WDMMG ... Canada?

[Momoko Price]

Just a head's up — 

I just recently asked David Eaves about the prospect trying to put together wheredoesmymoneygo.org for Canada and he's pretty jazzed about the idea and says he's already working on a similar project for BC spending. 

Between us all and the links we have with the OKFN already, all we really need to do is compile government spending data for Canada to get the ball rolling. I realize this isn't really specific to Hamilton/Halton, but I'm just punting this idea to where I see the most enthusiasm ...

I'm still unclear on exactly which data/documents we need, but it's something to think about. If we released a WDMMG Canada I think it would go far for further popularizing open data in Canadian communities.

M

M

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Momoko Price
Online Editor
BuzzData.com
mom...@buzzdata.com
Twitter: @buzzdata
c: (647) 504-7059
o: (416) 546-9780

[Joey Coleman]

I'm in for assisting with the project provided it's non-commercial and non-promotion of a commercial operation.

If I know what structure the data needs to be in, I'll get the info and make it into that format.

I've been following the BC discussion and it seems data format is the first hurdle to overcome.

Of course, we can build our own in Hamilton and have a national page to link people to their communities. Be much better to host individually at a community level than nationally where it can be taken away from the local movements and commercialized for-profit.

- Joey

[Momoko Price]

Awesome! Yeah, I'm definitely not suggesting this as a promotional project for BuzzData or anything; I've just always wanted to get this off the ground. Over everything else, it give me a chance to learn how to complete a large-scale open-data/data journalism project from the ground up. 

M

[James McKinney]

Why not look into the format used by wdmmg and use the same?

I'm not sure how wdmmg can be commercialized.

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:09 PM, Joey Coleman <jo...@joeycoleman.ca> wrote:

[Joey Coleman]

I fully agree with including Buzzdata in the credits.

[Joey Coleman]

My concern was advertising.

Agreed on using WDMMG as it is open source. Love to a hackfest locally to achieve this but I'm not sure if we have the people necessary to achieve.

- Joey

[Momoko Price]

My plate is pretty full for the time being, but I'll look into what data we need to get things started.

Openspending does have a pretty comprehensive wiki for people who want to give the project a try ...

Actually, I just remembered — one of Pete's friends works for the provincial Liberal Party! Maybe she can point us in the right direction/fast-track us to some helpful data ...



M

[Momoko Price]

So my lead at Queen's Park says the info we'd want for WDMMG/OpenSpending would be Canada's Public Accounts:

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/recgen/txt/72-eng.html

Unfortunately, this annual review of the Treasury's revenue/expenses/debt/etc is three volumes, each hundreds of pages long, in PDF form.

Is this a lost cause, you think? I'm going to consult with the OKFN peeps. Crowdsourcing might work where scraping can't ...

M

[James McKinney]

There's a thread on this on the CivicAccess list: http://civicaccess.ca/

See http://lists.pwd.ca/pipermail/civicaccess-discuss/2011-May/003360.html
which I copy below.

Having spoken to a few more people, it seems the budget is more of a
policy document than an accounting document, so it may not be in a
format suitable for visualization.

Kent Mewhort wrote on that list:

I tried to get this information a few months back, but had no
success. I first asked the Department of Finance for budget data, but,
after a two month wait, was simply told:

>The budget documents are only available in PDF and HTML formats, and can be
found on the budget website at www.budget.gc.ca. Thank you for writing.

I then turned my head towards expenditure data from Public Accounts
(specifically, I asked for the raw data in "Public Accounts of Canada 2010 -
Volume II - Details of Expenses and Revenues"). The folks at this
department were responsive and seemed quite willing to provide the data if
they easily could -- but unfortunately could not:

>The production of the Public Accounts involves a lengthy process of
gathering financial information from all departments and agencies, often in
various formats. This information is then analysed, tagged and loaded in
style sheets through the use of a utility program for publication using
Ventura desktop publishing. Volumes thus produced contain such large and
complex files that it is only practicable for us to offer them in two
formats, i.e. PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) and the printed format
which is tabled in the House of Commons each year.

[Momoko Price]

By the way — 

A while back I converted 100 pages worth of 2009-10 Federal Public Accounts Summary Tables for Revenue and Expenses to Excel files using CometDocs. 

While it's still not in any useable format in terms of creating an OpenSpending visualization yet, it's at least in tables in excel now. 

I'm going to look into organizing the data properly from here and have a friend who works at ScraperWiki who can guide me a bit. Will also bring it  tomorrows #hhTO data journalism workshop and invite people to help out on it ...

As soon as I get the data somewhat organized, I'll share it in a Google spreadsheet with y'all, k?

M

--

Momoko Price
Communications Director

[James McKinney]

Are these summary tables the same as the reference tables on data.gc.ca?

http://www.data.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=6E81B685-1&parent=05D03DCB-5906-4555-A5A1-84D86E9E94DD

[Momoko Price]

Hey James!

Yep — I think the ones on data.gc.ca are more general. The ones I have
break down dollars spent on each specific department, initiative and
transfer payment as well as revenue sources (but only for the last
year.) It might be worth it to compare how the money adds up to the
final tallies in the reference tables, though, for sure.

By the way, just out of curiosity — does anyone know what is
considered normal for Canada in terms of personal income tax revenue
vs. corporate tax revenue (normal, in the sense of what Canada's had
over time and how Canada stands in relation to comparable
economies/cultures, such as say, the U.K., the U.S., or Australia)?

I was surprised to see in the Public Accounts data I have that in
2009-10, personal income tax revenue was $100B while corporate tax
revenue was only $30B. I have no idea if that's "reasonable" or not.

Be interesting to see how that ratio changes over time from, say,
Canada in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and also how that breaks down in
terms of proportion of personal income per citizen versus proportion
of gross revenue per company. This data is actually probably in the
reference tables you mention, actually. I'll give it a looksee.

M

[James McKinney]

> I was surprised to see in the Public Accounts data I have that in
> 2009-10, personal income tax revenue was $100B while corporate tax
> revenue was only $30B. I have no idea if that's "reasonable" or not.

That sounds in line with figures I've encountered in Canada and other
countries over the last few years. In US, it's roughly individual
income tax (45%), payroll tax (36%), corporate income tax (12%). As
you know, US has some of the lowest corporate income tax rates.
Individual states have similar ratios. UK also has a roughly 3:1 ratio
between individual income tax and corporate income tax:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Overview
I'm not sure corporate tax revenue ever comes close to income tax.