked via UofA LibGuide)

• Budget Cycle– Speech From the Throne– Budget – Estimates (RPPs and DPRs)– Public Accounts

• Government Databases on the Internet• Statistics Canada

Challenges

• Migration issues: important microfiche and paper collections not digitized, some digital collections unstable.

• Fugitive materials: not everything published by Canadian government agencies is disseminated in a systematic way.

• Disappearing materials: stability cannot be assumed.

• Moving target: governing parties and policies change.

Professional Resources• Associations– ALA, Government Documents Round Table (GODORT)– CLA, Access to Government Information Interest Group

(AGIIG)– SLA, Government Information Division

• Listservs– GOVINFO– AGIIG– INTL-DOC

• UofT iSchool 2136 Course:– Government Information http://mccaffrey.ischool.utoronto.ca/2136/