The Community Information Database (CID) was established by the Rural Secretariat at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in 2006 to provide non-governmental organizations (including official language minority communities (OLMCs), academic experts and all levels of governments with free, online access to socio-economic and demographic data on rural and urban communities.
In March 2014, AAFC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to transfer the database to Industry Canada (IC). Since IC’s Strategic Policy Sector (SPS) is responsible for the administration, management and control of all assets identified with the database including data from various sources for various years. Web-server hosting services for CID have been provided by Beyond 20/20 Inc., a private company, since its inception in 2006. This relationship continued following the transfer to ensure continuity of service.
Although several local data sources exist in Canada, data on communities remain inaccessible and complex. Statistics Canada provides a wealth of information on various topics for free, but often the format does not allow a local division. For more detailed information organizations or entrepreneurs must purchase the necessary data and processed it which can be costly and time consuming. The advantage of the CID is its flexibility and its ability to map specific communities (rural or urban) which can be very useful for its operators.
Maintaining public access to the database is consistent with government priorities in Canada's Action Plan for Open Government (Open Data), the Canada's Economic Action Plan and IC priorities under Part VII of the Official Languages Act (supporting the economic development of OLMCs and promoting linguistic duality). Furthermore, IC’s priorities support economic growth and digital technology which are directly linked to the purpose of this database. In addition, the Economic Development Initiative (EDI) under the new Roadmap for Official Languages 2013-2018 is implementing a research component that also goes hand in hand with CID.
The site is user friendly and by keeping it updated, it will continue to produce useful data to support economic development, decision making in government and communities, increase the capacity of the economic sector and communities to better explore ideas and opportunities for economic growth.
