Improve Public Information on Canadian Corporations (CA0053)

Improve Public Information on Canadian Corporations Why do this: Currently, business identity information is distributed across jurisdictions in Canada, which poses access challenges for citizens and businesses alike. The federal, provincial, and territorial governments have agreed to collaborate on enhancing processes to reduce the burden on corporate registration and reporting and to provide streamlined access to corporate information through an online search. Making information about Canadian companies and organizations more accessible, discoverable, and usable, can ultimately improve corporate accountability. How will it be done: The federal government, Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and British Columbia will collaborate on the development of an expandable and adaptable digital solution.

12. Improve Public Information on Canadian Corporations

Commitment Text:

The Government of Canada will provide searchable information on Canadian businesses that is held in business registries at the federal, provincial, and territorial level.

Milestones:

12.1. Launch a pilot project to provide citizens and business with online capacity to search existing federal and provincial (from Ontario, Québec, and Nova Scotia) business registries through a single search tool.

12.2. Develop a proof of concept and prototype of a digital solution for reducing burden in the areas of corporate search, registration, and reporting for Canadian businesses that is expandable to all registries across Canada in order to drive consistency in corporate data provided to the public by both federal and provincial governments.

Responsible institution: Innovation, Science, and Economic Development

Supporting institution(s): N/A

Start date: Not specified

End date: Not specified

Editorial Note: In the government’s self-assessment report, the government added the following milestone that was not included in the original action plan. This milestone will be assessed in the year two End of Term report:

Launch a pilot of the digital solution using real data in a test environment. The online corporate search component will be released for testing by users.

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Context and Objectives

This commitment addresses robust corporate accountability by enhancing the searchability and availability of information on Canadian businesses held in business registries at the federal, provincial, and territorial level. Corporate accountability is an issue of growing interest and relevance, and robust information is an essential component of civil society oversight. In Canada in particular, the federal system can create jurisdictional challenges for users seeking to navigate the open data system. However, while this commitment was generally welcomed by civil society stakeholders consulted for this report, some noted that the commitment’s potential for impact was relatively low since it focused on accessibility of information rather than the relatively small amount of information regarding corporate registration collected.[Note101: See, for example, this report from Transparency International detailing secrecy in Canada’s real estate market which facilitates money laundering: 'Doors Wide Open: Corruption and Real Estate in Four Key Markets,' Transparency International, 29 March 2017. Available at: https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/doors_wide_open_corruption_and_real_estate_in_four_key_markets.] The Centre for Law and Democracy noted that Canada ranks among the most opaque countries in the world when it comes to business information. This point of view was echoed by Publish What You Pay-Canada, who referred to Canada’s business registry system as 'complicated' and 'out-of-date,' and described this commitment as 'low-hanging fruit.'

Completion

Innovation, Science, and Economic Development created a concept prototype in late 2016. The department then partnered with seven provinces, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and with the federal government, to work towards a functional pilot which will use real data from their registries. The IRM researcher was able to view a demonstration of this pilot from Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, who are in the process of carrying out usability and functionality testing on it.

Next Steps

Several stakeholders, including the Centre for Law and Democracy,[Note102: CLD’s 2016 submission is available at: http://www.law-democracy.org/live/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Canada.OGP-AP3-Ideas.May16.pdf.] Publish What You Pay-Canada, and Canadians for Tax Fairness, have requested Canada’s OGP efforts promote transparency for Canadian corporations.[Note103: See: http://open.canada.ca/en/Beneficial_Ownership_Transparency. ] Once the program being developed under this commitment is operational, the IRM researcher recommends that the government consider expanding the amount of business information it collects. In particular, there appears to be significant support among civil society stakeholders for the establishment of a public registry of the beneficial owners of companies and trusts.[Note104: A joint letter from 23 Canadian NGOs, including several of the major civil society participants in the OGP, is available at: http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Orgs-call-for-Beneficial-Ownership-Transparency-in-Canada.pdf. ]

12. Improve Public Information on Canadian Corporations

Commitment Text: The Government of Canada will provide searchable information on Canadian businesses that is held in business registries at the federal, provincial, and territorial level.

Milestones:

12.1. Launch a pilot project to provide citizens and business with online capacity to search existing federal and provincial (from Ontario, Québec, and Nova Scotia) business registries through a single search tool.

12.2. Develop a proof of concept and prototype of a digital solution for reducing burden in the areas of corporate search, registration, and reporting for Canadian businesses that is expandable to all registries across Canada in order to drive consistency in corporate data provided to the public by both federal and provincial governments.

