Federal and provincial governments are terrible forecasters that routinely miss budget targets by billions, the C.D. Howe Institute said yesterday. Parliament has run deficits in 40 of the past 52 years and in 2016 repealed a balanced budget law: “Expenses and revenues typically come in above what governments promised.”
Leading pollsters yesterday demanded the CBC stop copying thousands of dollars’ worth of research without permission or payment. The Crown broadcaster acknowledged lifting survey results for its own use, including data bought by other media.
“We are doing a public service,” said Éric Grenier, senior CBC writer. “Is data copyrightable? We choose how to report on it in our own way.”
Under the Copyright Act “literary works” including data compiled using proprietary software cannot be copied without payment or permission. Grenier said the CBC pulled data from private pollsters’ websites including research funded by competitors without paying licensing fees or asking permission.
“It is not required,” said Grenier. “We have the right to choose how we’ll use public information.” Digital ad revenues at the CBC totaled $42.6 million last year. Private pollsters’ data was also cited in network newsletters.
“On top of everything else, they are commercializing this with advertising,” said Nick Nanos, chair of Nanos Research Group. “They never asked permission or discussed terms of use, and they blatantly use our work and do it publicly.”
“They expropriated my work,” said Nanos. “It represents thirty years of expertise. That’s the fundamental issue.”
“Legally the CBC should be held to the same standard of copyright compliance as everybody else,” said Nanos, who does polling for CTV National News. “Ethically they should be held to a higher standard. This is a government agency.”
Nanos Group charges $4 a month for access to detailed polling data on its company website – “I think we’re being more than reasonable,” said Nanos – and told the CBC to “remove my research from your aggregator” after Grenier questioned the paywall.
Grenier in a July 9 tweet when asked by a follower, “How much stock do you personally put in Nanos weekly rolling average polls?” replied: “Less now that the regional numbers aren’t available.” Grenier subsequently deleted the message from his Twitter feed.
“Notoriously Inaccurate”
“I would really prefer they weren’t using our data for purposes we don’t agree with,” said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates. “They are making a living off this. The CBC is making revenues from our work.”
“They were aware we didn’t want them using it,” said Graves. “There should at least be consent to use it. We never even got to the stage of permission, let alone payment or discussion on use of the data. No one even asked.”
“There is an art and a science to doing this,” said Graves. “It’s not something that magically comes out of a computer. It costs a lot of money. It takes experience, effort and skill in assembling sound polling data. That’s our intellectual property, and it should be treated like any other copyright material that cannot be reproduced without written permission.”
The CBC compiles a Poll Tracker feature including Commons seat projections. Graves called it a “kind of statistical Cuisinart” using data from named research companies. “It is not helpful to have this kind of Las Vegas-style handicapping of election outcomes, and I don’t agree with our data being used for that purpose,” said Graves.
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, described seat modeling using data copied from pollsters’ websites as “notoriously inaccurate”: “We didn’t design our polling for the purpose of compiling seat models. The models are not accurate at all, and the CBC associates our brand with that,” he said.
“I’ve repeatedly objected,” said Bricker. “I’ve contacted the CBC and told them to stop, and they say, well, it is public information, forget about it. We do not endorse use of this data for conducting seat models, and the CBC does it anyway.”
“I hold the CBC to the same standard they would hold any reseller of their information,” said Bricker. “If they believe the CBC’s own copyright means something, then our copyright means something. We asked them clearly and politely to stop doing it. They’re a Crown agency. They are a national broadcaster. They completely ignored it. They do it anyway, and keep doing it.”
CBC management did not comment.
By Staff 
Cabinet yesterday named an ex-Liberal candidate to a $248,000-a year federal post. It was the 293rd appointment approved by cabinet since May in a pre-election hiring blitz: “Partisan affiliation is not a barrier to being appointed.”
Cabinet yesterday approved a mammoth data scoop on every Canadian border-crosser – some 300,000 drivers and air passengers a day – to catch Employment Insurance scofflaws, tax evaders and longtime snowbirds claiming Old Age Security. Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien approved the scheme, said staff: “Information will support ongoing investigations.”
VIA Rail must pay $25,000 to an ex-porter fired for jostling with a passenger over a tip. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal cited the Crown railway for “engaging in a reckless discriminatory practice” because the former employee was diagnosed with depression: “Hard proof of discrimination is rare.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs saved $300,000 last year by denying tax-free allowances to aged WWII and Korean War veterans, according to records. Veterans in their 90s were rejected if their monthly income was as little as $200 higher than regulations permitted: “We made a solemn promise.”
Anti-semitism is more prevalent in British Columbia than neighbouring provinces though BC has so few Jews many residents would be unfamiliar with the community, says federally-funded research. Anti-Muslim sentiment peaks in Québec though the Muslim population is a fraction of Ontario’s: “It is media imagery that people react to.”
Cabinet yesterday disputed estimates a Clean Fuel Standard will quadruple the cost of the carbon tax to $200 per tonne, but would not divulge its own figures. Regulations will be detailed after the October 21 general election: “This is not some sort of election trickery.”
It is “too soon to tell” if cabinet’s promise of a statutory right to basic housing will address actual needs, advocates said yesterday. The Parliamentary Budget Office earlier disputed claims of any enforceable right to shelter: “Look, this is a symbolic right.”
A cabinet-appointed panel yesterday proposed a long recovery plan for a Crown corporation so badly mismanaged MPs suggested it simply close. The proposal follows disclosures of “jaw-dropping” misconduct at the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp. of Winnipeg: “What an absolute mess.”
The Department of Public Works is proposing to give away surplus goods to charities instead of conducting daily auctions on a federal website. The proposal follows a 2018 audit that found federal agencies earned 61¢ on the dollar in the sale of used vehicles, equipment and other items: “Would donated items be resold?”
The Privy Council office spent nearly $25,000 polling Mexicans on a tentative trade deal. Only a fifth of Mexicans strongly agreed Canada is a trustworthy partner: ‘I don’t think anyone would appreciate Mexicans coming to Canada and opining.’
Municipalities may effectively ban the sale of marijuana with bylaws, the British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled. The decision, the first of its kind, upheld a 2017 West Kelowna bylaw that made it difficult for cannabis stores to get a license: ‘Criminal law may be one thing, but municipal law is another.’
Cabinet in a burst of appointments has named hundreds of job-seekers to federal posts at 63 federal boards and commissions, including former Liberal cabinet ministers. The number of appointments in the past nine weeks is more than 50 percent greater than those by the previous Conservative cabinet in the identical pre-election period in 2015: “Everything is always about partisanship for the members of the opposition.”
The federal Competition Bureau is reopening its 2004 investigation of one of the biggest privatizations in Western Canada’s history. The Bureau alleges Canadian National Railway breached a promise of “better service” when it took over publicly-owned British Columbia Rail fifteen years ago: “The Commissioner has reason to believe CN is not adhering to its commitments.”
