The impact of data hubs from Statistics Canada
During a recent talk hosted by the Canada School of Public Service, Stéphane Crête, Assistant Director of the Center for Statistical and Data Standards at Statistics Canada, discussed the impact of data hubs and highlighted StatCan’s use of the .Stat Suite for data dissemination.
In the last years, Statistics Canada has been collaborating with different partners to create a robust data dissemination platform, making their data easily accessible on the web. More recently, they have been focusing on creating automatic data hubs. A great example of this is the Canadian Center for Energy Information website, which serves as a one-stop virtual shop for independent and reliable information on energy in Canada. The website contains a wealth of resources on energy-related topics, including production, consumption, international trade, and more. By consolidating information on energy and the environment, StatCan makes it easier for users to find relevant data.
“Data Hubs provide data insight for our users. Statistics Canada is a data driven organization. We have many data analysts that are spending day in day out working with data. There’s so much potential with the data, we need to find better ways to unlock that potential for our users. We need to be effective in marketing the data and deliver insight that’s consumable for our users, and how do we do this? By offering powerful data hubs with strong governance and metadata and with quality data.” Stéphane Crête, Statistics Canada
Statistical organisations have made significant progress in terms of data standards and statistical classifications, providing reference data to support data hubs. By using the SDMX standard, partners can better exchange data, metadata, and compliance information, enabling data producers to validate data more efficiently and share it more effectively.
“National statistical organisations do not necessarily compete with one another. They work together to achieve the same outcomes.” Stéphane Crête, Statistics Canada
As a member of the Statistical Information Sytems Collaboration Community (SIS-CC), Statistics Canada uses the .Stat Suite, a highly performing, secure SDMX Data platform based on standard protocols, to store and retrieve statistical data, structural and referential metadata, data process information and security settings; coupled with Power BI for data visualisation.
In 2022, Statistics Canada joined the SIS-CC as its 15th member, partnering with other international and national statistical organisations such as the International Labor Organization (ILO), UNICEF, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This partnership demonstrates the importance of collaborating and joining forces in the future of data dissemination and data harmonisation.