Responsible institution: Innovation, Science, and Economic Development

Supporting institutions: N/A

Start Date: Not specified

End Date: Not specified

Editorial Note: The text of the commitment was abridged for formatting reasons. For full commitment text, visit http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf.

Commitment Aim

Corporate accountability is an issue of growing interest and relevance, and robust access to information is an essential component of civil society oversight over private sector activities. This commitment aimed to enhance the searchability and availability of information on Canadian businesses held in business registries at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels. In particular, the commitment pledges to:

•Launch a pilot search function for federal and provincial business registries; and

•Develop a proof of concept and prototype for a digital solution for corporate search, registration, and reporting.

In the course of the first year of implementation, the government also added a separate milestone to this commitment. That milestone aimed to pilot the digital solution and release it for testing by users.

Status

Midterm: Complete

Under Milestone 12.1, Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada created a concept prototype in late 2016.[Note97: The Business Registry Search Pilot was released online at https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/067.nsf/eng/00003.html?OpenDocument.] The department then partnered with seven provinces—British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador—to advance progress toward a digital solution, the Multi-jurisdictional Registry Access Service (MRAS) (12.2). The government approved MRAS in September 2016. The service facilitates searches across the different business registries and provides streamlined extra-provincial registration and direct notifications of changes in corporate information among registries. The prototype MRAS was completed in March 2017. Thus, by the time of the midterm assessment, both 12.1 and 12.2 had been completed.

End of term: Complete

In the midterm self-assessment, the government added a third milestone to the commitment text. However, the OGP Support Unit did not receive an updated version within a year of the due date for submission of Canada's action plan. Therefore, the IRM researcher cannot consider the new milestone in the overall assessment of the commitment.

The new milestone was presented as follows:

12.3 Launch a pilot of the digital solution using real data in a test environment. The online corporate search component will be released for testing by users.

Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada launched the Multi-jurisdictional Registry Access Service pilot in March 2018. It connected sample registries together to test the search, registration, and notification components. In June 2018, the search component of the pilot, Canada's Business Registries search service, was released as a beta version. It provides coordinated access to core business registry information for over 80 percent of corporations operating in Canada. The government currently has made it available for user testing.[Note98: The beta is available, as of 13 September 2018, at https://beta.canadasbusinessregistries.ca/search.]

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Business identity information is distributed across jurisdictions in Canada. This poses access challenges for civil society watchdogs, journalists, and citizens, as well as for businesses themselves seeking to research the corporate landscape. This commitment aimed to simplify and consolidate this system. It planned to make information about Canadian corporations more accessible, discoverable, and usable. Several stakeholders—including the Centre for Law and Democracy,[Note99: The Centre for Law and Democracy's 2016 submission is available at http://www.law-democracy.org/live/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Canada.OGP-AP3-Ideas.May16.pdf.] Publish What You Pay-Canada, and Canadians for Tax Fairness—have requested that Canada's OGP efforts include a focus on Canadian corporations.[Note100: See “Beneficial Ownership Transparency,” Government of Canada, http://open.canada.ca/en/Beneficial_Ownership_Transparency. ] Additionally, data integration and the removal of cross-jurisdictional challenges to accessing information are important action areas.

The creation of the Multi-jurisdictional Registry Access Service pilot is a positive step towards improving the accessibility and searchability of corporate registry information. It connects federal, provincial and territorial registry systems making data easier to find. However, it does not affect the main obstacle to accountability in this specific sector: namely the limited amount of information that the government collects, particularly around ownership and beneficial structures. Publish What You Pay-Canada—which referred to Canada's business registry system as “complicated” and “out-of-date”—described this commitment as “low-hanging fruit.”[Note101: This was expressed at a consultation in Ottawa on 18 September 2017. It echoes sentiments expressed by a variety of stakeholders.] Similarly, in terms of integration, the projects certainly reflect the right direction to move in. However, given the narrow scope of the information being provided, it is difficult to score the projects as major steps forward. Further and more ambitious steps to consolidate cross-jurisdictional information could certainly be scored as such.

Carried Forward?

The third commitment of Canada's fourth action plan addresses corporate transparency. It includes a requirement for federal corporations to hold beneficial ownership information. On this issue, civil society stakeholders have been highly vocal. The action plan also addresses jurisdictional challenges. One commitment includes a pilot project on common, cross-jurisdictional data standards in line with the Open Data Charter (10.5).